The Lafayette Parish Council of Governments is still hoping to address the red hot issue of annexation, but first it has to succeed in getting all parties to the table. The Lafayette Parish Council of Governments is still hoping to address the red hot issue of annexation, but first it has to succeed in getting all parties to the table. The inter-governmental body comprises the mayors of Lafayette's six incorporated municipalities and meets irregularly to discuss cooperative efforts and issues affecting the entire parish. Recently, COG Chairman Jay Castille made it clear that he'd like the council to lay down a blueprint for annexation in the parish to avoid the kind of contentious in-fighting currently going on between Broussard, Youngsville and Lafayette, all of whom are trying to lay claim to the lucrative yet-to-be-developed commercial corridor along Ambassador Caffery South.
Castille hoped to address the issue at an April COG last meeting, but neither Lafayette's nor Broussard's mayors were in attendence. Castille says annexation will be back on the agenda in May and hopes to see the municipalities put aside their differences. "We don't want to tell each city how to annex," he says, "but we just want to be able to find a better way to grow with each of the little cities and Lafayette and not have these controversies pop up," Castille says. I'm just trying to get them all to the table so we can start talking about it and stop the bickering and all the stuff that's going on. I'm also going to work on some type of goal for all six cities to work towards to try to help each other instead of fighting each other. [I'm] trying to mend some old wounds, some old fences."