The City of Lafayette today filed a judicial demand against the City of Broussard to invalidate a recent annexation ordinance of the Broussard City Council. Broussard’s ordinance attempted to annex into the municipal limits of the City of Broussard a parcel of land measuring in dimension fifty feet by fifty feet which is not contiguous to the existing territorial limits of the City of Broussard. The challenged ordinance was adopted by the Broussard City Council at a special meeting held on Memorial Day, May 31, 2010.
On May 25, 2010, Broussard filed a suit against the City of Lafayette challenging an ordinance adopted by the Lafayette City-Parish Council which annexed the city-owned golf course (Vieux Chenes) and other city-owned property (Fabacher Park) into the City of Lafayette. In that challenge, Broussard contended that certain legal publications had not been accomplished as required by law. Lafayette’s position was that its original publication was fully in accord with applicable law. However, rather than fight a lengthy, expensive legal battle, it was deemed both prudent and cost-effective to merely repeal the original ordinance and re-adopt a separate ordinance annexing these properties. That new ordinance annexing the city owned Vieux Chenes Golf Course and Fabacher Park was adopted by the Lafayette City-Parish Council on Tuesday, June 1, 2010.
In Lafayette’s judicial demand challenging the recent annexation by Broussard, it is asserted that the annexation ordinance was adopted on a date which is earlier than allowed by Louisiana law. Louisiana law clearly states that, “No ordinance enlarging the boundaries of the municipality shall be adopted until ten days after the publication of the notice.” In this case, the publication was had on May 21st such that June 1st is the first legal day when the annexation could have been lawfully adopted. Adopting an ordinance on May 31 (a legal holiday), after a publication on May 21, does not satisfy applicable law which explicitly requires ten full days to pass after publication.
Additionally, the challenge contends that the purported annexation is unreasonable. Among other reasons, the challenge points out that the property purported to be annexed by Broussard is separated from the existing municipal boundaries of Broussard by over a half mile. The stated reason to annex the non-contiguous parcel of land is to install a sewer lift station, but Broussard has no existing sewer facilities in the vicinity of such parcel of land, and moreover, has no legal right to extend services of that type outside of its municipal boundaries.
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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