10-8-18
A private equity firm working to acquire utility systems across the Southeast wants to manage and operate some of the utilities of Lafayette. The Daily Advertiser reports Bernhard Capital Partners/NextGEN Utility Systems pitched its plan Friday to Lafayette officials. It wants to control Lafayette’s electric, water and sewer systems for 40 years. Company representatives are set to further explain the plan Tuesday at a meeting that’s open to the public.
THERE ARE REPORTS OF A DRUNK DRIVER HITTING A LAKE CHARLES BUSINESS EARLY THIS MORNING. AT AROUND 1:37, STEAMBOAT BILL’S ON BROAD STREET WAS STRUCK BY A VEHICLE. POLICE SAY THEY HAVE MADE AN ARREST. THERE IS NO OTHER INFORMATION AT THIS TIME.
A south Louisiana man has been arrested in connection with the death of a retired principal. Morgan City police say they arrested 50-year-old Michael Guidry on Saturday, booking him with first-degree murder, bank fraud and violating his parole. Guidry, a Morgan city resident, is accused of killing 70-year-old Patricia Lyn Russo. Her body was found Monday inside her home.
Officials in the Pelican State are designing two projects to shore up coastal islands, aiming to improving nesting grounds for its namesake brown pelicans. The Advocate reports Louisiana got $148 million following 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to improve coastal rookeries. The projects would aid Rabbit Island in southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish and fill an area around Queen Bess Island in Barataria (BAIR uh TAIR ee uh) Bay that’s turned to open water. The birds left the endangered species list in 2009. But officials now say pelicans are losing Louisiana nesting sites, leaving for Texas or making do with inferior sites.
LAFAYETTE HAS A NEW CITY MARSHAL, AT LEAST TEMPORARILY. JEFF HORCHAK HAS MORE.
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Six Louisiana public schools are 2018 National Blue Ribbon Schools, a federal designation to honor schools that are high-performing or that have closed achievement gaps. The U.S. Department of Education chose 349 schools across the nation. State Superintendent of Education John White says Louisiana’s schools should be proud to be named. Three Louisiana schools were selected for their high performance levels including T.S. Cooley Elementary Magnet School in Calcasieu Parish.
A historic opera house in Acadiana will soon be reopening. The Duchamp Opera House in St. Martinville was built in the 1830s and was used for arts and crafts. he building played host to local theater productions, traveling dance troupes and opera performances from New Orleans, but KATC-TV reports a lack of funding forced the building to close. Now it’s being renovated so it can be leased.
A pro-abortion group wants a federal appeals court to revisit its split decision upholding a Louisiana law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The Center for Reproductive Rights asked in documents filed Friday that the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rehear the case. The appellate court, in a split 2-1 decision last month, upheld the law.
The Center says it asked the court to rehear the case because the panel’s decision “violates binding Supreme Court precedent.”
