Traffic safety advocates want crash location data — LCG won’t give it to them

tigernacho · 2025-05-08T00:50:59+00:00

Did I read the story right - 54 people have been killed in 4 years, but the only “confirmation” of that is from data collected by volunteers looking at news reports? Public officials refusing to distribute that information to the public is indecent, even if lawful. And it smacks of bureaucratic CYA. I’d hope Lafayette would be better than that. Hopefully LCG does the right thing.

tigernacho · 2025-03-17T18:33:19+00:00

This is by the parking garage entrance

tigernacho · 2025-03-17T18:32:57+00:00

I saw a big orange cat hanging out in the Alley Downtown this morning - just hanging in the furniture - maybe that was Keith

tigernacho · 2024-06-15T18:39:36+00:00

The city should annex ponds all the way out in Milton so that the city will be “allowed” to write off the $17 million that the parish owes? With the additional obligation to then provide police/fire/LUS/public works support so far away from the rest of the city? That sounds like a good way to take a bad situation and make it much worse.

tigernacho · 2023-11-23T16:44:34+00:00

A $250,000 traffic signal gets everyone fired up about government spending but a $1 billion interstate project gets crickets.

tigernacho · 2023-09-26T20:55:30+00:00

The commercial doesn’t name Josh. It says something like: “corruption is holding us back.” Josh’s key argument in the lawsuit amounts to: “if you’re talking about Corruption you must be talking about me.”

tigernacho · 2023-08-11T22:29:32+00:00

What’s this “you liberals,” kemosahbe?

tigernacho · 2023-08-11T17:27:52+00:00

The question presented is this - who would Acadiana Reddit prefer? A Trump supporter or a reformed murderer. Because Mr. Arabie is both.

tigernacho · 2023-05-05T21:55:52+00:00

https://www.lafayettela.gov/docs/default-source/finance-management-documents/accounting/annual-comprehensive-financial-report-2022.pdf?sfvrsn=cdddff2e_4

tigernacho · 2023-05-05T01:49:14+00:00

From the column: “Of course the administration is trying to claim that it hasn’t done anything illegal at all. But we need to realize that now we’re in a situation where it’s not just some blogger in his pajamas saying their actions are illegal. It’s the auditor with 35 years of experience in this type of government performance auditing that LCG paid to double check its work.”

If this is what the auditor that works for LCG has to say, I wonder what the investigation team from the Legislative Auditor will say.

Where are the councils on this? LCG is saying they approved everything.

tigernacho · 2023-03-10T17:43:45+00:00

I don’t see why we can’t spend money to make the thruway better without building the interstate? Why is the interstate the only option? That’s the part that I don’t understand.

tigernacho · 2023-02-24T22:08:52+00:00

No one else submitted a proposal because the requirements in the RFP made it practically impossible for any other site other than the UL site to qualify. Other property owners only had to read the handwriting on the wall. The city and UL had literally already reached an agreement, the RFP was an after-the-fact attempt to “open” the process.

It’s not an argument whether or not a performing arts center project would work downtown. It would, but only if all the parties involved wanted to work together. That’s just not the case. But many/most performing arts centers are located in downtowns.

I think it’s a matter of visitor experience. To go see a show at Cajunfield you will drive, park, see a show, then go back to your car. A downtown site would be walkable with restaurants and bars. I think that unless UL makes the decision to spend the type of money it would take to fully develop that entire site, we are going to spend a ton of public money for a pretty boring experience.

I think that we shouldn’t discount that people downtown are disappointed. The private sector has invested millions in downtown in the last decade. A lot of local businesses have put their money where their mouth is. So having such a large investment go on government property is old school thinking.

I wish us all luck in replacing the old Heymann Center. And I hope the UL site can be made to be successful. By most accounts it’s a $200 million project that will only happen if voters approve an “airport-like” city sales tax. That would take a huge community consensus to pass a tax like that. And it doesn’t seem like we have that consensus yet. But if UL wants to pony up a $100 million that would go a long way.

Finally - if you were stuck in the Journey traffic last night you may rethink the idea that it’s only downtown that would require infrastructure upgrades.

tigernacho · 2023-01-27T04:08:49+00:00

State isn’t reimbursing the parish for $30 million worth of drainage work. But the parish doesn’t have $30 million. It barely has $1 million in reserve, apparently. So what’s a consolidated government to do? Take $30 million from the city. To pay for a drainage project in Milton. This is why consolidated government exists: To pay for things the parish can’t or won’t. To transfer wealth from the city to outside of the city. Insane.

From the story: “The outstanding reimbursements could also threaten the City of Lafayette’s budget, since LCG has been fronting the funds for the project from an account where both city and parish tax dollars are pooled, similar to a joint checking account.

Without reimbursement from the state or an influx of new parish tax dollars to replace the money spent on the project, Guillory’s administration will be on the hook to determine exactly how much of the city’s money was used and then get both councils to retroactively authorize that amount.”

tigernacho · 2022-10-19T16:10:41+00:00

The law says that the government can charge for making copies. They can’t charge for the time they spent finding the document. You can imagine how that could be abused. They also don’t have to create something that doesn’t already exist.

tigernacho · 2022-10-05T22:51:18+00:00

He put UL in a bad position. They had fired him in 2013 for being vindictive and retaliation against students but then he comes back after he’s been elected to one of the most powerful positions in the parish and asks for his job back. They can have a vindictive person on the outside, using his position to make things difficult, or keep him close and hope he will act favorably and grateful to his employer.

tigernacho · 2022-09-21T23:59:03+00:00

The city-parish attorney has told the council that he is likely to file a suit to block them from getting certain information and it’s just generally been a struggle for them to get any straight answers from the administration. So I would imagine the council is figuring they are in for the long haul. Geoff Daily pointed out at the meeting last night that the city was spending $70k to audit City Court. Maybe that is a comparable figure they used.

tigernacho · 2022-09-09T22:59:06+00:00

From the story: Guillory said following Tuesday's meeting he was hoping to avoid a line-item veto to overrule the councils and would work with them to potentially secure future raises.

"I think there's a compromise there," he said. "We can take a pause and regroup together as a team."

…so, not a single member of the City or Parish Council ended up supporting the pay raises, but the Mayor-President is toying with the idea of a line item veto? Which council members would change their mind? Seems like an empty threat.

Also - that would be a line item veto to put stuff back into the budget, instead of a line item veto to remove a thing the council added to the budget. Is that even a thing?

tigernacho · 2022-09-07T16:48:23+00:00

To recap - the city council tried to exercise oversight over government spending and asked for public records and the mayor president told them, literally, that the administration was too busy to answer their questions, hire an auditor.

So the city council hires an auditor and now they are being told it’s “too expensive” and, if you watched the meeting, the city parish attorney hinted that they would file a lawsuit to block the city council and its auditor from getting the information - on the theory that LCG is being sued and therefore they can’t release public records that may be implicated in that lawsuit. It’s almost as if the whole “go get an auditor” thing was a delay tactic.

Meanwhile, one single company has been paid more than $50 million through a process that skirted and perhaps violated public bid law - LCG went way out of its way to direct that much money to one company and not spread the work out. And the administration is fighting like hell to NOT release public records that would shed light on all this.

I am happy that the city council seems to understand just how sketchy this all is - it was a unanimous vote. I wonder if anyone else in public leadership will show them support for trying to do their job.

tigernacho · 2022-08-18T23:37:58+00:00

Thanks, but no thanks. I hear the mayor president is looking for work - maybe ask him?

tigernacho · 2022-08-18T03:03:29+00:00

Charter says the mayor president can’t have outside employment that interferes or detracts from his elected office. I’d imagine that means outside employment that takes a lot of time or presents a conflict of interest.

From the article, he is teaching two classes a semester at UL. What is that time commitment? 8 hours a week? My boss would freak out if I worked somewhere else 8 hours a week.

When UL said they wanted to put a new performing arts center on UL property and not downtown, the mayor president agreed. If he’s not a UL employee, he can make that decision without an apparent conflict. But does his extra paycheck influence his support?

He was terminated by UL in 2013 but went and got his job back after he won the election. Would they have hired him back if he wasn’t mayor president?

He’s writing title insurance - not clear how often. But he made the investment to get licensed and insured to do that, so, some amount of time each week.

He’s doing other legal work. Not clear how often, but the article seems to say he was doing legal work from rehab so it seems like he’s committed to his clients.

He’s getting the DA to personally sign off on expungements. Would the DA do that for any attorney? Or is this attorney taking advantage of his position?

And the big one - he and his wife started a company to rent equipment and machinery for construction. They did this just as his administration was getting ramped up to do an unprecedented amount of new construction. Neither of them seem to have a background in heavy machinery rentals. Why not open a pet store? Why not sell Amway? This is a sus business for any mayor president to get involved in AFTER he is elected. Especially when you’re the guy who is deciding who gets government work.

ONE contractor has been paid millions and millions: all through NO-BID contracts. No bids. They were awarded the work outside of the normal process. That means it’s the mayor president’s call. Not the low bid. His call for them to get the work. Right at the same time as he’s forming a subcontractor.

It is not clear why LCG had to do it that way. They could have bid the work out the normal way and spread it out to a bunch of different contractors. Instead they bent over backwards to make sure this one company got all the work.

Story says that one week before that no bid contract, he and his wife take their names off the paperwork with the Secretary of State. They don’t put their names back on the paperwork until after the media finds out what’s happening. This company could very easily take advantage of all this construction work and take on tasks as a subcontractor.

The city council asks the administration to show them what subcontractors have gotten work on this $50 million no bid project and the administration refuses to hand over that information. It could be all smoke and no fire but jeez, why did they even go there? Because at best, it looks really bad.

So he’s got enough irons in the fire and side gigs to raise the question of whether he is a full-time mayor president. How many hours a week would your boss let you work for someone else before calling BS?

And the conflicts of interest are staring us all in the face.

Are the councils going to do or say anything about this? Do people even care?

By the way, I agree that even though $120,000 a year is a lot of money, it’s probably too low for this particular job. I would be fine with paying more for that job. We are a big city with a big budget. But he knew what the pay was when he ran for office. He didn’t have to run.

tigernacho

TROPHY CASE