The Current

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Bertrand Drive business owners and local residents lined up Tuesday night to urge the administration and Lafayette City ...
06/18/2026

Bertrand Drive business owners and local residents lined up Tuesday night to urge the administration and Lafayette City Council to delay the Bertrand Drive Revitalization project — some asking to scrap it altogether and redirect the funding.
“Is it a critical project? No,” said Mayor President Monique Boulet. “If the community doesn’t want it, we can move forward.”

While the administration has been touting the Bertrand Drive project as a proof-of-concept for a future revitalization of Johnston Street, Boulet now appears open to alternatives to LCG’s original plan for the roadway.

Potentially on the table is scrapping much of the project or phasing it so the Bertrand intersections are improved first; that approach would leave most of the roadway untouched while the public weighs in on the design.

“We can do the big intersections and leave you as is,” Boulet told business owners in the room. “I’m not going to force it.”

While Phase 1 of the project has already started, moving utilities and telecom lines off the roadway, Boulet committed to delaying any work directly involving the roadway until public meetings can be held to determine a compromise that works for businesses.

In that scenario, work on moving utilities would proceed, but the redesign of the roadway would be mostly halted.

Boulet even proposed a phased project for road improvements where the redesign of intersections at Johnston Street and North College Road could start while postponing work on the contested stretch of Bertrand between them.

Several council members were also behind delaying the project, with Councilman Andy Naquin saying, “I’m glad to know we have options.”

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/im-not-going-to-force-it-boulet-signals-willingness-to-rework-bertrand-drive-plan/

Houston River Road in Westlake is a study in contrast. On one side of the road, giant rusted ground flares and smoke sta...
06/16/2026

Houston River Road in Westlake is a study in contrast. On one side of the road, giant rusted ground flares and smoke stacks loom. A nearby neighborhood street, now mostly owned by a chemical company, is almost entirely empty of homes and nature has taken over. In the midst of it all, a few houses and trailers remain.

Entergy Louisiana has proposed to add onto the existing industrial footprint by constructing a new natural gas-fired power station on undeveloped land near its existing Westlake site. If approved, its generators would add 750 megawatts of capacity, enough to power approximately 250,000 homes.

But some residents say the area is already overburdened by industry and question who the plant is really serving.

Westlake resident Amy Richard lives less than a quarter of a mile from the proposed project site. She’s one of the few residents left after South African energy and chemical company Sasol bought out their neighbors across the street for its plant.

After reviewing a map submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers that included the location of laydown yards for construction, Richard grew concerned. “That’s about 450 feet from my door. That’s scary,” she said at a recent permit hearing at Westlake City Hall. “The steam releases, the noise, the vibrations, all of that, it’s just too much for someone to live next to.”

Louisiana’s Gulf coast is one of the country’s most densely industrialized regions, primarily because of the petrochemical industry.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/westlake-neighbors-voice-concerns-over-new-power-station/

06/15/2026

A free virtual forum from Deep South Today, sponsored by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, focused on the latest KIDS COUNT data and what it reveals about child well-being across Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Join us for a regional conversation moderated by Adam Ganucheau, executive editor and chief content officer of Deep South Today, featuring Leslie Boissiere of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Keesa Smith-Brantley of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, Dr. Ashley Parker Sheils of the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi and Teresa Falgoust of Agenda for Children.

The conversation will explore what the data shows, what families are experiencing on the ground and what communities should be paying attention to next.

Lafayette is a community of problem solvers. Here at The Current, we call these often unsung heroes, Wavemakers. And we ...
06/15/2026

Lafayette is a community of problem solvers. Here at The Current, we call these often unsung heroes, Wavemakers. And we celebrate them each year with the Undercurrent Awards.
This year, we’re teaming up with David Begnaud and the Do Good Crew to find Acadiana’s best unsung heroes and tell their stories.

We’re looking for our sixth class of Wavemakers: People who demonstrate selflessness in their work or service, creativity in problem solving, a passion for our community and a vision for its future.

They can come from any sector — health, education, business, public service, nonprofits, communities of faith, etc. — and contribute at any scale, big or small.

Do you know someone making a difference? Nominate them for an Undercurrent Award. The deadline is July 15.

thecurrentla.com/2026/undercurrent-nominations-2026/

In a make-or-break vote last night, the Lafayette Parish School Board sealed Ovey Comeaux High School’s fate.After month...
06/12/2026

In a make-or-break vote last night, the Lafayette Parish School Board sealed Ovey Comeaux High School’s fate.

After months of turmoil for students and staff, the school was closed in a 5-4 vote and will be repurposed as the district’s career center.

For many supporters of the school, the decision merely formalized a decline they say began years ago through enrollment shifts and attendance-zone changes that steadily dwindled Comeaux’s student population.

District 5 School Board Member Britt Latiolais acknowledged as much last night.

“Ten years ago, I said it,” Latiolais commented at Thursday’s regular meeting ahead of the vote, which followed months of controversy and community outcry that included a court challenge to an earlier March vote to close the school. “With the way the zones were structured, Comeaux was dead.”

Many have pointed to a district-wide rezoning plan implemented in 2017 as the beginning of Comeaux’s decline. The changes to its attendance boundaries and feeder pattern, combined with the opening of Southside High School that year, steadily eroded enrollment.

Latiolais joined Ted Davidson, Roddy Bergeron, Hannah Smith Mason and Kate Labue in voting to close the school. Opposed to the closure were Amy Trahan, Josh Edmond, Jeremy Hidalgo and David LeJeune, the latter reiterating his commitment to never vote to close a high-performing school.

Last year, the Louisiana Department of Education rated the school a B with a score of 89.6, a slight decrease from the A rating of 92.2 the year before.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/narrow-vote-closes-comeaux-as-school-board-fractures-deepen/

The gist: This week, Milton residents packed the town’s civic center to vent frustrations over traffic, drainage and gro...
06/11/2026

The gist: This week, Milton residents packed the town’s civic center to vent frustrations over traffic, drainage and growth. Many of those problems didn’t happen overnight: They are the result of years of unchecked development that outpaced the parish’s willingness to regulate growth and fund solutions. Now, LCG is scrambling to tackle them.

Monique Boulet’s administration is struggling to catch up. Parishes with similar populations, like St. Tammany and Ascension, imposed growth regulations years ago, after their rural areas experienced huge population booms following Hurricane Katrina.

Lafayette’s rural areas saw a similar boom over the last 15 years. But regulations did not follow.

“These questions should have been asked years and years ago,” Troy Hebert, a state representative from Milton, told the disgruntled room. “If you don’t plan ahead, issues pile up.”

Rural Lafayette has grown rapidly precisely because of this lack of regulation. Developers have the fewest hoops to jump through, allowing them to pack homes onto cheap land with little cost and strong returns.

Between 75,000 and 80,000 residents live in unincorporated Lafayette, making it the second largest population center behind the city of Lafayette itself.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/unincorporated-lafayette-is-grappling-with-years-of-unchecked-growth/

For years, Jessica Brown-Mason and her board at the Resilience Rise Community Collaborative have been working to support...
06/11/2026

For years, Jessica Brown-Mason and her board at the Resilience Rise Community Collaborative have been working to support residents of the Washington Heights neighborhood through advocacy, civic education, housing stability, and local youth empowerment.

And for years, they hoped to eventually be designated as an official coterie, so they could have access to funding opportunities, community leverage, direct recognition and a formal seat at the table.

Last week, that work finally paid off when the Lafayette City Council approved a resolution to establish the Washington Heights Community Coterie.

“It’s exhilarating. It feels really good after what, two and a half years in? At least — of really pushing hard,” says Jessica Brown-Mason, the chair of the Washington Heights Community Coterie. “It really feels good to be able to be recognized.”

Brown-Mason says now is the time to further educate residents on hyperlocal investment, problem-solving and productive engagement, which will be done through monthly meetings, information campaigns and surveys.

“One of our first initiatives that we really have been pushing is to ensure that people understand the policies and the practices around adjudicated properties and maintaining their properties,” says Brown-Mason.

Having a coterie allows for more direct communication and collaboration with the Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG), as well as external resource organizations like Extra Mile, to advocate for the neighborhood’s needs to be met — and help residents understand the processes for doing so themselves.

“We have to educate the neighborhood as to how you get a speed bump, who do you talk to to get a speed bump?” Brown-Mason says. “It’s not things that’s just going to happen quickly, there’s a process, and we have to teach our people that process.”

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/she-fought-years-for-representation-now-shes-getting-it/

Living sober in Lafayette requires several gears of thought, pulley systems, and spiritually and physically machinated m...
06/09/2026

Living sober in Lafayette requires several gears of thought, pulley systems, and spiritually and physically machinated mentalities. It can be a tug-of-war at times — shifts in feelings, relying on your gut, improvisation, routine and spontaneity.

When I say sober, I mean the unnatural way — like, living sober because of addiction, and for me specifically, alcohol.
Do I possess ethos? I don’t know. But for context, I checked into Victory Addiction Recovery Center for 35 days in September of 2018. This comes after a spiraling life, fallen deep into depression and darkness — lost in who I once identified as before the magnitude of alcohol overwhelmed my life.

It should be noted that I didn’t check in to Victory on my own accord — I was still in denial. I shouldn’t be here right now. I shouldn’t be around. I don’t know how I am still here. Grace.
Two close friends and former colleagues took me to rehab, and since then I’ve been sober for over seven years. One day at a time.

I’m often asked by people who know my story if I can still go out to bars to share time with friends. It’s a question that represents a certain culture, and my response is usually, “I can, but I don’t want to” or “why would I want to?”

While I can’t speak for those who are living in the same way as me for the same reasons, especially here in Lafayette — as living in recovery is truly an individual experience — I’ve found ways to find peace in living sober in a town and culture where alcohol plays a significant role in our lives. When I left Victory, I mainly kept myself limited in where I went —Barnes & Noble and Starbucks, and that was it, and then the occasional lunch with a couple of friends.

When I drank, I didn’t drink because I wanted to hang out with friends or be social. I went out for one reason and one reason only: to escape my reality through alcohol. For those who are in the same situation, we call it an allergy, in the sense that our body and mind react differently than those who can drink and stop themselves.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/its-not-easy-living-sober-in-lafayette/

Days after most Louisiana university students left campus for the summer, schools across the state began posting the Ten...
06/08/2026

Days after most Louisiana university students left campus for the summer, schools across the state began posting the Ten Commandments in vacant classrooms.

The posters, donated by the conservative organization Louisiana Family Forum, have been posted in classrooms across the entire LSU System, the Louisiana Community and Technical College System and at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. A spokeswoman for the Southern University System has not yet responded to a request for comment sent Wednesday as to whether they have been posted in their classrooms.

University of Louisiana System spokeswoman Katie Dawson said all of their campuses have received the posters and would have them posted by the beginning of the fall semester at the latest.

Gene Mills, president of Louisiana Family Forum, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Louisiana lawmakers passed a law in 2024 requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in every K-12, college and university classroom at schools that accept state money. The law was mired in a legal battle until earlier this year, when the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it could go into effect.
Though the law requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms, it has no enforcement mechanism or penalties for schools or teachers that do not comply.

The statue requires a specific version of the Ten Commandments, one that’s popular among evangelical denominations, to be printed on 11-by-14-inch posters, at minimum, and up to 18-by-24-inches to ensure readability, according to guidance from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. The posters should only be put up if they are donated or privately funded, according to her guidance.

LSU System President Wade Rousse embraced the posters in comments to the media earlier this year.

“Personally, I think shining a light on God is never a negative thing, but that’s just a personal statement of mine,” Rousse said in February. “We’re going to move as quickly as we need to to stay in compliance with the law.”

Louisiana’s public K-12 schools received donated posters from the Louisiana Family Forum earlier this year, The Advocate reported.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has filed suit against the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury and o...
06/05/2026

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has filed suit against the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury and others for damages in excess of millions of dollars after a contractor allegedly connected a sewage line to DOTD’s drinking water supply.

DOTD alleges it has incurred more than $4 million in costs associated with investigating, remediating and restoring their water supply from the “bacterial contamination.”

Filed on May 5, the lawsuit alleges the third party contractor hired by the Police Jury entered onto DOTD’s property without authorization and connected a sewer discharge line to the potable water supply line at its District 7 headquarters on Highway 90 in Lake Charles, while working on a sewer expansion project for the Police Jury and Calcasieu Sewage District 11 on June 21, 2023.

The lawsuit lists the Police Jury, Sewage District No. 11 of Wards 3 & 5, Calcasieu Parish Waterworks District #5, R. Morehead Construction and multiple insurance companies as defendants.

DOTD employees avoided drinking water from inside the facility up to seven months after the contamination incident, according to previous reports.

The suit also alleges that DOTD was not aware of the mistaken connection and subsequent bacterial contamination until July 21 of that year, over four weeks later.

The Police Jury went into executive session during their May 21 regular meeting to discuss the suit but declined a request for comment on the allegations, citing the pending suit.
Representatives for DOTD did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Public records indicate that the case is pending in the 14th Judicial District Court.

https://thecurrentla.com/2026/dotd-sues-calcasieu-parish-police-jury-following-sewer-contamination/

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