The Louisiana Supreme Court, in a decision handed down Tuesday, ruled against Jeffrey and Sheila Persons. The couple has fought to regain the 2 percent of their property expropriated in 2010 by the Lafayette City-Parish Government to make way for the Settlers Trace extension.
Out of the four property owners affected by the project, which extended Settlers Trace Boulevard through Old Settlement Road and Homestead Way, only the Persons refused to sell, prompting LCG's expropriation.
When the matter first went to court in 2010, 15th Judicial District Judge John Trahan found LCG's expropriation to be within the bounds of the law. But the Persons appealed and successfully got Trahan's decision overturned late last year by a divided 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court's ruling Tuesday reverses the 3rd Circuit's decision.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court references testimony given during the district court trial by two LCG department heads: Public Works Director Tom Carroll and Traffic and Transportation Director Tony Tramel. Though the Persons claim no traffic or accident studies were conducted by the two LCG officials, the Supreme Court's decision notes that both Carroll and Tramel are experts in their respective fields, and therefore credible witnesses.
"(T)he testimony of Mr. Trammel [sic] and Mr. Carroll was supported by objective evidence of traffic flow problems in the area, including evidence that the residents hired a security officer to direct traffic to help residents exit the subdivision," the decision states. "These experts testified the expropriation would allow for additional ingress/egress into the subdivision, which would improve traffic flow and public safety, provide residents with access to a signalized intersection, and provide more options for … emergency vehicles."
Click here for the 3rd Circuit's opinion, and view Tuesday's Supreme Court decision here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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