The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors has voted to oppose one of two major local propositions on the Oct. 22 ballot: repeal of the Lafayette Home Rule Charter and a return to separate city and parish forms of government. The Lafayette Charter Commission, which met for nine months to review the charter for Lafayette Consolidated Government and to hear opposing views on how to rectify problems in it pertaining to city of Lafayette sovereignty, recommended in April to put repeal of the charter to a parishwide vote.
The chamber’s position on repeal, broadly referred to as deconsolidation, runs counter to that of one of its ranking members, Vice President of Marketing & Governmental Relations Bruce Conque, a charter commissioner who has been offering presentations to local civic and government groups in support of repealing the charter. (Conque, however, has been making the pitch for deconsolidation as a private citizen and former commissioner and not on behalf of the chamber.) A fellow former charter commissioner, Don Bacque, has been making the same rounds in opposition to deconsolidation and has even formed a political action committee — True Pac — to raise money for a marketing campaign urging the parish to shoot down the proposition. The pair has also appeared together to press their respective cases.
The chamber, meanwhile, is calling for a reconstituted charter commission to be formed and to find ways to address the city’s issues without returning to the style of dual government that existed in Lafayette Parish before 1996.
“The chamber’s position is that there are certain deficiencies in the current charter that have the potential of weakening the city of Lafayette,” says chamber President/CEO, Rob Guidry in a press release staking out the organization’s position. “The business community feels that those problems can be solved without a formal separation of the two governments.”
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Why didn't they poll us a year and a half ago and save the taxpayers alot of money?
Because Bruce, Joey, Rob, Greg, Conrad, Keith, et. al. figured they would have the votes to push it through.
The lack of attendance at these meetings indicated the public's apathy for deconsolidation.
Another Charter Commission, I say "BS". Bruce going to sit on it again? How does it feel to be flapping in the wind?
Let the new council make any modifications deemed desirable, and let the people vote. We DO NOT need another "commission."
If this leadership does not quit pushing new taxes, I will NOT be paying dues nest year. Anyone listening?