Month: August 2020
Touted as help for hundreds, Lafayette’s business relief program has approved help for only a handful so far
Moving slowly means the program could fall well short of its ambitions, while housing needs, another use of the source funding, continue to worsen.
Auditor’s report details broad effort to prop up LUS Fiber, implicating others beyond Huval
Reaching conclusions already voiced by the Guillory administration and its predecessor, a long-awaited forensic investigative report on suspect transactions between LUS and Fiber accuses former Director Terry Huval of flouting state law to inflate Fiber’s revenue by millions of dollars.
Coronavirus dropped Lafayette’s total assessed property values for the first time in 30 years
The decline in property values could reduce LCG’s revenues by millions. That drop will force the City and Parish councils to either raise millage rates or cut their budgets further.
COLUMN: Parish government isn’t ‘living within its means’
Parish government has been on life support for years now. With the city’s finances now strained, it’s time for the parish to get serious about living within its means.
Living through Covid in Louisiana French
In interviews with Cajun elders, UL archivists explore the experience and expression of the pandemic in Louisiana French.
Louisiana’s emergency hotel shelters have stopped taking in new households
State housing officials have asked regional partners to stop taking more into shelters, signaling that the program is likely to end soon, leaving many without anywhere else to go.
M-P Guillory moves to reopen search for new Lafayette police chief
Northside rec centers targeted for closure are the cheapest to operate
$80,000 was the total cost to run the four centers in 2019. Combined, they generated just under $32,000 in revenue — mostly from 58 rentals at the Heymann Park recreation center — and operated at a net loss of $48,000.
At Vermilionville, a reckoning with cultural exclusion
Vermilionville has made strides in presenting a more comprehensive portrayal of the Acadiana’s history. Change at the museum, however, is a work in progress.
Council Preview 8/4: Another special meeting on parks, LUS investigations, flood modeling, new early voting sites and scooters
The main hot-button topics are a report on the ongoing LUS investigation, the addition of early voting sites, and the potential establishment of new rules that could welcome shared services back to our streets.