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:
Special Joint Meeting
Public Hearing
Budget Public Comment. LCG is holding another public comment session now that the first half of budget meetings are completed. Public comment is also slated during the budget wrap-up meetings Aug. 29 and during final adoption scheduled for Sept. 12.
Special City Council Meeting
Reports
Recycling Tag Program. City Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux is requesting discussion of LCG’s new recycling tag program. LCG’s waste contractor, Acadian Waste Services, implemented a warning system to discourage the mixing of non-recyclable materials in recycling bins. Such contaminated recycling is discarded in landfills.
Introduction
Golf greens. This ordinance shifts $35,000 in funds to pay for upgrades at the Jay & Lionel Hebert Municipal Golf Course. The transfer combines $25,000 in city fund balance and $10,000 from a greens restoration project.
Lafayette 101
Money Moves
A relatively mundane council agenda is punctuated by joint public comment and shifting funds around as the current fiscal year nears its Oct. 31 end. M-P Monique Boulet’s proposed emergency preparedness office, cut down to fit in the current operating budget, is up for final adoption with one less position and half the funding of the original plan. The Parish Council blocked the original plan and narrowly advanced the new ordinance to final adoption.
Parish Council
Final Adoption
Emergency Preparedness — second attempt. The original plan to fund two positions for four months for the newly created Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Division was rejected by the Parish Council last month. The mayor-president’s new proposal funds only the director position for the last two months of the fiscal year. This ordinance will cost the parish roughly $36,000 through Oct. 31, compared to the original $73,000 proposal. Plans for a two-position department are in the next FY budget proposal by M-P Boulet.
Introduction
No significant items.
City Council
Final Adoption
LUS Fiber salary bump. LUS Fiber plans to raise the salaries for several positions. The ordinance also promotes two positions to a manager, with a pay bump, while adding one new manager role.
Utilities budget adjustments. LUS is moving $4.8 million in combined reserves to other expenditures. The budget amendment adds another $1.86 million to the system’s in-lieu-of-tax (ILOT) contribution to the city’s general fund, bringing it to $27.3 million, and the rest would pay for capital and maintenance expenses, with $500,000 for generator transformers.
Introduction
Fire Station Project Adjustments. LCG plans to transfer $200,000 meant for a Fire Station #5 project, to a renovation project at Fire Station #2. The renovations are improvements and touch-ups on the building and surrounding lot.
Joint Items
Final Adoption
True Friends building donation. LCG will donate two parcels of land at 409 Lamar St. to the True Friends Society of Lafayette. The plots are empty, but True Friends’ proposed plan is to make the land donated by the ordinance into a memorial park and garden.
Gethsemane granted adjudicated properties. LCG will donate two adjudicated properties to Gethsemane Church of God in Christ. The church plans to use both plots, 319 Eleventh St. and 712 Peach St., to expand the church campus.
Introduction
Housing counseling. Through the Jessie L. Taylor Center, Lafayette provides housing counseling by federally certified housing counselors. This ordinance authorizes the certified counselors to continue to perform workshops and counseling services. It also gives M-P Boulet the power to negotiate grants and agreements for the program.