BIG QUESTION: Should Lafayette legalize gambling to bolster parish finances?
The Parish Council has started a conversation about legalizing gambling to fill holes in the parish budget. Is that a good idea?
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parish budget
Council Preview 12/16: Old federal courthouse is back for help; a ‘new’ development code; ratifying Guillory’s emergency powers
The gist: Wednesday (tonight) the City Council will finally decide if it’s going to subsidize the old federal courthouse developer’s profits. Both councils will decide whether to reaffirm the mayor-president’s emergency powers. And Lafayette may be getting a new development code — kind of. Meanwhile, the parish’s deteriorating finances continue to force tough decisions on […]
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COLUMN: The parish needs to raise taxes (don’t shoot the messenger)
Every part of parish government is underfunded. And there’s no way to fix it without raising taxes.
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COLUMN: The parish’s lose-lose proposition to raise taxes
Saying the parish should live within its means is one thing, but actually cutting millions from a threadbare budget is something else entirely. Parish government now faces the unenviable choice of raising taxes or cutting essential services.
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Coronavirus dropped Lafayette’s total assessed property values for the first time in 30 years
The decline in property values could reduce LCG’s revenues by millions. That drop will force the City and Parish councils to either raise millage rates or cut their budgets further.
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COLUMN: Parish government isn’t ‘living within its means’
Parish government has been on life support for years now. With the city’s finances now strained, it’s time for the parish to get serious about living within its means.
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Column: If we want to fix Lafayette’s roads, we must stop building new ones
Lafayette’s roads suck and both our city and parish budgets are in disarray. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something about this problem. We just need to reprioritize maintaining the infrastructure we already have.
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Splitting the council has raised the stakes on Lafayette’s deteriorating politics
Political discourse in Lafayette has veered so far off the rails that we can’t even agree on the basics. And now we have a whole host of thorny issues that we have to unpack while splitting one council into two.
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How not to sell a parking garage
When the Buchanan Street parking garage was condemned last October, it caused a series of problems Downtown. There have been complaints on social media of courthouse employees feeling unsafe walking longer distances to their cars at night, of defendants being late for trials because it takes so much time to find parking, and of businesses […]
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The parish general fund has zero dollars; the city general fund has $46 million
The gist: LCG’s annual audit, presented this month to the City-Parish Council, revealed a worsening trend over the last fiscal year: The parish is out of money, while the city has a generous fund balance.
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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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Council/administration fault line grows wider after property tax failure
Council members and the administration are at odds on how to fix the parish budget.
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