Claire Taylor

ctaylor@theadvertiser.com

A proposal to ask voters to renew a road and bridge tax and combine existing mosquito control and public health taxes with animal control hit a bump in the road Tuesday.

The Lafayette City-Parish Council let the proposals die without a second to Councilman Jay Castille's motion. There was no discussion by the council and no one from the public was allowed to speak.

The lack of action means the tax proposals may not be on the Dec. 6 ballot which already contains a proposed new eight-month, 1-cent sales tax for Lafayette Regional Airport to build a new terminal.

"This is stunning to me," said City-Parish President Joey Durel, who was not at the meeting because he is on vacation. "This was in my budget message. It was proposed for the agenda two weeks in advance and not one councilman ever came to me. Nobody ever indicated a single issue with it."

At his State of the City-Parish Address earlier this year, Durel proposed combining an existing 2.06-mill public health tax and an existing 1.5-mill mosquito control tax into a single 3.56-mill public health and expanding the dedication to fund animal control functions.

The public health and mosquito control taxes generate more money than those operations need, Durel said. The move could return nearly $1 million to the city general fund, $300,000 to the parish general fund and about $50,000 to smaller municipal governments in the parish, he said.

Council Chairman Kevin Naquin said he had questions for Durel and Chief Administrative Officer Dee Stanely but they weren't in attendance. He said he wants to know if administrators met with each department head to discuss whether they have enough money now and to grow in the future if animal control were funded with the combined tax.

"What did they need me there for? How much do I have to hold their hand to get something done?" Durel said. "I was asking them to let the people make the decision and they obviously don't trust the people of Lafayette to be as smart as they are."

Assessor Conrad Comeaux told The Daily Advertiser that the tax renewals or combined tax election can be placed on any ballot in 2015 and part of 2016 before he completes the tax rolls.

The public health unit and road and bridge tax expire in 2016, along with taxes for the public library, school board and Bayou Vermilion District, he said.

"The rest of America is moving toward no-kill shelters. Without this money, how are we going to not euthanize 80 percent of the animals that come across our threshold?" Nancy Marcantel, president of Animal Rescue Foundation of Louisiana, said after the meeting.

There has never been a tax dedicated to animal control in Lafayette.

A primary function of animal control is public health in the form of rabies control, veterinarian Renee Poirrier of the animal control advisory board, said. Lafayette has seen an increase in rabies in pets and wild skunks in recent years, she said.

Between 6,000 and 8,000 animals at the Lafayette shelter are killed each year because they aren't adopted and there's not enough space to hold them for very long while they wait to be adopted, Marcantel said.

Lake Charles, St. Charles Parish, Jefferson Parish and St. Tammany Parish all have new animal control facilities, she said.

"And Lafayette is stuck in the '60s," Marcantel said.

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