Here is a selection of items on the agendas for this week’s meetings of the City and Parish councils. To see the full agendas, check out the links below:
- Parish Agenda
- Special Joint Meeting
- City Agenda (Public Comment Time!)
Special Joint Meeting
Reports
Millages. The City and Parish councils will gather in a special joint meeting for a basic explanation of how property taxes (or millages) fund LCG’s operations in the city and the parish.
Lafayette 101
Millages
Property taxes in Louisiana are calculated from millage rates set by local government bodies. Those rates have to be set during public meetings each year, and various rules exist to limit how they can be adjusted without going to a vote of city or parish residents. Millages in Lafayette are available on the Parish Assessor’s website.
Parish Council
Final Adoption
Polling location. The Parish Council will vote Tuesday on permanently changing the polling location for voters in Precincts 6 and 50 to Carencro Heights Elementary School, previously Carencro Bob Lilly, on Tee Ma Road.
$1M for roads. The Parish will also vote on adding $333,000 to its road overlay program to match $1 million in additional state funding to repair roads.
Introduction
Juvenile Justice. The Parish Council will look Tuesday at an ordinance allowing the Office of Juvenile Justice to lease some 8,700 square feet of office space at LCG’s War Memorial Building on Jefferson Street and Pinhook Road for the OJJ’s Louisiana Multi-Agency Resource Center, which aims to divert at-risk youth from the juvenile justice system.
City Council
Reports/Discussions
Trash collection. At the request of Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux, the City Council will discuss trash collection contractor Acadiana Waste Services, which began collecting trash in the city last fall.
Final Adoption
Spoil banks settlement. The City Council will vote Tuesday on whether to greenlight Lafayette Consolidated Government’s purchase of the final ⅓ interest in a piece of land in St. Martin Parish where LCG controversially removed spoil banks from along the Vermilion River in 2022. The third landowner sued LCG during Josh Guillory’s administration over the spoil banks removal, and new City-Parish Attorney Pat Ottinger informed the council that a settlement has been reached to acquire his interest in the land for the same price that LCG paid the other owners. The settlement adds to LCG’s peacemaking with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in federal court earlier this year and leaves only St. Martin Parish’s lawsuit over the spoil banks removal still pending.
Introduction
No significant items.
Joint Items
Final Adoption
No significant items.
Introduction
Uninsured losses. After closing the books on the past fiscal year, LCG is accounting for an extra $1.1 million in uninsured losses, typically through lawsuits, settlements and other non-budgeted expenses. City coffers will take the bulk of the hit, about $850,000, largely thanks to workers compensation and car accident claims.
Environmental center. Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet’s administration is asking the City and Parish councils to approve an additional $1.4 million for Lafayette Consolidated Government’s new Environmental Quality Convenience Center (debris drop off facility) after nixing a $1.7 million request in April. Bids for the Dugas Road project came back higher than expected last year, and the new move would raise the project’s budget from $1.2 million to $2.7 million, all of which would come from LCG’s environmental quality fund, which relies on revenue from garbage collection fees in the city and parish.