In yet another dramatic — albeit anticipated at the 11th hour — turn, the Lafayette Charter Commission voted Monday to put before voters a single proposition asking whether the city and parish should return to separate charters. The 6-3 vote clears the way for a final vote on the matter next Monday, the scheduled final meeting of the commission, which convened last summer. However, the City-Parish Council will vote on an introductory ordinance Tuesday night that would grant the commission an additional nine months. At this point it appears the nine-member commission will not need that extra time, and some council members have already expressed reservations about granting it.
The commission had been on a path toward letting voters decide whether the parish’s 15-year experiment in consolidation was working, but early this year back off that course in favor of merely amending the home rule charter to give the city of Lafayette greater control over finances and ordinances that apply only to the city, most notably city-owned Lafayette Utilities System. Until Monday’s meeting the commission was hedging closer to putting a multiple-choice ballot before voters, allowing them to decide whether to amend the charter or create separate charters. The commission had sought advice from state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell about whether a multiple-choice ballot is even legal under Louisiana law.
But early on Monday, Commissioner Karen Carson, who lives outside the city and who had led the charge for amending the existing charter, notified her fellow commissioners via email that she had decided that a single-proposition ballot asking voters whether to return to separate charters was the best choice.
While a few Louisiana parishes are consolidated, most notably Orleans, which adopted total consolidation — every municipality in Orleans Parish save for New Orleans was abolished — in the mid 19th century, no Louisiana parish has ever attempted to undo consolidation.
Read more about Monday's commission action in today's Advocate and Advertiser.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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