The gist: For the past year or so, LCG has honed policy for the dawn of 5G networks. Tired of waiting, Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux short-circuited the deliberation, introducing his own policy ahead of the administration’s schedule.
Author: Christiaan Mader
Ready or not, we’re talking about 5G now
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Stop. What’s 5G? A quick oversimplification: 5G is the next (fifth) generation of cellular networks projected to supplant 4G and LTE service in the coming years. 5G networks use dense clusters of small wireless transmitter boxes, attached to existing utility poles or mounted on short towers, to broadcast connections comparable to fiber speeds and reliability. Phones have not yet been developed to use 5G — AT&T’s 5G E is not 5G; it’s LTE plus marketing — but the event horizon is only a couple of years away. Cities are now grappling with policies to deal with fleets of transmitter boxes — i.e. “small wireless facilities” — in public rights of way. It’s progress, but also a nuisance.
Boudreaux compiled a policy to regulate deployment of 5G transmitters in the city and unincorporated areas of the parish. He introduced it as an ordinance, which governs “small wireless facilities,” at Tuesday’s City-Parish Council meeting. It defines things like fees and permitting and defines aesthetic restrictions. Over the past year or so, Boudreaux tells me, he talked with some of the major telecoms developing the technology — like Cox, Verizon and AT&T — but pulled from policies adopted in other Louisiana cities to craft his ordinance. His draft resembles one passed in Baton Rouge in 2017 and shares some of the same exact language. He says the administration should have acted a while ago.
He forced the administration to move. Boudreaux allowed LCG’s legal team to sub in its own draft ordinance as an amendment to his. The legal department and administration worked for the last year or so on the policy with a D.C. law firm specializing in communications. The administration’s draft policy is more detailed and applies stricter guidelines for how the boxes look and where they can be placed. Fees are different too: Boudreaux’s ordinance charges $270 annually per device to add them to city-owned utility poles; while the administration's policy bills $220. You can view Boudreaux’s original ordinance here. And the administration’s ordinance here.
“My God, Crowley has adopted theirs already,” Boudreaux tells me. His decision to put forth an ordinance ahead of legal was spurred by watching small communities like Carencro adopt policies while Lafayette had yet to do so. (My family is from Crowley, for the record.) In pushing an ordinance, one he admits was not quite ready for prime time, Boudreaux intended to force a public conversation and position himself to lead it. “I gotta govern in a way other people don’t have to,” he explains. One primary concern, he expressed Tuesday night, is that poles could clutter the neighborhoods in his district. He showed the council a picture of a squat, unsightly tower pimpled with grey boxes in McComb-Veazey. It’s not clear where the tower came from. (Maybe it’s a ghost tower.)
Rapidly adopted policies have caused problems in other markets. Baton Rouge rushed an industry-friendly ordinance in July 2017 only to circle back to close loopholes later that year. Still, downtowners there fussed when AT&T began planting 80 5G towers, sometimes in the middle of sidewalks.
5G could pressure LUS Fiber. Some observers say the technology could one day challenge fiber-to-the-home internet service. 5G networks are cheaper to build in neighborhoods that don’t currently have fiber-to-the-home in place (like many of the areas Boudreaux represents) and can be used to add fixed internet service wirelessly. Others say it’s not likely to supplant fiber service altogether, but it could muscle fiber-based internet providers around in the market.
What to watch for: How the council approaches the policy discussion going forward. Boudreaux’s move appears to have pushed the administration into the conversation ahead of schedule, and the draft ordinance swapped in is now subject to council debate at final adoption in a couple of weeks. Other communities have haggled over how much to charge telecoms for the use of public space. Baton Rouge charges $250 per device. Other cities charge thousands. Money will play a big factor in the discussion here.
Looks like Terry Huval was a bargain
The gist: Lafayette’s future utilities director could make $250,000, close to the salary retired LUS Director Terry Huval earned to run both LUS and LUS Fiber. The council introduced a measure to bump the budgeted salary to that figure for the newly independent position.
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It was originally budgeted at $150,000 when Robideaux moved to split LUS and LUS Fiber into separate departments during last fall’s budget process. He pegged the Fiber director’s salary then at $115,000. Huval was far and away the highest paid public employee in Lafayette Consolidated Government, a distinction that drew some criticism from budget hawks like Robideaux. (Robideaux, according to some, once bragged that no one in his administration would make $250,000.) Some council members pushed back on Robideaux’s original budget, saying good talent couldn’t be had at those prices.
“If we know these numbers are too low, what are we doing?” Kenneth Boudreaux pressed Robideaux at the time.
“I don’t think it’s enough if that’s what you’re asking me,” Robideaux replied.
So why $250,000 and why now? By law, Robideaux must get approval from a contract engineer to fill the position. That consultant, NewGen Strategies & Solutions (no affiliation with NextGEN Utility Systems, the failed LUS suitor), advised the administration that a new director for a utility the size of LUS (a $300 million enterprise) should cost around $250,000.
We still don’t know how much a Fiber director will cost. That’s a separate issue, not managed by NewGen. Boudreaux, who clamored Tuesday night about the new salary, produced an estimate from 2013 that a Fiber director should cost $200,000. If that figure is close to right, new directors of LUS and LUS Fiber combined would cost $450,000.
“That’s $450,000 without even blinking,” Boudreaux told me ahead of the meeting, frustrated with the hurdles jumped to raise LCG employee salaries 2 percent last year, including an override of Robideaux’s veto.
What to watch for: How quickly a new director is recruited and installed. Current interim Director Jeff Stewart, a Huval lieutenant, says he’s interested in the gig. Stewart is already spearheading a public process for the electric system’s integrated resource plan — essentially a long-term planning process that determines how much power is needed and where it will come from — a first for LUS. Stewart tells me that process should be underway in June and could take a year or more. That means the new director could come on board in the middle of a transformative time.
Drag Queen Story Time (sort of) happened with no flare up
The gist: Supporters held two private drag queen readings at a public library branch Sunday to muted protest and little else. Threats of violence and heavy protesting didn't materialize.
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The scene was relatively uneventful. A few dozen families showed up for the readings, held in two sessions at the South Regional Branch of the Lafayette Public Library. Kids got their faces painted, held balloons, did the hokey pokey and listened to three drag queens read stories about tolerance. Outside, Catholic protestors prayed the rosary and sang hymns over bagpipes, holding signs with slogans like "Drag Queens = Childhood's End."
"If we allow the corruption of children to happen, then we are corrupted as well," Thomas Drake, a protest organizer, told KLFY.
All bark and no bite is how Story Time organizer Aimee Robinson described the threats of violence that harried the event, most of which were on social media threads posted by local news outlets and Facebook page Lafayette Citizens Against Taxes. The library paid for several LPD officers to provide security. The three drag queens were escorted to and from their cars by the officers.
"They went above and beyond," Robinson says of the officers assigned, describing them as kind, courteous and understanding. "I couldn't be happier. My hat's off to them."
Supporters are calling it a victory. Sunday's readings were not directly related to last fall's library-sponsored event, organized in collaboration with an LBGTQ+ fraternity at UL Lafayette, that ignited controversy and drew a failed and spurious federal law suit. Robinson says it nevertheless took a lot to pull the readings off, which were originally scheduled in December.
"We had to get the ACLU involved," she says. After the original library-sponsored event was canceled (crowd control/safety being the purported reason), Robinson and fellow supporters booked a room for a private, Christmas-themed reading. That effort was blocked at the last minute when attorneys representing the library and Lafayette Consolidated Government produced a room reservation form that effectively banned any drag queen-related events until the federal suit was complete. (The suit was dismissed last week.) The ACLU intervened and the library and city officials agreed to strike the reservation form, a clear First Amendment violation, paving the way for Sunday's readings.
What to watch for: More readings and if the library ever officially hosts Drag Queen Story Time. Robinson says she intends to hold more private readings, potentially in Breaux Bridge. Many opponents say their issue wasn't with DQST itself, but that the library sponsored and promoted the event last fall. The library had attempted to move that event from its Downtown branch to the South Louisiana Community College, where it was ultimately postponed amid security concerns. In a press release at the time, library officials committed to hosting DQST with the fraternity in the future.
Drag Queen Story Time suit officially dismissed
The gist: A spurious federal lawsuit filed to stop the library's Drag Queen Story Time event planned last fall was formally dismissed Jan. 31. The court ruled the out-of-state fringe Christian organizations that filed suit had no standing.
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The ruling was long expected. A federal magistrate recommended the case be thrown out last month, saying plaintiffs Chris Sevier and John Gunter Jr. failed to show “dollars-and-cents” injury from the library’s organization of Drag Queen Story Time, given the pair live out of state and don’t pay local property taxes. Both Lafayette Consolidated Government (by way of Mayor-President Joel Robideaux) and the Lafayette Public Library (by way of Director Teresa Elberson) were named defendants in the suit.
Sevier, an attorney and EDM producer, is a litigious agitator on LGBTQ+ issues — same-sex marriage, transgender rights, etc. — and has filed dozens of suits on bizarre grounds across the country. His cases typically argue the LGBTQ+ community is in effect a faith ideology. Any government interaction, he claims, like issuing marriage licenses or promoting a Drag Queen Story Time, is tantamount to state-sponsorship of a religion, and thus a violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause. He teamed up with West Virginia-based extremist Christian ministry Warriors for Christ to sue the Lafayette Public Library.
“By bringing this lawsuit, we are unapologetically and firmly defending the civil rights movement led by pastor Martin Luther King," Sevier told News 15 last year. Sevier made national headlines for other legal stunts like suing Utah for the right to marry his computer and Apple for not preventing porn from ruining his marriage.
Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna was clearly exasperated with the case in December. He complained the court was "snowed in" by Warriors for Christ filings during a hearing on an ACLU intervention into the case on behalf of DQST supporters.
Drag Queen Story Time is back. Supporters have booked two private readings at the library's south regional branch this Sunday. Religious groups and opponents have begun circulating information about it. Organizers say they expect some protests and have arranged for security. Sunday's events are not directly affiliated with the program, planned by an LGBTQ+ fraternity at UL Lafayette, that sparked the last few months of controversy and attracted the attention of Sevier and Warriors for Christ.
That event was postponed indefinitely when a venue big enough to accommodate scores of sympathizers and protestors couldn't be found.
Downtown is staring at a residential breakthrough
The gist: Waitr is busy taking over the Lemoine building. CGI is sniffing for office space. Meanwhile, new residential projects in the works could break down the housing dam.
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Vermilion Lofts broke ground last week to some who’s who fanfare. The project, a mixed-use development at Johnston Street and W. Vermilion Street, represents something of a coup for Downtown. Scheduled for completion by fall of this year, the loft development will feature 24 units (studios and two-bedroom apartments) and 3,600 square feet of commercial space on the bottom floor. Developments like Vermilion Lofts are the norm in successful urban centers; Lafayette’s got a long way to go.
“This project will set the tone for the future,” Downtown Development Authority CEO Anita Begnaud told onlookers, basking in “chamber of commerce” sun. (No fewer than three speakers made use of that turn of phrase.) “This is what we’ve been waiting for for a long time.”
Housing is showing up at the right time. Waitr has moved into the top floor of the Lemoine building at the north end of Jefferson Street and is reportedly slated to take over all three floors in the not-so-distant future. The app company’s rapid expansion is poised to bring scores of new jobs, if not hundreds. Meanwhile, tech consultant CGI has been after space Downtown to accommodate 400 new jobs announced in an extended incentive deal with the state last year. This is the virtuous cycle of urban development. Who knows, maybe a grocery store is next *insert interrobang.*
“We need to ask the question if there’s good alignment among all the pieces,” Begnaud says of the outlook. “How do we move at the speed of business to make it as cost efficient and timely. Those conversations are starting to happen.”
Vermilion Lofts makes four substantial housing developments on the way after years in a residential quagmire. Four projects, in varying stages of development and certainty, would bring around 200 new housing units Downtown. That’s still well below the 1,000 units a 2017 market study estimated Downtown could handle. (That figure is down from 2000 in 2011.) Here’s the rundown:
- Vermilion Lofts: 24 apartments and studios. Under construction. Estimated completion in 2019.
- Buchanan Heights: 30 townhomes. Under construction. Estimated completion unknown.
- The Monroe: 70 apartments. Seeking approval for HUD financing. Estimated completion one to two years.
- Place de Lafayette: 68 apartments. In due diligence. Deadline for completion Dec. 31, 2020.
The big question: Is Downtown ready for success? Vermilion Lofts tested the limits of Lafayette’s aging wastewater system. LUS has not given the all clear on the project’s 34-unit second phase. Sewer capacity remains a challenge long term; Place de Lafayette (the old federal courthouse redevelopment) will have to invest in sewer upgrades to go forward. That project is not yet a sure thing. But it’s not just the pipes that could clog up momentum; some developers say it’s just too hard to build Downtown.
“It’s great we have a lot of momentum, but that momentum can only go so far,” Vermilion Lofts developer and architect Stephen Ortego tells me, if the district doesn’t figure out how to navigate developers through thorny regulations and higher taxes.
‘Ghost millage’ spooks council into deferring library rededication
The gist: The mayor-president claimed Tuesday night to have discovered unknown library money — a “ghost millage,” so to speak — and spooked the council into punting on calling an election to shift $18 million from the Lafayette Public Library’s controversial fund balance. The proposal, which would shift the money to infrastructure needs, will be taken up again in the spring, pushing any public vote till the fall.
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A ghost millage is born. At the last minute, Mayor-President Joel Robideaux sprang on the council that major library construction projects were paid for by a property tax associated with a $40 million bond package approved by voters in 2002 and not, as he suggested the public likely believed, by a millage passed at the same time to pay for construction, operations and maintenance. Robideaux characterized it as a “fourth millage” that supported the library, kicking up a dust of confusion among council members. Councilman Jay Castille, who motioned to defer the election resolution in light of Robideaux’s “new” information, called it a “ghost millage.” Castille’s motion carried 7 - 2.
“This is a confusing issue,” Castille said. “Usually council members are not caught off guard like that.” Council members were flustered the info was late-coming, shared with a huddle of members minutes before Tuesday’s meeting started.
Robideaux implied the library built its fund balance in bad faith. By his account, that the word “construction” was featured on the millage passed in 2002 misled voters to believe those funds were meant for four new branches when, in fact, the projects were paid for by the $40 million bond authorization. The “ghost millage” he’s referring to is the property tax used to pay for parish debt, which includes the library bonds. Robideaux suggested the library squirreled away the separate “construction” millage until 2012, when the library then used fund balance dollars to build a library in Scott. “The library feared the public caught on,” he said, and decided to use fund balance dollars to avoid suspicion.
Robideaux told The Advocate he believes the millage language was intended to "fool" voters back in 2002.
“Joel muddied up the waters and got it wrong,” Andrew Duhon, vice president of the library’s board of control, tells me. Duhon says the system has mixed fund balance and bond money to pay for all of the projects on the bond list, using cash-in-hand to avoid interest. “It’s the strongest model of financial management in the parish,” he says of the library’s stewardship. The library has sold $21 million of its $40 million authorization, tapping pay-as-you-go dollars for the rest. He insists the library has operated prudently and argues Robideaux is grasping at straws. “I think he’s in a protectionist mode,” Duhon says. “He’s tired of getting beat on, but he’s his own worst enemy.”
I don’t understand. Neither does the Siri who lives inside LCG Chief Financial Officer Lorrie Toups’ phone. The robot chimed in during council discussion. Meanwhile, information banged around the room and rarely landed with the right context. Some council members gained the impression, one arguably conjured by Robideaux, that the “ghost millage” was stealing money from roads and drainage needs; budget language pegs the general obligation bonds to pay for those things.
The “ghost millage” is not a pool of general purpose money. It pays parish debt on bonds sold.
“It wasn’t a misappropriation,” Toups replied to a pointed question from William Theriot. Theriot, echoing sentiments from other council members, sought assurance that the “ghost millage” situation wouldn’t happen again. Toups emphasized that the millage pays for the debt on the specific projects authorized in the 2002 bond package, dispelling the notion the millage is used inappropriately. So, ghost millages will continue to haunt city-parish budgeting.
What should really scare you: The number of elected officials who don’t understand how bonds work. Wherever you stand on the fundamental issue — i.e., the size of the library’s fund balance and what to do with it — council discussion revealed a startling lack of comprehension with respect to the relationship between the library’s millages and parish debt.
What to watch for: How the delay affects the proposal’s political usefulness for Robideaux. The library is a polarizing issue now, and some see his proposal as an effort to score political points in an election year. Others view the rededication as Drag Queen Story Time retaliation. Now kicked to a fall ballot at the earliest, the transfer could appear alongside his re-election bid. That limits its value as campaign material.
Funk, soul brother: Akie Bermiss talks about how he joined Lake Street Dive
Bermiss talks competition among music school geeks (or the lack thereof), joining a band on a never-ending tour and the ins and outs of defying musical categories.
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Bird, Lime scooters agree to pause service in Lafayette
The gist: Turns out those e-scooters aren't exactly street legal, according to state law, at least not clearly. Bird and Lime agreed to take the scooters off the streets until legislation can clear a legal pathway for them to continue service.
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When a scooter is a motorcycle: Ambiguities in state law may inadvertently define the electric scooters as a motorized vehicle and thus regulate them like rascals, mopeds, motorcycles. Viewed that way in the eyes of the law, the scooters may be prohibited from sidewalks (Bird and Lime say the scooters shouldn't be on sidewalks, anyway) or from riding the streets without registration and titling. The state definitions predate the shared mobility rage, a phenomenon that took cities by storm in the last couple of years with free-standing, app-enabled bikes and scooters. In other words, it's more or less an accident of history that Bird and Lime may run afoul of statutes like this one from 2005.
What if we call them something else? In an email sent to Mayor-President Joel Robideaux over the weekend, Lime representatives suggested calling the scooters "motorized novelty vehicles" as a workaround. The loophole accommodates Segways, for instance. The semantic solution was apparently considered in New Orleans before city officials ultimately decided — "for political (not policy) reasons," according to Lime reps in the email exchange — not to let the companies operate there. Scooter companies first encountered the state issue in approaching New Orleans and have worked to find a state-level solution since.
"Simply using a newly defined name falls short of a workable solution on our end and does not change the fact that current State law would still consider them a vehicle which cannot be operated on sidewalks or any street without the required equipment, " Robideaux replied in an email to Lime reps.
Robideaux raised the legal issue two weeks ago in remarks to the City-Parish Council, suggesting the administration has been grappling with what it now views is a cut and dry prohibition. Robideaux has taken a cautious but friendly posture to the scooter companies since they arrived in early December, working to develop a policy framework that would allow them to stay long term. State law, however, trumps local law. In other words, Lafayette can’t be more lenient than the state in regulating the scooters. It's unclear how long the administration, which has not responded to a request for comment, has been aware of the statute. UL threatened to impound scooters left on campus back in December, shortly after the fleets landed. Students were told not to ride on sidewalks and were ordered to park them in bike racks.
Please leave before we kick you out. In letters delivered to Bird and Lime, Robideaux asked the companies to "stand down" voluntarily rather than face cease and desist orders. The companies will have to pull approximately 100 or more scooters scattered around the city but mostly clustered around the urban core. Some cities have taken to impounding the scooters when Bird, Lime and other operators have been slow to leave when asked. The companies have tended to pounce on new markets unannounced, part and parcel of a disruption ethos among Silicon Valley outfits, and have faced backlash from some communities and welcome in others. That strategy seems to be changing as the element of surprise has dissipated. Now rideshare companies are commonly working with municipalities to design agreements ahead of deploying the scooter fleets.
What to watch for: If this is truly a pause or something more final. Legislation, at its earliest, would be available in late spring. Locals have had a love-hate relationship with the devices. Some see them as a nuisance, even a safety hazard, taking issue with teenagers zooming on Downtown sidewalks, in clear violation of Bird's and Lime's own user instructions. Others view them as a useful mobility tool able to provide quick and convenient access for short trips, addressing a major cause of traffic in urbanized areas. LCG has made clear its intent to find a way to keep the scooters here. But it’s an election year, and public opinion on the scooters has hardly been uniform.
Councilman Bruce Conque proposes compromise on library rededication
The gist: Mayor-President Joel Robideaux wants to move $18 million in library funds to roads and drainage projects. Councilman Bruce Conque, however, offered a compromise in a press release this morning, suggesting Robideaux take $10 million, leaving $16 million in the library's fund balance after ongoing projects are complete.
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Conque argues Robideaux's proposal leaves the library without much wiggle room given it lost $3.2 million in annual revenue when one of its three millages failed last year. Revenues will dip from $12 million to under $9 million when the millage rolls off this year. Should library expenses remain at the current level, around $12.8 million annually, it will start running a deficit in the next fiscal year.
"We can part with some of it," Andrew Duhon, vice president of the library board of control, tells me. "The amount the mayor-president wants is inappropriate." Conque said in the press release that library leadership is on board with his counter-offer. The council must approve putting the rededication measure before voters.
Let's see what happens in 2022. That's the essence of Conque's compromise. A $4.5 million property tax renewal is on the block that year. There was a time when library taxes were considered untouchable; now it's hardly a given that voters will support the remaining millages. Should the millage fail, the library could be set up for long-term hardship, the councilman says. Conque is concerned the $8 million fund balance that would remain if Robideaux's proposal is approved by voters is insufficient to cover the costs of planned expansions, at the Clifton Chenier Center and the North Regional Library, and lost revenue.
"Is that the best use of the money, to hang onto it for whenever we need to do those expansions?" Robideaux asked in a report in The Daily Advertiser. "Or is it more important to look at what else we can do with that money?"
"This is not something we dreamed up yesterday," Duhon says of the expansion plans, saying Robideaux never talked with library leadership before he announced the idea. "These things should be discussed," he tells me.
Where will the money go? That's still unclear. Robideaux told The Advertiser he'll announce the projects before the voters go to the polls. LCG recently took an $18 million cash advance from general fund dollars on a $30 million bond package to pay for street and drainage projects.
What to watch for: Whether other council members sign on to Conque's compromise, which will be offered as an amendment to Robideaux's resolution on Tuesday. The council will vote then to send the proposition to voters in May. Councilmen Kevin Naquin, Jared Bellard and William Theriot have co-sponsored Robideaux's resolution to rededicate $18 million.
Possible Gannett buyout underscores Lafayette’s fragile news ecosystem
The gist: Gannett, the publicly traded company that publishes USA Today and The Daily Advertiser, is the target of a buyout by a hedge fund-backed firm known to gut newsrooms. The Advertiser’s faced layoffs in recent years, and the buyout could lead to more.
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Digital First Media has offered $1.3 billion in what amounts to a hostile takeover, according to some national reports. Digital First is primarily owned by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known to cut costs on troubled assets. Digital First owns 7.5 percent of Gannett already and has made previous offers to acquire the company.
What to cut when there’s nothing left? Denver Post journalists revolted when Digital First took over the Colorado paper in 2018 and cut 30 newsroom staffers. In Lafayette, there’s a dark upside: There may not be much meat on The Advertiser’s bone for Digital First to cut. (In fact, it appears that Digital First’s cost-cutting assumptions could be flawed, according to USA Today.) The Advertiser took it on the chin in 2016 when a few reporters were laid off as part of a 2 percent workforce purge at Gannett properties nationwide. Gannett owns five Louisiana papers, some of which have reduced service to only a few days week.
The Advertiser’s executive editor took early retirement. James Flachsenhaar, a 20-year company man, announced his departure, effective Feb. 1. (Flachsenhaar declined to comment for this story.) The company has pivoted sales messaging to hammer the paper’s value as a community resource, asking customers to buy subscriptions to support the paper’s work. That’s a common approach (one The Current uses, too) as newspapers have struggled to find financial footing on shrinking revenue. The number of working journalists in U.S. has declined about 45 percent since 2004.
“Guess I have to kick ass for whatever time I have left,” veteran Advertiser reporter Claire Taylor wrote in a Facebook post sharing the potential buyout news.
Local journalism in Lafayette is in trouble. It’s unclear whether the buyout will go through or, if it does, whether The Advertiser will suffer the same fate as other Digital First properties. Some analysts believe Gannett will decline the offer. Still, the local media buzz is not positive. But what this really shows is how thin the local reporting ranks are. Lafayette has no mainstream news outlets owned locally. The fate of local information is in precarious hands.
Robideaux seeks ‘visionary’ director to evolve LCG’s IT department
The gist: Since taking office, Robideaux has flirted with smart city initiatives and floated ambitious tech concepts like municipal cryptocurrency. Now, at the end of his first term, he’s seeking a permanent IT director who can help implement his vision.
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Robideaux is looking for a visionary: The job description posted last week describes an IT director who would be heavily involved in updating the department, a $9.7 million division that’s primarily charged with tech support services across consolidated government. The expanded role would include a hand in the administration’s smart city programs. Last year, the administration spent $150,000 to develop a smart city roadmap with IBM and mega-consultant KPMG that includes projects like making Lafayette a Smart City test bed, enhancing cyber security, implementing digital payments for government services and Crypteaux. The job posting says the new director would play an “integral role” in the roadmap. You can see the full roadmap here.
“It’s definitely fair to say the position of the director is evolving into one of a visionary and not just a person with a strong tech knowledge base and background,” Communications Director Cydra Wingerter tells me.
LCG’s strategic roadmap envisions more tech personnel. The Smart City roadmap contemplates adding a chief technology officer, a chief data and analytics officer and a chief information security officer. Positions like these do exist in other city governments. But, to be clear, the roadmap is largely provisional. It doesn’t necessarily describe concrete plans, but it offers a glimpse of what the administration has in mind — a more tech-savvy consolidated government.
Finding top talent in an election year could be tough, LCG’s civil service director tells me. Whoever would come into that position would face at least some political insecurity and the possibility that a new boss could kick him or her to the curb, particularly if a new administration doesn’t share Robideaux’s enthusiasm for big data in local government. This is an issue Robideaux faces in filling three other positions in 2019 — directors for LUS, LUS Fiber and planning — all while he runs for re-election.
“The complication is, it’s an election year,” Civil Service Director Adam Marcantel tells me. “Finding someone to run LUS for three months could be difficult. He may find that with IS&T, too.”
Robideaux has typically been slow to fill new positions. Current interim IS&T Director Michelle Rue has served in a temporary capacity for 10 months. Marcantel says he approached the administration in early fall last year to urge action. Caught up in the NextGEN/LUS flurry, the administration asked to revisit posting qualifications for a new director after the holidays. The administration posted the job last week.
What to watch for: Whether Robideaux ultimately fills all four open positions this year, and what talent he’s able to court. Wingerter herself was a late-term appointment in Joey Durel’s administration, she tells me, pushing back on the idea that an election year complicates the search. Technically, there’s nothing other than political pressure forcing Robideaux to make moves on these positions now. Director positions are not subject to civil service rules when it comes to vacancy, Marcantel says.
Downtown hires first-ever DLU director, taking aim at community engagement
The gist: Designer and community organizer Maureen Foster will run Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, the nonprofit responsible for fundraising and programming for Downtown. Foster’s role is a new position created to professionalize DLU and energize a sometimes fragmented community.
DLU and DDA are one but not the same. That’s a common mistake; we all make it. I’ve covered Downtown for a few years and the distinction isn’t exactly clear. DDA, the Downtown Development Authority, is a public agency in charge of Downtown development. It’s funded by a property tax assessed in the Downtown area that generates around $450,000 each year. Downtown Lafayette Unlimited is a nonprofit org, under DDA’s organizational umbrella, that’s most visibly in charge of programs like Downtown Alive! — I’m adding this phrase so I can end this sentence with a period, instead of the exclamation point part of the DTA! brand. DDA’s CEO, in this case Anita Begnaud, is in charge of both organizations.
The goal here is social and community activation. A 2018 Women Who Mean Business honoree, Foster was the brains behind Designing Women of Acadiana, a professional association and social club that connects women in the architecture, planning and design fields. DWA programmed panels and community conversations around the arts, design and social services, in essence glueing a previously disconnected community together.
“She found a pocket of people within her industry that were not coming together and having conversations and not advocating for themselves and created the mechanism for that to occur,” Begnaud tells me.
Downtown has long struggled to get stakeholders on the same page. And now it appears the district is poised for a major breakthrough with critical employers and residential projects converging. Getting Downtowners on the same page will be key to taking full advantage of the momentum. Foster tells me her goal is to energize community conversations, expanding the role of DLU beyond major social activities like DTA! and Movies in the Parc. Look for more networking events, daytime activities and information sessions.
“Anita has lit a big fire for renewed enthusiasm,” Foster says. “I’m planning on building on that fire.”
A born campaigner. “I think they wrote the job description for me,” Foster tells me of the DLU job. Begnaud says Foster’s tenacity caught her attention. Supporters stopped her in public to advocate for Foster’s hiring, spurred by a campaign of sorts that Foster sparked to get out the “vote” on her appointment. A Sterling Grove resident, Foster has taken an active role in urban core issues, serving on the Evangeline Thruway Redevelopment Team, the LCG committee charged with redevelopment projects in the I-49 Connector corridor.
“If she wasn’t doing this job, she’d be doing this in a volunteer capacity,” Begnaud says. “Now I get to pay her to do that.”