Lafayette Councils Approve Public Works Split

If I am making a guess, Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory's plan to improve city and parish services must be based on the tried and true theory of divide and conquer. At last night's meeting of the combined City and Parish Councils members of those boards unanimously agreed with Guillory's thoughts, at least as far as the Public Works Department is concerned.

Both councils, the City and Parish, voted unanimously to pass an ordinance that would split the existing public works department into three separate departments. Those departments would be public works, drainage and traffic, and roads and bridges.

Obviously just because the council has made its intentions known doesn't mean problems in these areas will be magically solved. First, Mayor-President Guillory has to sign the ordinance. Then comes the task of staffing and filling positions in each department.

On the surface, the idea certainly seems to have merit. Drainage was certainly an issue that took center stage in the recent elections in Lafayette. So, having a dedicated department to oversee drainage and traffic concerns certainly seems like a good plan.

Roads and bridges are certainly other sore subjects with the constituency that inhabits the city and parish as well. If I recall a simple bridge on a very nondescript road took several years and thousands of dollars to complete because the bridge now fell under the scrutiny of city codes and not parish codes.

There are a lot of bridges like that in Lafayette and the surrounding area that could certainly use the attention. There are also coulees and ditches that need to be looked after as well. Needless to say, dividing and conquering some of our biggest issues in the area might just be the right way to go.