Lafayette Finalist For National Competition

Lafayette is in the running for a national contest that could win the city big bucks.

The city of Lafayette is currently competing in the "Mayors Challenge" put on by the Bloomberg Philanthropies organization.

The challenge, as described by the organizations website, is all about identifying a need, solving a problems, and sharing local knowledge so that other cities and citizens can benefit from the insight and actions of their peers.

305 cities applied for the contest and 20 finalist were selected. The finalists flew to New York recently to present their city's plan. Of the finalist, one winner will receive a grand prize of $5 million, and four addition cities will win $1 million to implement their plans.

City-Parish President Joey Durel described how big an honor it was for the city of Lafayette to be considered as a finalist for the national competition.

If you're in that elite a group and we win anything… just being in the top 20 is amazing.

Durel described the plan Lafayette submitted during his weekly "Lafayette Live" segment on "Mornings with Ken and Bernie".

We'd implement the plan that would develop gaming that would educate the community about anything from hurricane evacuation to getting involved with government commissions and boards and things like that.

The winner will be selected and announced sometime this spring.

To learn more about Bloomberg Philanthropy's Mayors Challenge, visit their website here.

To here City-Parish President Durel's full interview, click the play button below: