With regard to “A Question of Leadership,” the article stated, in reference to council members, “They’re also listening to constituents with widely divergent priorities.” Regardless of the so called “inevitable tension” brought forth by the individual council members listening to their constituencies, that is exactly what any elected official is to do: listen to, as well as follow, the direction of the majority of the people who elected him or her. Unless I’m missing something here, that is what our form of representative government is all about.
Yes, this is a test of Joey Durel’s leadership skills and, thus far, he is more than up to the task. He has the support of a comfortable majority of the people of Lafayette Parish.
One unnamed former member of Lafayette government, who still deals with the council, decries term limits, the inexperience of the new members, and, as he put it, “a lack of continuity.” Anyone who is against term limits would seem to have either a questionable agenda or level of self confidence that is not needed in representative government. The newly elected council members will learn as they progress for they do not seem to be bridled by “good ‘ol boy” behaviors. That is why the public shook up the council and elected who they did when they did. Though experience can be a good thing, terms limits reduce significantly the complacency as well as the sense of entitlement and demagoguery that many elected officials without term limits fall into. That is why politicians are afraid to put term limits on a ballot, because the people will always approve them. The people of Lafayette Parish are intelligent, independent, and a very informed public. Their voice at the polls speaks loudly as evidenced by which proposed taxes pass and those that are resoundingly rejected.
Those unnamed sources are better off unnamed.