What good is fig season when you don’t like figs? This cool and fruity vodka sipper makes summer figs something everyone can look forward to.
The council has one more shot at deconsolidation this year
The gist: The council did not introduce or discuss any deconsolidation on Tuesday, but there’s still one more council meeting before the deadline to get a measure on the Dec. 8 ballot. Keep your eyes peeled on July 10.
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Wait. What do you mean by deconsolidation? Generally speaking, deconsolidation means separating the government functions of the parish and city of Lafayette. Right now, the city and parish have one council, one mayor-president and share several government agencies. That’s the way it’s been since the 1990s.
The catch is that only the city of Lafayette and the unincorporated parts of the parish are actually consolidated (as gadfly Andy Hebert points out routinely at council meetings). All the other municipalities in the parish opted out of consolidation. They have their own councils, their own mayors, their own government functions. Meanwhile, city-parish councilmen represent districts that include constituents in the other municipalities. That means, effectively, that a voter in Scott has impact on decisions that affect the city of Lafayette — say, how LUS operates or spends its money — but not vice versa. To a lot of folks, that’s just not fair, nor does it seem to be working out. Consolidation was conceived to fix the parish budget. The parish budget is still broke.
Now, with parish general fund sniffing the bottom and voters in the parish and city pursuing different priorities, a renewed urgency to overhaul consolidation has arisen. The failure of this year’s library tax renewal exposed that value divide clearly: City voters voted to renew the taxes. Parish voters voted against it.
More than likely, there won’t be a push for a complete divorce of the two sides of Lafayette government, but rather the creation of separate councils. I guess it’s more of a trial separation. In that scenario, Lafayette would obtain its own city council and more control over its assets and finances, but there would remain one mayor-president for the parish, and the two jurisdictions would continue to share services like the Public Works Department.
Seems like a no brainer to me! Well, maybe. There are a lot of thorny and unmapped paths to walk through to get this done. First, what would the maps look like? Redistricting of any sort would tend to get politically dicey. Second, does this actually do anything to fix the unincorporated parish budget? Not really. Deconsolidation dodges that problem altogether. To wit, Councilman Theriot, who does not support the idea of creating separate city and parish councils: “If we were to split, the unincorporated parish would be nothing,” he says. Third, there’s an argument that simply adding a new council for the city of Lafayette doesn’t go far enough. Many of the convolutions would remain problematic, particularly in how the priorities of the mayor-president align with the often competing interests of the parish and city he represents. Maybe a full divorce is what we really need.
Creating a new fire district for the unincorporated parish is another proxy battle about consolidated government
The gist: The council moved one step closer toward creating a new fire district for unincorporated areas of Lafayette Parish. If the boundaries are adopted at the next council meeting, that would likely mean a new millage appearing on the ballot to fund fire services in the area.
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Some background: Unincorporated residents don’t have a fire department, so the parish contracts with municipal fire departments to respond to fires in rural Lafayette Parish. Consolidated government has reduced payments to municipal fire departments to rein in spending out of the parish’s nearly depleted general fund. That arrangement has begun to stress the budgets of municipal fire departments; the cost to the municipal fire departments reportedly exceeds the revenue taken in by those contracts. Scott’s Fire Department reportedly saw payments drop from roughly $150,000 annually to $50,000. Councilman Kevin Naquin warns that the fire rating for the unincorporated parish could go up if no action is taken to shore up the shoddy service in the district. That would lead to higher fire insurance premiums for the area, figures Naquin says would greatly outstrip the cost of new taxes in the district.
We learned that Kevin Naquin’s house is worth $275,000. To illustrate the cost discrepancy, Naquin put his insurance plan on the council chamber’s projector screen. Naquin lives in unincorporated Lafayette. Insurance premiums for his home, valued at $275,000, would increase by $4,000 if the unincorporated area fire rating goes from its current Class 5 to Class 7. No millage has been officially suggested just yet. But Naquin floated that a 7-mill property tax funding the new district would cost him $150 a year.
“Spend your money on insurance and you choose to do nothing,” Naquin said. “Ask the insurance company to put your house [fire] out.”
What if the parish disappeared? Councilman William Theriot, ever skeptical of council money grabs, prodded the introductory fire district ordinance for its lack of details and for falling short of solving the problem. Theriot argued that as annexation continues, the newly created fire district would shrink, thereby continuing to diminish the tax base for the fire district. For the second time this year, Theriot proposed a solution that’s not new but is nonetheless radical: divvy up the unincorporated parish and absorb it into each municipality. That’s a concept championed by former Mayor Joey Durel during his tenure.
“This seems to be the only viable solution,” Theriot told me in an phone interview. His idea is provisional, though he believes it’s got legs. That’s one idea to fix the unincorporated parish: Make it disappear.
Sheriff Garber explained his sales tax to the City-Parish Council
The gist: At Tuesday’s council meeting, Sheriff Mark Garber gave an overview and explanation of a new parishwide sales tax he intends to put on the Dec. 8 ballot. As proposed, the tax would generate $38 million annually to fund new law enforcement personnel both for the sheriff’s office and for the Lafayette Police Department. Garber was summoned to the council amid criticism that he had failed to apprise the body of his plans.
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“We weren’t ready to come to you before,” Garber told the council. He complained that news of his plan got out faster than he intended — by way of Claire Taylor at The Daily Advertiser — forcing him to play catch up with a speeding newscycle. That explanation appears to have mollified several frustrated councilmen who had complained that Garber left them out of the loop on a decision that impacts the city police department, a body they oversee. Garber turned over draft ballot language to the council at the meeting, asking the councilmen not to share it with the media, given that the proposal isn’t finalized. It’s not clear what parts in the ballot aren’t full baked. The Current obtained a copy of the ballot language — a public record, by way of its transmittal to the council — which you can view here. Garber indicated that a final version of the measure will be ready this summer, with a major campaign to follow from a PAC created to support the effort.
So what’s in the plan? As written, Garber’s proposal would create a permanent three quarters of a cent sales tax assessed parishwide: that is everywhere in the parish, inclusive of all municipalities. Garber wants to add 45 more deputies, pay down $37 million in debt and accumulate enough dollars to create a one-year operating reserve fund for the sheriff’s office. He’d accomplish that with about $23 million in annual revenue generated by the tax. The sheriff indicated that he would roll back an existing property tax that funds his office after he reaches that fund balance. However, the ballot measure does not hold him legally to that promise.
Sales tax collected in the city of Lafayette, half of the three-quarter cent rate, would go to the Lafayette Police Department, generating an estimated $15 million each year. That would nearly double LPD’s roughly $20 million annual budget.
“Not everybody understands my power as the sheriff to go before the voters unilaterally,” Garber said in his address. “I’m not asking the council tonight to adopt any resolution or to vote in favor of it. I’m here before the council because all of you represent voters in this parish. Voters who are my voters.”
What to watch for: Whether the administration or the council backs the sheriff’s plan. Thus far, Garber has not won official support from the city side of the deal. Mayor Joel Robideaux has not indicated, up or down, his position on the sales tax. He has not responded to requests for comment, although a sheriff’s spokesman confirmed Robideaux and the sheriff discussed the tax last week. The Lafayette Police Association, the local police union, supports Garber’s measure. The group’s tactics recently angered some city-parish councilmen who accused the union of using scare tactics to get the sheriff’s tax passed.
Councilman Jay Castille, who dismissed the union’s claims that the department is understaffed, said after the meeting last night that Garber’s presentation answered many but not all of his concerns. The specifics of the intergovernmental agreement have yet to be hammered out. That would require council approval.
Two years and waiting: a look inside the drainage action plan
Homeowners continue to await drainage work promised in a tax rededication passed last year. The work is not a fix; it’s a Bandaid.
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8 min read
Downtown’s most important domino: the old federal courthouse
No project is perhaps more emblematic of the morass Downtown has been in than the old federal courthouse. Yet, a project of this magnitude is exactly what we need to catalyze development.
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Complicated Cocktails Friday: The Kaleidoscope
The secret to an electric colored cocktail without the curaçao? Butterfly pea tea. A complicated cocktail from Porch, Wine & Gravy.
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Tax incentives, CREATE lure three film companies to Lafayette
Film industry workers have been settling into Lafayette recently, lured largely by state tax incentives, city assistance and the rich cultural and artistic milieu of Lafayette.
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6 min read
Oil software giant P2 Energy Solutions has acquired Lafayette-based iLandMan
The acquisition opens the door to better employment benefits for iLandMan’s 21 full-time employees, who will retain their jobs in Lafayette.
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2 min read
Cast Iron Chef: Jolie Meaux
Jolie Meaux of the Cajun food blog Porch, Wine & Gravy has proven she can take the heat — and she’ll never get out of the kitchen.
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10 min read
The low down on summer wine tastings
Summer wine tastings serve up a great opportunity to get acquainted with the fruit of the vine in friendly atmospheres.
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3 min read
And just like that, the moratorium lifts: Artmosphere is now a bar
▸ The gist: It’s been a long and strange journey, but Artmosphere’s regulatory limbo is now over. The council voted to allow the popular Downtown venue to operate as a bar rather than a restaurant.
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▸ Some background: Artmosphere, in a sense, is the poster child for Downtown’s tribulations associated with a 15-year-old moratorium on new bars in the district. The venue has operated for years on a restaurant’s liquor license, running afoul of regulations that require a restaurant’s food to make up more than 50 percent of its sales. Recently, Downtown officials and advocates have lobbied for an end to the moratorium, which they say created a monopoly for existing bars and grossly distorted the real estate market.
▸ “Have we now lifted the moratorium on bars Downtown?” Councilman William Theriot asked Mayor Joel Robideaux from across the council’s crescent desk. “Certainly, I would say the moratorium was lifted at a previous council meeting,” the mayor replied, indicating the official end of the practice was the creation of the conditional use permit itself.
▸ Can you spell C-U-P? In his interrogative with the mayor, Theriot referred to the new permit class as a “cup,” as in something you drink out of. Opening a new bar Downtown? Now you need to go to the city and get a cup.
▸ What to watch for: Yes, this is the visible end of the moratorium, but it’s hardly an opening of the flood gates. Artmosphere’s case continues to illustrate the effort required to crack the still-standing limitations on new bar licenses Downtown. Councilman Pat Lewis, who in May voted against putting the permit up for a final vote, amended the permit to stipulate that, among other things, Artmosphere must serve food when operating and must operate five days a week.
“I congratulate her for being persistent. She was very persistent,” Lewis said at the meeting. “You can ask the owner. I made it very difficult for her. It’s not just a rubber stamp.”