INDReporter

Langlinais proposes annexation deadline

by Nathan Stubbs

Broussard Mayor Charlie Langlinais went before the Lafayette Charter Commission last night to float a parishwide annexation plan. Broussard Mayor Charlie Langlinais went before the Lafayette Charter Commission last night to float a parishwide annexation plan. Langlinais says that the problem with the way consolidated government works today is that property-tax rich areas like the city of Lafayette and the city of Broussard are subsidizing the more rural areas with little tax base. One means of addressing the issue would be to force everyone in the parish into a municipality where they would have to pay city and parish taxes. Such a plan would also address the battles that go on between municipalities to annex tax-rich commercial districts.

Langlinais suggested that a deadline be set and an election be held for all residents in the unincorporated areas to voice which municipality they would like to be a part of (the details and logistics of how such an election would work would still need to be worked out). Langlinais also proposed that any area that doesn't vote to join a municipality be forced into the city of Lafayette.

"That's the only way you can make this issue go away," he says. "What happens to the people that don't want to be incorporated? You gotta force their hand someway or somehow. That's why I'm saying they have to have a deadline. That's the only way you can clean it up. In other word what you're doing is you really are voting for a de-consolidation where in the end everyone will be in a smaller municipality or the city of Lafayette."