Lafayette City Council Votes for Funding to Investigate Josh Guillory

Did Josh Guillory's administration do something wrong? Was there something inappropriate with the multiple drainage projects that have been completed? These are just some of the many questions that will be answered with an investigation.

Several times during "Lafayette Live" with Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory Thursday mornings on KPEL, he suggested that if the council had questions about the different drainage projects council members voted for they should investigate, and now they have voted for funding to do just that.

Several weeks back, council members Nanette Cook and Glenn Lazard created a list of 18 questions about various drainage projects and their funding. They discussed the list of questions at a council meeting. At that time, Guillory said LCG government did not have the time to answer these questions as they were in the middle of the budget process.

While answers were eventually given to the council via email over the weekend, members voted last night to approve $100,000 to fund an investigation into the projects and the funding.

During last night's meeting, Guillory had the following to say about the council voting for funding the investigation and audit,

I'm confident that you all have the capacity and capability to review this information without having to pay someone to read through it for you at great expense to our taxpayers. Now I know that every question that you asked is answered in great detail right now, so my hope is that we could avoid spending $100,000 in taxpayers' money to reproduce these exact same documents you have in your possession.

All of the drainage projects and their funding mechanisms that are in question were approved by the council members that have called for this audit.

The council has voted unanimously to go forward with the investigation. One council member Andy Naquin had the following to say,

We can agree with spending part of that $100,000 to review all of this paperwork to make sure that everything is in good shape, and I'm confident we'll prove that. I don't think we will have any issues, but we need to ensure that the public understands that we had a lot of feedback and emails and people wanting to get to the bottom of this paperwork.

As part of this investigation, citizens will likely be able to learn how beneficial each of the drainage projects is to our community. Are the results that each of these drainage projects extensive and beneficial enough to residents when it comes to drainage to prove that the money was spent wisely?

We will continue to follow this story.