Planning panelist blasts 2 council members
By KEVIN BLANCHARD
Acadiana bureau
Published: Jul 6,
2006
LAFAYETTE — A Lafayette Planning Commission member and future candidate for
state representative used his Web site to blast two councilmen he accused of
bowing to pressure from developers seeking to build a student apartment complex
near the historic Freetown neighborhood.
Commissioner Fred Prejean called Councilmen Chris Williams and Bruce Conque
“two dangerous politicians.”
The Web site essay is headlined “Politicians Feeding Time!” with pictures of
Williams and Conque next to a picture of hogs at a feeding trough.
“They are armed with slight of tongue, an obnoxious superiority complex and a
pretense of innocence extraordinaire. They’re good, but they wouldn’t fool St.
Peter,” Prejean wrote in an essay on his site,
http://www.lafayettepublicpolicy.com.
The planning commission voted down the proposed student housing, but the
City-Parish Council last week approved the development, with a condition that
the developers give the neighborhood a $200,000 grant to help beautify the
area.
Prejean called that grant a “negotiated price tag,” saying Williams, who
offered the grant proposal, “sold Freetown’s history.”
Williams said Wednesday that Prejean “has some major psychological issues”
and that his comments are politically motivated.
“Desperate people do desperate things,” Williams said.
Prejean said he plans to run for the state House of Representatives seat
occupied by Wilfred Pierre, D-Lafayette, who is term-limited.
Williams has said he’s looking at a run for the Legislature, but has not
announced whether he’ll run for the House or Senate.
Williams said Prejean has made him the subject of a scathing Web site
editorial in the past.
“Obviously there’s a political motive,” Williams said.
Conque said Wednesday that he respects the passion Prejean brings to his role
on the commission.
“I am a little bit disappointed he took it to the personal level,” Conque
said.
Prejean accused Conque and Williams of taking the lead in brokering a deal
with developers to allow the complex to be built — something some residents in
the area opposed.
Prejean wrote that Williams is the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s
“go-to boy.” An earlier version of the essay called Williams a “political
prostitute serving his ULL political handler.”
Williams used to work at ULL and is now with the Louisiana Technical College
system.
Prejean said Wednesday that he took the prostitution language off the site,
deciding it was too “harsh,” but stood by the analogy.
“It’s what he is,” Prejean said.
Prejean wrote that Williams is trying to shore up political support in
advance of the 2007 elections, so that his political action committee can
collect contributions in supporting Williams’ promise to “get out the black
vote” for other candidates, such as Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose husband Raymond
Blanco is an administration official with ULL.
Williams said the community has supported him by giving him big election wins
in the past and knows he cares about their issues more than Prejean does.
“People in this community know the history of Mr. Prejean,” Williams
said. Williams said he has supported affordable housing developments, looking for
endorsements from the council to obtain special financing — some of which
Prejean did not support.
Williams said he felt the council shouldn’t discriminate in providing more
housing just because the tenants would be students.
The $200,000 grant and other changes in the architecture and design of the
complex promised by developers to help fit in with the surrounding area were all
good concessions to win, Williams said.
Prejean is free to express his opinion, Williams said, but using his
appointed position as a planning commissioner as a political platform isn’t
proper, as commissioners are supposed to be free to make objective
decisions.
Prejean said he’s been fighting for more neighborhood control in planning for
future developments in their area for several years. He said he’s never seen
Williams at any of those planning meetings.
Prejean has criticized Williams and Councilman Louis Benjamin in the past for
unfairly making race an issue on the council in an attempt to gain votes.
In his recent essay, Prejean compliments Benjamin for voting against the
development.
Freetown is an area settled by free black people before the Civil War and was
an early center of black culture in Lafayette.
Story originally published in The
Advocate
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