The Consolidated City of Jacksonville, like Lafayette Consolidated Government, uses a mayor-president and consolidated council form of government. But when Duval County consolidated in 1968, the city of Jacksonville took in all unincorporated areas of the county and established service districts – urban and rural – for services such as police and fire protection, drainage, roads and other infrastructure. Duval County comprises five incorporated municipalities, including the county seat, Jacksonville. Conque, a former City-Parish Council member, has been studying the Jacksonville model for several months.
Commissioners are also scheduled to hear from Ed Abell, chairman of the 1991 charter commission that recommended consolidation, as well as Cajundome Director Greg Davis, a member of the charter committee that met last summer; Davis is an advocate of repealing the Lafayette Home Rule Charter and returning to separate city- and parish forms of government that existed pre-consolidation.
The commission has been meeting since August. On Nov. 1 the nine-member panel is scheduled to begin deliberations, which will likely last until late March, at which time the commission is tasked with making recommendations about the Lafayette Home Rule Charter.
The charter commission meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the council auditorium.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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Mr. Conque didn't have to go to Florida, though. Taxing districts for infrastructure and schools is already done in Livingston Parish and other rural parishes in Louisiana.
For those bored enough to read it again, here is an excerpt of my previous post:
"Mr. Langlinais and Charter Commissioners, the short answer to deconsolidation regarding governing for the unincorporated areas of the parish is to create law enforcement, water, road and drainage tax districts in unincorporated communities - not municipalities - to fund infrastructure improvements and maintenance. Our own would be elected to these district boards and held responsible.
After these district boards are set up, it would be easy to go back to a Parish Council and City Council system of governing, each with its own housing, zoning, inspection and other regulations to govern."