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:
Lafayette 101
Library boards
Public libraries around the state are governed by local volunteer boards, whose composition is set out in state law. Library boards hire their systems’ head librarians and have some control over the system’s funds, though they are subject to the decisions of the governing authority of their city or parish.
Parish Council
Final Adoption
Councilman on board. Lafayette’s contentious Library Board will likely see a rotation of Parish Council members added to its membership under a new ordinance intended to align with state law. One of the board’s seven members is currently appointed by Mayor-President Josh Guillory, but that seat would be replaced by a councilman appointed by Chair Josh Carlson under the proposed plan. Council members have tried to distance themselves from the board’s controversies in recent years, and Carlson says the council’s members will likely take turns serving at the Library Board’s monthly meetings.
New voting location. Ordinance PO-20 moves the election day voting location for precincts 59 & 60 to the Heymann Park Recreation Center on Orange Street from the old LPSS headquarters, which was recently sold to the Lafayette Airport Commission and is expected to be demolished.
Introduction
Moving money. One ordinance to be introduced Tuesday would pull $500,000 in federal funds from LCG’s beleaguered Bayou Vermilion Flood Control project to install water lines, while another would pull an additional $235,000 of federal funding from BVFC for a previously unfunded item called Localized Flood Mitigation. LCG’s attempts to use federal funds for BVFC have been limited by the process it used to select Rigid Constructors for the contract, which was not competitive enough to meet federal funding requirements.
Joint Items
Executive Session
Update on retirement suit. Both councils will meet in an executive session between their regular meetings Tuesday for an update on LCG’s lawsuit against the state’s Municipal Employees Retirement System. Guillory’s administration filed suit against MERS in March after the system’s board voted to block $15 million of state money from reaching LCG over a long-standing dispute about how much the local government owes MERS for jobs that it has moved out of the system. City-Parish Attorney Greg Logan quickly shut down a discussion on the matter at the City Council’s last meeting, saying he would not discuss the issue outside of executive session.
Final Adoption
No significant items.
Introduction
No significant items.
City Council
Final Adoption
No significant items.
Introduction
$1.1 million from new fire station. Two ordinances take a combined $1,062,988 from the city’s $3 million budget to relocate First Station #5. LCG and UL made plans in 2021 to build a new station near Blackham Coliseum as part of a land swap that would turn over the existing station at 2001 Johnston St. to the university. The removed funds would be split between work at two other fire stations, with $355,000 going to renovate First Station #2 on Mudd Avenue and $708,000 going toward rebuilding First Station #6 at Johnston Street and Montrose Avenue.