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:
- Parish Agenda
- Special Parish Agenda
- Special Joint Agenda
- City Agenda (Public Comment Time!)
Lafayette 101
Local Taxes
Almost every tax that funds Lafayette Consolidated Government and other local agencies is subject to regular elections for renewal and adjustment. The language on the ballot during those elections is critical because it creates a contract between voters and the government that dictates how that tax revenue can be spent.
Parish Council
Final Adoption
No items.
Introduction
Special meeting: ARPA rush. The Parish Council is reviving plans left by former Mayor-President Josh Guillory’s administration to shift about $5 million in federal coronavirus relief funds generally out of major projects and into local maintenance operations to ensure the funds are under contract before the Dec. 31 federal deadline. The council previously stalled similar plans before reintroducing a revised change this week. The funding shift would cut about $850,000 from the Chappuis Detention Pond project and $375,000 from enhanced modeling of the Vermilion River, plus smaller cuts to other projects.
City Council
Resolutions
Sales tax election. The City Council will vote Tuesday on plans to ask voters to change how the city’s sales tax revenue can be spent. Lafayette has two sales taxes totaling 2% out of the 8.45% sales tax rate on transactions in the city. But ballot language authorizing those local sales taxes requires at least 35% of that revenue be spent on capital outlay, that is things like equipment and one-time purchases. Auditors have flagged the requirement as prohibiting LCG from spending that money on software packages that have moved from one-time purchases to subscription-based models, so voters would be asked to specifically allow software subscriptions to be included in that 35% capital outlay requirement.
Final Adoption
No significant items.
Introduction
No significant items.
Joint Items
Executive Session
Special meeting: Retirement lawsuit. Both councils will meet behind closed doors Tuesday in an executive session on LCG’s lawsuit against the state’s Municipal Employees Retirement System (MERS) that Guillory filed in 2023. Guillory pushed for a change in state law to allow LCG to leave MERS and move new employees to the state’s Parochial Employees Retirement System (PERS) to save the local government money. The suit is based on a disagreement over how much LCG owes MERS for jobs that have been moved to PERS since the change in state law.
Final Adoption
No significant items.
Introduction
No significant items.
Property
| Address | Approval | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1003 N University Ave. | Joint councils | Donation of adjudicated property to nonprofit Sun Community Housing Development Organization [Resolution] |
| 4603 Johnston St. | City Council | Rezoning from Commercial Heavy (CH) to Commercial Mixed (CM-1) [Final] |
| 101 Brightwood Drive | City Council | Rezoning from Residential Mixed (RM-1) to Mixed-Use Neighborhood (MN-1) [Final] |
| 200 block Moss St. | City Council | Approving a conditional use permit for a duplex in Residential Single-Family (RS-1) [Final] |
| 922-1300 S Hugh Wallis Road (Even numbers only) | City Council | Rezoning from Industrial Light (IL) to Mixed-Use Neighborhood (MN-1) [Final] |