To help alleviate traffic congestion and improve traffic flow in Lafayette I would recommend that the City/Parish construct more “right turn” lanes at all the major intersections where traffic lights cause traffic to back up. We also need to construct more “turn arounds” around the City/Parish. This would allow the traffic to continue to move in a safe manner. I would not support the Johnston St. redesign until all the property owners agree to this program after all it is their property and they would have to bear the cost of the redesign. 

Public transportation continues to decline so we must consider using smaller buses and redesign where and how often these buses run.

We can improve traffic flow in Lafayette and Lafayette Parish with in stallions of properly design Round-About. With the installion of the Round-About on Ridge Road and Rue De Belliar that has had such great success we need to consider this low cost, proven to work and safety oriented way of moving traffic.

No I do not support the Johnson Street redesign. I do not support it for the reason of funding. The cost will be initially too much to make this project happen. But  I do support A Smart Growth plan that will make sure our future business districts will not end up looking like Johnston Street.

My vision for Public transportation in Lafayette Parish is we need to be able a provide  public transportation to all low income and subsidized housing even though they are  located in the parish of Lafayette. We also need to make use of Toll Roads that would run on the outer parts of Lafayette Parish .

The State required the (LINC) program so they should pay for it.

“Smart Growth” has become a slogan and an object of political propaganda, which could be used to mean just about anything a person wants it to mean. TO ME, “Smart Growth" for Lafayette would be a development of a ten (10) year and twenty (20) year growth plan where you define all areas of the parish as to where and how the parish would be developed.

With this type of planning the parish could build the roads first and the developers could develop their land and not have to worry about any impact fees and extra government cost.

To improve blighted areas the first thing that has to happen is that the people must want to clean up their own property, than you could get help for them.

Yes I will support the LINC Comprehensive Plan for the Parish. It is very important that  we maintain a comprehensive plain that will include the growth and outlook of the City and Parish of Lafayette together in one plan.

Smart Growth means to me that we can grow our business and residential communities in a more controlled and resourceful manner. Smart Growth also is very important for the growth of rural Lafayette Parish. In many ways it can work as a Land -Use Proposer so as these areas grow we can assist in helping then grow a coordinated manner.

Drainage problems could be solved by using the drainage taxes for drainage projects. This is another area where consolidated government is not working.

All drainage projects should be part of a master parish drainage system and not broken up into parish and city projects. One branch of government should receive all the drainage taxes and perform all drainage work.

We must support every effort to stay in an expansion cycle as long as possible. Over taxation and excessive fees and ridiculous requirement put on the back of business is the primary reason for ending a prosperity cycle and issuing in a recession cycle.

The developers pay more than their share when they have to pay for the Property, then install and pay for all subsurface drainage, water lines, sewage lines, man holes, lift stations, communication lines and roads located within their development.

The drainage conditions for new subdivisions and new construction should be maintained and improved by using retention systems. First and foremost we must change our policy for planning and plat approval for new subdivisions in Lafayette Parish.  No impact fees that would only create a special tax that just some people would have to pay.

We have many existing parks that are not being used and/or being used very little, so we should look very closely before we commit limited funds to building more parks.

Most new developers have parks built-into their new development so that helps to keep parks in local neighborhoods.

The UL-Lafayette Horse Farm property should be purchased and turned into a Cajun culture park where we could have farm animals and farm related equipment so the people could get an idea of how farms were operated when Lafayette was a farming community.

Hazardous waste sites should be cleaned up by the State using the waste slush fund.

Public parks and green space are very important for the City and Parish of Lafayette.

I would like to see the UL Horse Farm Property be turned into a beautiful Central Park  for Lafayette.

I would support of the cleaning of hazardous wastes that lay in the City and Parish of Lafayette.

Communication for all emergency agencies during a disaster is handled through the sheriff department and the 911 emergency networks and should be left up to them to solve any problem they might have.

During an emergency evacuation of Lafayette, the City/Parish government could help out by providing city buses and other public works equipment to move people to safety.  We will not do like New Orleans and wait for the Feds to help us out, we are a community that helps one another out, not one that waits for the government to do it for us.

To insure timely communication between Lafayette citizens and emergency agencies during a power outage will be a very hard task. We can only equip our emergency personal with the best equipment and try to use local agencies to help communicate with our citizens.

The City of Lafayette can help evacuate its needy, elderly, nursing home and bed-bound  by using our public bus transportation system. We can also use our school board bus  system.

The existing hospitals and emergency care units in our area are among the best in the US and with Acadian Ambulance Service there is no reason a person on the North Side of the parish cannot get quick emergency medical assistance.  If a private medical group wants to build an emergency center on the North Side then they should do so but they should maintain and staff it, City/Parish government should stay out of it.

The Dr. King issue was and still is the most divisive issue ever brought up to this council. I would not have voted to even consider the issue. We already have one Martin Luther King Street we did not need another one and now they want a third one.  We are the only city in the SOUTH to have two Dr. King streets and we should have used the money it cost to change Willow St. to Dr. King Drive to resurface some of the streets. The lesson the City/Parish council should have learned is that the NAACP should memorialize Dr. King not the government.

Building a hospital and other medical care facilities are needed on the north side. We have to work in partinship with LEDA to assist us and our local governments to make this a reality.

The naming of Martin Luther King Dr. would have gone through our normal process. I would have recommend planning seek the 51% from the residents of Willow St. just like every other name change. If they could not reach the 51% then the proposed fails.

The lesson I will take from this is that we must stay professional at all times we cannot get so consumed with any item to were we loose our dignity.