INDReporter

New era begins for LCG

by Walter Pierce

Joel Robideaux and the new City-Parish Council were sworn in as Lafayette Parish’s top elected officials at a ceremony Monday afternoon at City Hall.

District 7 Councilwoman Nanette Cook takes the oath of office Monday from Clerk of Court Louis Perret.

Call him mayor-president.

Joel Robideaux was sworn in as Lafayette Parish’s top elected official at a ceremony Monday afternoon at City Hall. Also sworn in were the nine members of the City-Parish Council, five of them returning council members and four new members including, for the first time in the 20-year history of Lafayette Consolidated Government, a pair of women.

Clerk of Court Louis Perret administered the oath to Robideaux and to most of the council members, although two — Jared Bellard and Bruce Conque — had an appellate judge and a retired district judge, respectively, swear them in.

In remarks following his inauguration, Robideaux thanked the mayors of the five smaller towns in the parish for attending the event. “I think your presence shows the commitment that we’ve made to find solutions working together,” Robideaux said.

“I will make one promise as the elected mayor-president, and that’s that I do promise to listen and I promise to be very thoughtful in my decisions,” Robideaux added. “That’s how I’ve conducted my professional and personal life, and I’m going to continue to do that as mayor-president.”

The council and Lafayette Public Utility Authority — the subset of council members who represent mainly city districts and who are the governing authority for Lafayette Utilities System — will elect officers tomorrow at the beginning of the panel’s first regular meeting of 2016.