Is Lafayette’s Consolidation Flawed + Heightened Security – Wingin’ It Wednesday

On this week's edition of "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Mike Stagg, Carol Ross, and Warren Caudle joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss flaws of consolidated government in Lafayette as well as the raised terror threat to the USA.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. Once again last night the Lafayette City-Parish Council took up the question of changes to the Home Rule Charter that would give residents of the City of Lafayette a stronger voice.  Why do you think this issue keeps coming up?

Mike Stagg started us off:

I go back to the startling findings sometime after the defeat of the deconsolidaton vote in 2011 that the city of Lafayette tax payers have been getting ripped off since the start of consolidated government. That was a central issue in that com pain and I believe the defeat of deconsolidation at that time was a fraudulent outcome because we were denied access of accurate information about the actually circumstances of the relationship that exists between city and parish at that time.
Something is fundamentally wrong and people of Lafayette continue to be treated as second class citizens in Lafayette Parish. We don't have anyone in Lafayette who's soul purpose is improving the city of Lafayette.
Lafayette needs to be allowed to be Lafayette, and the only way to do that is to deconsolidate.

Warren Caudle added:

There is something that's fundamentally flawed. What we have is another example where government creates a problem, then they turn around and blame the problem on everyone else.
You hear this stuff all the time about the city vs the parish. Show me one square inch of the city of Lafayette that isn't in Lafayette Parish. We need to sit down with the budget and say how much money does the parish need and where's it going to come from?

Carol Ross concluded:

The issue keeps coming up because it's a fundamental question of fairness that has become woefully apparent over the years. No one wants to set up a whole 'nother bureaucracy. That's exactly what this Fair and Focussed plan would be. It's a start, it's not perfect. We are a small parish, that is true, but every other small municipality in this parish has full autonomy of the territory within it's boundaries. That's not the case within the city of Lafayette.
There are some subtext going on here, but the thing I cannot understand is why Andy Naquin, the one councilman who's entire constituents are inside the city, would vote against autonomy within the city of Lafayette. Do you not think they would vote to have control over their tax dollars?

2. With a heightened security threat from Al Quida the US government recently closed 19 facilities across Africa and the Mid-East.  Do you think this shows a sign of weakness on our part?

Warren commented:

I heard them say they closed the embassies to protect the embassy employees and those American citizens traveling abroad. How does that help protect people traveling abroad? How many people traveling abroad go to the embassy? This whole convoluted thing with the scare tactics and fighting the "global war on terror". I just have a fundamental disagreement with whole thing, and I think about 80% of the stuff that comes out of it is bogus. Charles Boustany said last night that he's basically in support of NSA spying deal because during classified briefings they were told been told there's been 54 terrorist attacks thwarted because of the NSA spying deal. I don't believe that for a minute. I believe he was told that, but I also know the NSA, FBI, CIA; all of them will lie to you to get the money. All of us that have lived through Vietnam and Desert Storm and Desert Shield, we know that so much of the national intelligence assessment is a product of fiction.

Carol responded:

I don't know if it's a sign of weakness or schizophrenia because remember, the President has famously gone around saying we've killed Bin Laden and Al Qaeda is on the run. Al Queda is like the multi headed hydra, they have cells all over the place. When one calms down the other rears it's ugly head. It's really difficult to deal with these people, the president seems to be stuck on stupid with this particular issue. He says Al Qaeda is dead when it clearly is not. He says Al Qaeda is on the run when it's beginning to look like the USA is on the run.
In terms of Congressman Boustany, I give him high marks for enduring some insufferable people last night, most people were okay, but there were a couple that just couldn't let it go. He gave the best information he had and he could give.
In terms of NSA spying, for years they've been saying the homegrown terrorist are the ones we're most concerned about.

Mike surmised:

I think what we're doing is making sure congress does not in any way limit the NSA information gathering. The House almost voted to put restrictions on the NSA dragnet a few weeks ago and I think that is was this is about.
The only people we're keeping secrets from are the American people. When you have State secrets, the only people who don't know what's going on is us. I think this is about domestic politics. The NSA have manufactured this.
I think the NSA and the intelligence committee is running scared, thinking restrictions will be put on them. That's what this is about and it's unfortunate.

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.