Council eyes camera contract

A Lafayette City-Parish councilman is questioning the validity of the contract with the company responsible for speed and red-light traffic cameras here after learning the city-parish administration renewed the contract this summer — without telling either the Council or the public — and without renegotiating the contract's terms.
District 9 Councilman William Theriot brought up the contract during a wrap-up budget hearing Tuesday.
Theriot said he was researching the budget proposed by City-Parish President Joey Durel when he began examining the Lafayette Consolidated Government's contract with Redflex Traffic Systems.
He said LCG's initial contract with Reflex stated the agreement would last for four years, starting in June 2007. He said he wasn't aware of any decision to renew or renegotiate the contract this past June.
"I am under the assumption we no longer have a contract with Redflex?" Theriot asked during the hearing.
Dee Stanley, who is LCG's chief administrative officer, told Theriot that Durel extended that contract this summer. He said Durel was able to do so as city-parish president without needing council approval.
Theriot asked Stanley and Durel if the contract was renegotiated in any way, to which Stanley replied he did not believe there were any changes.
Stanley noted that Theriot was not on the council when it approved the initial contract, and he said it was no secret that the contract had a renewal option.
"With a hot-button issue like this, I'm just very surprised that this did not come before the council," Theriot said.
Theriot said he interpreted the contract as saying it needs to be renewed by Lafayette Consolidate Government. He questioned how "LCG" is defined and if that definition includes only the city-parish president or if it also includes the council.
City-Parish Attorney Mike Hebert could not say definitively during the hearing if the city-parish president is able to renew that contract without the council's approval.
He said he would need to read the full contract before rendering an opinion and said he would define "LCG" in this context in response to Theriot's request.
"It's very typical that a contract that has a renewal option in it does not come back before the Council," Hebert said during the hearing. "We have numerous contracts of that type throughout the government, but I'm not prepared to give a definitive opinion now."
When The Daily Advertiser asked Hebert on Tuesday evening to notify the newspaper of his official opinion on the matter, he said LCG's "legal opinions are subject to attorney-client privilege and we typically cannot release them under our rules of ethics."
The Redflex issue arose during a discussion about amendments to Durel's proposed budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Durel's budget uses a significant amount of money collected from speed and red light cameras in order to cover operating costs and recurring expenses despite past thinking that those funds should be given to only traffic safety improvement projects.
Councilman Jay Castille, District 2, previously proposed an amendment to remove a bulk of the funds collected by traffic cameras from the Traffic and Transportation Department and give those funds to the Lafayette Police Department's traffic enforcers.
Castille wants to then refund, at the same amount, all of Durel's proposed funding for the Traffic and Transportation Department but instead use dollars from the general fund to cover those personnel and operation costs.
Theriot objected to that amendment both when Castille first proposed it in late August and again during Tuesday's hearing.
Durel repeatedly asked Theriot during Tuesday's hearing what his questions about the Reflex contract had to do with the tasks at hand that day.
"I think this is a good discussion to have, but it may be for another time," Durel said. "I don't see what this discussion has to do with the budget itself."
Theriot said the Council needs to know about the Redflex contract before deciding how to vote on Castille's amendment concerning Redflex fines being used to cover operating and personnel costs within the Traffic and Transportation Department.
"In my opinion, it does make a difference," Theriot told Durel.
Theriot, who appeared flabbergasted by Durel's renewal of the contract without alerting the Council, continued his back-and-forth with a visibly frustrated Durel.
"What would make you say 'yes,' [to the proposed amendment]" Durel asked Theriot.
"There is no answer that would cause me to support that," Theriot replied.
"That's what I thought," Durel concluded.
No other Council members joined the discussion between Theriot, Durel, Stanley and Hebert as they examined the contract's validity.
Several LCG officials were unable to provide The Daily Advertiser with copies of the RedFlex contracts by press time after the newspaper made the request Tuesday afternoon.
Theriot, however, didn't stop rocking the administration's boat there.
Durel proposed giving nearly a half million dollars to the Cajundome in his 2011-12 budget, but Theriot previously backed an amendment to eliminate all of that funding.
He said giving the Cajundome LCG dollars forces local taxpayers to "subsidize something the people of Lafayette do not own." The state of Louisiana, through the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, owns that facility, according to the Cajundome's website.
Theriot also questioned the initial agreement between LCG and the Cajundome, saying he "felt as though that agreement was no longer active."
Stanley said the issue has been thoroughly discussed in the past, and previous administrations have taken the stance that the agreement doesn't expire until 2012. He said giving the Cajundome such subsidies shouldn't cause a legal problem.
"We need to make sure we're not doing anything we shouldn't be doing," Theriot said.
Theriot then moved his focus to the Lafayette Utilities System and LUS Fiber. "A lot of people are very concerned" about LUS Fiber he said as he questioned LUS Director Terry Huval about the project.
Huval told Theriot that LUS Fiber does not currently have plans to take an additional authorized loan from the LUS side of the utilities budget but wouldn't rule out that option in the future.
Huval said LUS Fiber repaid LUS nearly $445,000 during the current fiscal year, but will not have to make any such loan payments during the 2011-2012 fiscal year because of a loan restructuring.
Huval said the internal loan from LUS to LUS Fiber steams from assets built by LUS "both for its own purposes and to provide wholesale broadband services between 1997 and 2007."
The Local Government Fair Competition act prohibits LUS from simply transferring those assets to LUS Fiber and requires LUS Fiber to repay the LUS side for that infrastructure, Huval said.
"The internal loans council member Theriot was describing are loans that must, and will, be paid over the life of the fiber system," Huval said in an email. "Over half of the internal loans were due to the transfer of LUS's fiber assets."
Earlier in the hearing, Councilman Don Bertrand, District 7, proposed moving back to the general fund money set aside in the current budget for a roundabout at the intersection of Bendel Road and Coolidge Boulevard.
In early August, both Durel and Bertrand faced a group of Bendel Gardens residents who were angered by the plan and its lack of transparency. After that public outcry, Durel said the plan was "a dead issue to be dealt with by others in the future."
An enabling ordinance, however, remains in place and would allow future politicians to spend $150,000 on a feasibility study and to perform design work for such a roundabout.
Bertrand said he is backing an ordinance to overturn that initial enabling ordinance, which would ensure the roundabout is truly a dead issue.
That ordinance is scheduled for consideration later this month and for final adoption in early October.
The City-Parish Council will consider all of the proposed amendments to Durel's budget and ultimately approve funding for all LCG departments during a final hearing at 5:30 p.m. Sept.27 in the Council Auditorium at 705 West University Ave.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20110914/NEWS01/109140351/Council-eyes-camera-contract