TAXES AND ROADS

[TBEAR]

This is a question put to the board, would you pay higher taxes for road improvements as President Durel is suggesting. Since it now appears the State has no money to assist Lafayette for road development and the Federal Government is not going to help.

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[ilovelafayette]

It looks like Joey wants to blame the longtime residents of Lafayette for not doing his job and getting the roads built before all the people moved here and now wants us to pay for it.

[wonderer]

What is the deal? Channel 10 is running a poll on their website to see if the city should put cameras at the red lights.

Hello Mcfly, the city is going to waste money on cameras when its the roads that need to be fixed and widened.

If you fix and dual lane the roads this will allow better traffic flow and you will cut down on alot of persons running the red lights. Every driver knows that if you beat the light you dont have to sit in line five or more minutes for it to change.

It comes down to just a waste of money. And channel 10 should allow for comments to be posted with thier polls to get feedback as to everyones views.

[WestSide]

Thats our government and media hard at work, wasting our money and our time.

[tester]

I dont believe we should pay more taxes for roads.

I guess what the parish could do is start charging more for permits to build new houses and subdivsions since thats where the problem with the roads is and they keep building more and more subdivisions in those areas where the roads cant take the traffic.

[zoe10850]

tester said:

I dont believe we should pay more taxes for roads.

I guess what the parish could do is start charging more for permits to build new houses and subdivsions since thats where the problem with the roads is and they keep building more and more subdivisions in those areas where the roads cant take the traffic.

[zoe10850]

Government costs money. If one wants roads, one must pay via taxes, or tolls. Is that simple.

Lafayette has a planning commission. Evidently, they are unable to plan, or someone ignores their suggestions. Lafayette will nwver be a major metropolitan area because with each passing day, life here becomes more difficult. Housing is expensive, traffic wastes a substantial portion of each day, and government's sole purpose is to fleece the citizens out of ever more money (read Advertiser Thursday - Tax Assessor says he can jack up assessments even higher with a new computer system.....).

Why do the homeowners of Lafayette pay any property tax at all ? Wasn't city government voted out 12 or so years ago ?

[TBEAR]

zoe10850 said:

Government costs money. If one wants roads, one must pay via taxes, or tolls. Is that simple.

Lafayette has a planning commission. Evidently, they are unable to plan, or someone ignores their suggestions.

I will agree with that statement and would support taxes if we could be assured that our government would spend it on the roads alone. Also I believe they are just ignorant in planning of the roadways in the parish.

[zoe10850]

thank you , my comment reappeared

[sassy820]

I would vote to pay higher taxes to fix the road ways but only if it was guaranteed to us which roads would be fixed first and that this money would not be wasted on changing the names of roads that already exist !!

[yeoj]

Why pay more taxes? Have you people noticed all the streets built on Kaliste Saloom and Ambassador Caffery which connect deadend streets, has nothing to do with traffic flow but everything to do with increased property value. Examples, Road from St Thomas Moore to Comeaux High School a 4 lane road with no traffic, Settlers Trace in River Ranch goes from Steiner Road to Farrell both dead end roads, Camelia Blvd at Kaliste Saloom Rd a beautiful 4 lane road to a dead end. When I purchase land in a subdivision I pay for roads folded into the cost of my lot. These property owners get millions for their property and we the taxpayers pay for their roads, is this fair? Wonder why Kal Sal$$m was head of Joeys Fiber PAC?

[theman]

yeoj
Guest
Re: TAXES AND ROADS
« Reply #10 on Today at 12:57pm »

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Why pay more taxes? Have you people noticed all the streets built on Kaliste Saloom and Ambassador Caffery which connect deadend streets, has nothing to do with traffic flow but everything to do with increased property value. Examples, Road from St Thomas Moore to Comeaux High School a 4 lane road with no traffic, Settlers Trace in River Ranch goes from Steiner Road to Farrell both dead end roads, Camelia Blvd at Kaliste Saloom Rd a beautiful 4 lane road to a dead end. When I purchase land in a subdivision I pay for roads folded into the cost of my lot. These property owners get millions for their property and we the taxpayers pay for their roads, is this fair? Wonder why Kal Sal$$m was head of Joeys Fiber PAC?






Well, the same could be said about the northside. All that money spent to rebuild Alexander st. most is because of the under used new LA ave. that has no stores or anything near I-10. most is for the subdivisions in the area and for the rich folks of Terulings High. so get off your high horse about just the south side.

My point is that both the north and south have issues about TRAFFIC. If the silly council would just realize that this is a small parish with lots of citizens the would just try and come up with a way to devert traffic by investing into a LOOP or something to help the 2 lane roads get to a 4 lane road.

This is not a NORTH OR SOUTH problem it is a LAFAYETTE problem

[guest]

I have no problem with a local tax to support roads as long as my state tax is decreased by the amount of the local tax, i.e, it is expense neutral to me.

[citizen]

I oppose any and all tax increases. Hope you all realize that at almost 10% sales tax now, every time we buy 10 "anythings", we buy our local government 1 of those "anythings". We have supplied our government with far too many "anythings". I wonder what has happened to all those "anythings" we have given to this government in the past? How many more "anythings" does our government want from us?

[yeoj]

Please sell LUS for $500,000,000 to SLEMCO, whose rates are 20% cheaper than our government owned utility. Build all the roads, we will ever need and Slemco will pay yearly taxes to maintain our roads and public buildings.

[Irate]

To all who say we should raise taxes I ask this, how much more of your money do you want to give to this government to spend the way this government deems necessary? Where was all that "other" money spent? Has this administration done anything to curtail spending? Has this admin reduced government employment(like the private sector has) to reduce our taxes? How many fees and tax rates has this admin raised? It's like this admin has just come out of a coma of two years and awakened to the real problems in our community. This admin has wasted two years on silly frivilous pursuits and now sees itself mired in so many issues it boggles the mind. If the governments are already taking almost 50% of our money just where does it stop? Do some of you want the government to take what 60% 70% of our money?

[zoe10850]

when one adds up all of the taxes paid at every level..IRS, La Dept of Revenue, state sales tax, local sales tax, excise taxes,property taxes, and then the "taxes"assessed through things like traffic fines, service fees at every public agency, accident report fees, use fees etc. and then look at the quality of government service we have at every level, well, what can you say.............vote the B......s out. new faces are needed, and not people who are more concerned about getting re-elected than in doing the job they are elected to do....they are not elected to go to New York or Haweii.........

[zoe10850]

Did anyone read the Advertiser today (Saturday-25th)? There was a letter to the editor saying how much foresight was shown by our past leaders who built all of these four lane roads, and left /right turn lanes, built the Cajundome etc etc, and that we are lucky to have such an altruistic mayor and council.

Well watcha think about that. There are some true believers out there. I like a positive attitude. I wonder if people like him are even slightly aware of what is going on around them, or do they just peek from behind a tree every so often ? He says we should give more taxes to this administration and council. Hmmmm, hours to decide if Roberts Rules of Order will be used.

I believe that the bulk of 4-lane roads were proposed by the late Kenny Bowen over 20 years ago(including Camellia). I do not think adding one bridge every 30-40 years is going to help traffic.

I for one am not particularly proud of the CajunDome, a $50+million dollar building that was constructed without the slightest clue what to do with it once built (note the numerous studies to figure out how to use building), the addition of a convention center as an afterthought, putting a motel there now, several years after the convention center was built, and then, on the wrong side for ready access to center.....whose architects were those anyway? Does anyone know how many domed stadiums were built for NFL teams that cost less than our CajunDome ? I think a nice stadium would have been more useful, could still play basketball/hockey/whateverand would help ULL recruit quality football players. That would have been a wise use of $50 mil

Back to my original point; taxes for roads. I do not see the wisdom in the current administration for planning. I know roads cannot be built overnight, however, one can move traffic better with simple changes; NO LEFT TURNS on streets with no turning lane during peak hours (read Pinhook, University, W Congress,V School Rd). timed lights to allow one to drive, say 35 mph, and not catch a red light on major streets. use police/deputies (not cameras) to target redlight runners, intersection blockers and quit worrying about generating money from people driving 45 in a 35 - that is not the problem, and only serves to feed our wasteful "city court syatem" (again, why have a city court ?)

[TBEAR]

Sounds like whoever David C. Henry is, he is living in a fantasy world and probably walks to work.

[citizen]

LOL I read that letter. Too bad this administration has been in a coma for the last few years, and had no clue as to what the real and pressing problems are in our parish. If you have time, go back and review all the not so wonderful things this group has accomplished. One of the first major decision this admin made was to take $200,000.00 from the police department ( money was supposed to buy additional police cars) and gave it to the "arts". Remember the fiasco about "flu shots" and who got them? Hey and the "letter writer" says he/she/it hints that our property taxes should be raised, heck, the admin just raised our tax rate to fund the LITE center. Raise my taxes? Hell No! Abolish this comatose consolidated government NOW!