- Lafayette City Council met for the last time before the next Mayor-President Monique Blanco-Boulet transition.
- On the agenda was an ordinance to take out funds from two current projects to put towards theLake Farm Road Detention Project.
- The transfer of funds from both the Spot Dredging Vermilion and the Downtown Drainage Project would be $730,259 and $2,259,74.
On the agenda was an ordinance to move funds from two current projects, the Spot Dredging Vermilion and Project Lake Farm Road Detention Project.
The amount taken from both projects would put money towards the Lake Farm Detention Project.
The project was challenged back in 2021 by a Lafayette family that claimed LCG had illegally seized their land to build a detention pond.
KATC spoke with Director of Public Works, Chad Nepveaux about what the passing of the ordinance could mean moving forward.
"Basically reallocate funding from two existing drainage projects to a single project that is under funded and has recently due to some legal activity, it's needing additional funding to satisfy a negotiated land purchase," he says.
The council passed the transfer of the funds, which equals out to $2,990,000 dollars saying it's necessary.
"We were informed at the last meeting that these funds are no longer needed based on where we are with addressing the drainage issue in the downtown area and also the dredging of the Vermilion. These funds are no longer needed for those respected projects," says Councilman Glenn Lazard.
Councilwoman Liz Hebert says the transfer is too late and could affect the ongoing projects.
"I proposed a deferral for the first meeting of the year to get public works some time to find some additional funding that does not pull from dredged Vermilion or spot dredging the Vermilion," says Councilwoman Liz Hebert. "We all been talking about since 2016. That we need to dredge the Vermilion, not just those who live along the river but for all of us because that's where all the water goes to. So we need to take care of dredging the Vermilion, we don't need to be pulling money."
Nepveaux tells KATC and council members that the movement of funds will not affect the current two projects for moving forward and being completed.
