Economy and budget columnist Geoff Daily is going to host a live text-based Q&A session this Friday from 2 – 4 p.m right here. He’ll answer your burning questions about Lafayette’s economic outlook and how that will impact the city-parish budget.
The Q&A has concluded. Check out the questions and answers below!
The gist: As expected, Mayor-President Joel Robideaux vetoed a council budget amendment that would have kept $7 million in a project to complete Louisiana Avenue. Instead the money will go into a stormwater diversion fund he proposed at budget introduction. The council could override the veto with a six-member majority, an unlikely outcome.
The gist: Dredging the Vermilion is becoming a political movement in Lafayette, driven by the trauma of repeat flooding events since the catastrophic no-name floods of August 2016. Studies continue as engineers and public officials debate the efficacy of digging out the bayou.
At a job fair tomorrow at South Louisiana Community College IBM will try to recruit people to move from Lafayette to Baton Rouge with the help with LED.
Utility rates were hiked in the last two years to pay for rising operating costs and a $240 million bond package that never came to be. Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux will present a pair of ordinances, one to reduce electric, water and wastewater rates and another to reclaim the revenues for a bond sale.
The Louisiana Board of Ethics has been trying to serve Brian Pope with formal notification of charges against him for about eight months now. On Thursday, the agency tracked him down in open court, apparently surprising the embattled city marshal who was appearing for a pre-trial hearing on 17 felony counts related to the ethics charges.