Local government ..........

[zoe10850]

Does anyone else find it strange that we voted on a "consolidated" government years ago, to save money as I recall, yet, with the exception of the parish council and city council, nothing was consolidated.

why do we need the Lafayette City Police? why do we need the "city court"? why do we need city limits at all in the smallest (geographic) parish in the state? Why do we have any municipalities at all (Broussard, Carencro, Lafayette, Scott, Youngsville) when each one has a council, each a police dept, each a kangaroo court system, all of which costs MILLIONS of dollars.

Metairie, is unincorporated, has substantially more land mass (90 miles from Metairie to Grand Isle) about 500,000 people, and is primarily run by parish council, so it can be done.

[Vent]

zoe10850 said:

.

why do we need the Lafayette City Police? why do we need the "city court"? why do we need city limits at all in the smallest (geographic) parish in the state? Why do we have any municipalities at all (Broussard, Carencro, Lafayette, Scott, Youngsville) when each one has a council, each a police dept, each a kangaroo court system, all of which costs MILLIONS of dollars.

Metairie, is unincorporated, has substantially more land mass (90 miles from Metairie to Grand Isle) about 500,000 people, and is primarily run by parish council, so it can be done.

You are sooooooo correct with this that it's scary!

[tiredofthetalk]

we haven't saved a dime. it was a ruse to get the deal done. half-baked. and not one politician has done a thing since then to finish the consolidation. they like it the way it is. meanwhile, roads are deplorable, we keep flooding, lafayette loses new tax base to small, inefficient communities, and we pay through the nose in taxes and service charges.

[percy]

There is a move underfoot to abolish the LCG and return to the City of Lafayette governed by their own home rule charter and the Parish of Lafayette governed by their own home rule charter.
That actually would be the charters that existed at the time of consolidation back in 1996. We all know that consolidation was a sham to save the parish ( Mr. Comeaux) from bankruptcy. But he was no stranger to that, anyway having done that himself. I think that the LCG is long overdue for an overhall. Remember Dural's campaign. Durel promised a charter commission within 6 months of taking office. Not only has there been no commission, he has not proposed a single amendment to the very flawed LCG charter. Promises , promises. Tell the public whatever they want to hear to get elected, the Sunday after the election, the public will forget everything.

[citizen]

Abolish the consolidated government. There hasn't been any reduction in spending. There has been no consolidation of departments. Spending is totally out of control and now the government wants to raise our taxes again. Tell the politicians enough is enough, we want our government back.

[zoe10850]

citizen said:

Abolish the consolidated government. There hasn't been any reduction in spending. There has been no consolidation of departments. Spending is totally out of control and now the government wants to raise our taxes again. Tell the politicians enough is enough, we want our government back.

[zoe10850]

I would go one step further, and abolish ALL municipal govt in the parish...no corporate boundaries, just like New Orleans did a long time ago.....why have so many municipal operations in such a small geographic area???we are wasting a lot of money on duplication...

Example: Sheriff has parishwide authority, and by law (State Constitution) is the chief law enforcement officer, yet we have 5 municipal police departments, a city marshall, and city or mayors courts....the city police alone cost over 12 million a year, add in city court and marshall, and you can save enough to build an overpass per year..........gotta start somewhere

[zoe10850]

well, when only 30-40% of the people vote for things, there is not much incentive for an elected official to honor anything.....the average person votes to maintain the status quo and the press simply regurgitates whatever they are told and accept w/o question....we need the Times Picayune in this neighborhood for an actual investigative free press...........

[TBEAR]

Your right, not enough people are voting, so the politicians only have to worry about a small percentage of who will vote. Too many people in Lafayette are passive and dont want to worry about voting or get involved until they need somehting, then all of a sudden they want to know why things are they way they are.

Also if you notice when the school board or other government entity wants something passed they stick it on an election date where they know alot of people will not turn out, then they get all their family and friends to go vote and get what they want passed with only about 12% of the voters voting.

[zoe10850]

you know, we are consolidated when it is convenient, but not all of the time...we did not vote on a city-parish, mayor-president form of government, but that is closest to what we have....if these guys want to save our money, and improve our quality of life, let us eliminate about 50 elected positions.

how much does a city judge ( and for some reason, we have more than one) make to sit and preside over traffic court (and a few misdemeanors) ? How much does it cost to fund a city marshal when we already have a sheriff who does the same thing ? what exactly does a city prosecuter do, if city court cannot handle felonies - traffic court ?

And now some smart ass wants to mount cameras so "our" city police do not actually have to do their job, just shoot a picture, and mail a tax bill, excuse me, a traffic citation.

Our utility system can subsidize cable tv (I know the court just ruled against that) but no one outside the "city" limits can have fiber. We still pay city property taxes, and pay parish government taxes as well......both go to the same place, is this not double taxation ?

Time to wake up and complain.

[citizen]

I find it amusing that Mr. Durel has the audacity NOW to ask for help from the citizens in solving problems of his own making. He said over and over that he was elected to make decisions, hard choices etc. when the fiber debate was raging, and he didn't need public input to make these choices. Interesting isn't it? So now he wants us sheeple to allow him to take more of our hard earned money and give it to him to spend as he sees fit? Abolish this useless consolidated government we now have. Vote NO to any further taxes or fees.

[percy]

Is not it curious that Joey’s campaign website, joeydurel.com is no longer available?

Perhaps, Joey does not want people to see what he campaigned on, what he promised to get elected verses what he is delivering.

[citizen]

Excellent find there Percy. That sure is interesting isn't it? I wish I had a copy of it myself. Anyone here still have it? Would be most interesting to read what promises he made vs. what he has done.

[TBEAR]

Thats very interesting.

[zoe10850]

what he has done ? I think the entire focus has been fiber to the home. a noble enterprise if all else is going well...We have constant problems with our police department; drug use, abuse of power, use of public property for private benefit, incompetence exposed at various levels, yet, not much is done....maybe this forum needs to serve as a "watchdog" and point out the problems that seem to be rife in our complacent community....

sell LUS, actually consolidate municipal governments with parish government, actually streamline and improve what we have...focus on what you are elected to do. why go out and look for more problems - a telephone company, a cable tv operation, more civil service grunts, when we cannot even address what we have now....uncontrolled development, horrible traffic problems, incompetent councilmen....need I say more?

[citizen]

I cannot disagree with anything you said Zoe. Too bad we can't get more folks on here to discuss these issues. The press is supposedly a watch dog on the government, but our local press seems to be asleep on the porch.

[percy]

Does Joey make this stuff up as he goes along or is he completely ignorant of the governmental and legislative processes of the local government that he heads?

He said on KPEL this morning (his weekly talk radio show) that 51% of the people on a street could change their street name without action of the council.

Of course, he has previously said on the show that the PSC sets our utility rates.

...... Come to think of it, I guess he does make it up as he stumbles along.

[zoe10850]

The tragedy is that we let this person lead us. Where do we go from here ? No doubt this will be re-elected by a majority of the 35-40% of voters who do vote, most who will pull the lever for anything with a republican moniker, regardless of whether or not the person is capable or qualified.

I would love to hear the Mayor-president's rationale of why the city needs to own LUS, when the utility could be sold to someone like SLEMCO, a company that shares its profits with customers and the money utilized for infrastructure in this city, not that we need any improvement or anything.

[citizen]

In our local government's zeal to establish a nice little collectivist society, I see that the present administration is preparing to use the obscene law of imminent domain to assure an out of town company's success in a venture on the corner of i-10 and i-49. Please read all of the articles in today's local paper to get the whole scoop. It clearly states that this current administration is prepared to seize privately owned property to give it to this out of state entity. Abolish this government! It is totally out of control. Remember this same admin just raised our propert taxes to help open the LITE center.

[TBEAR]

I know i saw this issue, it is ridiculous if they get away with it for all involved.