An appeal court has ruled that Lafayette Consolidated Government abused its authority when it expropriated 372 acres of private land for the Homewood Drive Detention Pond Project.
The land on the Vermilion River was owned by Bendel Partnership and leased for farming.
Source: The Advocate
Looking back, we uncovered a program plagued with problems: conflicts of interest, disregard for public accountability processes and a lack of proven need or efficacy.
The City Council’s decision to investigate Guillory isn’t about politics. It’s about holding him accountable.
In yet another unusual twist in the Guillory administration’s drainage program, the state is holding up funding because Rigid Constructors bought property to keep digging detention ponds after a district judge forced it to move locations.
…issues with the project and LCG’s payment requests have caused the state to lock up the funding, leaving $22 million worth of reimbursements requested by LCG unpaid until the state government’s questions are answered.
Source: The Advertiser
Local media turned up the heat on the mayor-president in August, reporting that may be turning into big-time investigations.
The firm’s creation, timed as LCG fuels a local construction boom, creates a minefield of potential conflicts.
The appellate court’s ruling reverses a ruling by a Lafayette judge who found LCG failed to prove the detention pond project was conceived using “best modern practices,” which is required under state law.
That requirement became central to Lafayette Judge Michelle Breaux’s October ruling in favor of the Randol family.
Source: The Advertiser
There has been no public accounting of how much three drainage lawsuits could ultimately cost. The cases could blow multimillion-dollar holes in LCG’s budget.
Lafayette wanted a judge to declare it followed all rules and regulations in February when, at night, it had a contractor remove the spoil bank, an unofficial levee created along the Vermilion River bank decades ago when the Corps dumped material it dredged from the river. St. Martin Parish alleged LCG needed its permission to conduct the work.
Source: The Advocate
A Lafayette Consolidated Government contractor blocked the Vermilion River for hours without a permit while removing the Cypress Island Swamp spoil banks in February, potentially violating federal law.
Messages, design plans and videos obtained in a public records request show LCG contractor Rigid Constructors blocked the Vermilion River with four massive barges during the clandestine removal of the spoil banks in St. Martin Parish.
Source: The Advertiser
A day after a federal judge dismissed LCG’s lawsuit against them, St. Martin Parish has filed suit over a controversial drainage project.
The Petition for Mandatory Injunction filed Wednesday in 16th Judicial District Court asks the court to order LCG to restore, replace and reconstruct” the spoil bank it “illegally” removed.
Source: KATC
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