The gist: Get stoked, readers. There are three council meetings Tuesday night. The 2018 charter amendments creating separate city and parish councils kick in this week with the first-ever meetings of the new bodies, sandwiching a joint meeting — also the first such convening.
A note about scheduling. Going forward, the two councils will meet on the same days, typically on the second and fourth Tuesdays. The parish council will convene first with the city council to follow. If a joint council is set, it meets in between.
Joint council
Top of the agenda: Splitting up Public Works. This is the first big initiative from incoming Mayor-President Josh Guillory. As proposed, it would break off two new departments — each with their own new director — in a significant makeover of the Public Works Department. In essence, the shakeup breaks off separate drainage and transportation departments from Public Works, leaving behind a smaller general operations department. This item is up for introduction only.
Housekeeping: The joint council will also establish rules of order, formally appoint a clerk of council and vote in the professional services review committee — an advisory body that recommends contractors to the administration.
Not sure how the council split works? Check out this explainer.
Separate councils
The city and parish councils will separately vote to appoint a new city-parish attorney. For the most part, the agendas look pretty similar because the councils are just getting started. But we do get a view on how things will get divided.
Each council will appoint five-member zoning commissions. The amended charter creates separate zoning commissions for the parish and the city of Lafayette. The divided councils will thus make separate appointments.
The parish council is appropriating $650,000 for a sewage grinder for the parish jail. The money had been budgeted for three years without being spent, so it expired. By state law, maintaining the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center, which is in Downtown Lafayette, is a parish government responsibility. Jail sewage grinders is parish council territory.
The city council will take up some zoning changes and annexations. Again, these are introductory changes to the unified development code to accommodate a restaurant on S. College Road and annex an industrial property into the city, among other items. Under the previous consolidated configuration, council members outside the city of Lafayette would have also voted on these changes to land use and planning within the city.
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