Nearly two weeks since The Current broke the news, Mayor Joel Robideaux presented a detailed timeline of his talks to privatize the electrical division of LUS through a management agreement with a private equity firm based in Baton Rouge. Robideaux had come under fire for leaving council members out of the conversation, most of whom only learned about the deal in media reports.
▸ The gist: On Tuesday, the Lafayette City-Parish Council voted to approve the creation of a new public trust, called the Lafayette Public Innovation Alliance, and seat its first trustees. They were approved to serve five-year terms by the City-Parish Council. Future trustees will be nominated by the mayor-president and approved either by the city-parish council […]
Not every argument against separate councils holds water, but some are compelling and worth exploring
Over the course of five town halls, we’ve talked through just about everything but the merits of creating separate city and parish councils. Here’s the case for the split.
Terry Huval, director of LUS for 23 years, has hurried his retirement amid revelations that the Robideaux administration is in talks to privatize the system’s electrical division.
While there are more questions than answers about selling LUS, one thing we know for sure is that it’s a perfect example of the unfairness baked into the structure of Lafayette’s consolidated government.
Much of the City-Parish Council, already disillusioned that it was left in the dark during negotiations, appears unified in opposition to LUS’s electrical division changing hands.
Talks between the Robideaux administration and Bernhard Capital Partners over the potential purchase of Lafayette Utilities System have been ongoing since at least the beginning of the year.
▸ The gist: Lewis reportedly flipped to a “no” on an amendment to create separate city and parish councils when he saw the way his district was redrawn in preliminary maps. As late as minutes before Tuesday’s council meeting, Lewis was shown a map that would give him a safely black voting district, potentially allaying concerns about […]
Lafayette needs less uncertainty from local government not more. But that’s not the direction we’re going.
The gist: It’s now clear that Mark Knight is the big fish prosecutors want in the Knight Oil Tools racketeering case. As our May reporting indicated was likely to happen, court records now reveal that former Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Kinch pleaded guilty in late June to one count of public bribery and one […]
The gist: After weeks of speculation and backroom conversation, the effort to create separate city and parish councils has come online.
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