Boulet Revives Plan Championed by Robert Judge

Late last month, Lafayette City-Parish President Monique Boulet shocked many by reviving the Robert Judge plan to build the long-delayed Northeast Regional Library at the originally proposed site. That site, the historic Holy Rosary campus, had previously been ruled out due to legal concerns. So why return to it, especially after the parish already spent $330,000 acquiring the Shadow Bluff property?

More importantly, can the library overcome the legal challenges of being built there?

The Northeast Regional Library

The idea of a Northeast Regional Library dates back to when the Parish Council removed $12 million from the library surplus to fix drainage problems from that unnamed 2016 storm. Then-Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux set aside an additional $8 million for the new library branch. [Boudreaux later moved to the City Council, which has no purview over the library.] Since then, progress has been slow, buried in procedural delays and shifting politics. But from the moment Robert Judge was appointed to the Library Board, he made it a mission to get the library built, especially for the underserved residents of North Lafayette.

Robert Judge was vocal about his predecessors’ wasteful decisions, especially regarding the construction of the West Regional Library in Scott. That project became infamous for excesses like a $10,587 Mustang loveseat and taxpayer-funded electric car chargers, which were quickly removed once the Legislative Auditor flagged them as a “gratuitous donation of public funds.”

Media targets Robert Judge

Despite his focus on fiscal responsibility, the local legacy media quickly branded Judge “controversial.” This is the same media that defended the Library’s former Director Teresa Elberson during her infamous attempts to bring a drag queen story hour and a racially charged “voting rights” seminar with a speaker who hadn’t voted in nine years. Along with cleaning up Elberson’s incredible mess, Robert Judge suggested that the West Regional Branch in Scott should never have been prioritized ahead of the Northeast Regional Branch. Had he been on the board then, the underserved community in North Lafayette would have been his first choice.

However, before Robert Judge was even sworn in, “Friends of Drag Queen Story Time” sued to block his appointment. Their attorney, who literally called himself the “Hot Poker of Justice,” failed to prove their wild claims.

One plaintiff, Lessie Olivia LeBlanc Melancon, later ran against Congressman Clay Higgins. Longtime readers may remember her for screen-printing Library Board members’ faces onto her underwear and stripping at a public meeting. These are the kinds of activists Judge has had to endure—individuals who disrupt meetings and then sue the Library for removing them, all on the public’s dime. Thanks to Tulane University’s taxpayer-funded law clinic, the activists’ attorneys work for free, while Tulane has received over $150 million in state funds in recent years.

Blocking Robert Judge from all sides

Robert Judge’s focus remained on delivering library access to North Lafayette. Ironically, he faced pushback not only from vulgar-book advocates like Amanda Jones but also from conservatives skeptical of investing $21 million in a physical library. With the system already costing taxpayers $11 million annually, many on the right ask: How many Kindle Unlimited memberships could we offer instead? (The math on that — at full retail price — works out to over 175,000, by the way.)

But Robert Judge pressed on. Even when he and Library Board Member Landon Boudreaux proposed a temporary library lease to deliver immediate service, activists who claimed to support the branch shouted them down. So, this belligerent group of ne’er-do-wells could have had a library almost four years ago — but they refused!

When asked why he keeps pushing forward, Judge replied:
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Boulet’s Announcement

Boulet’s plan caught even Library Board members by surprise. Shadow Bluff Drive, the location selected through a formal process, had already been deemed the only viable site by LEDA and the attorneys. Boulet cited access issues and expensive dirtwork as reasons to abandon it.

Instead, she pivoted to Robert Judge’s originally proposed Holy Rosary, citing “connectivity” to local landmarks like Clark Field and Domingue Recreation Center. According to LCG, the city entered a 99-year ground lease at $1/year with “The Society of the Holy Family.” However, the Parish Assessor lists Holy Rosary Land Holdings, Inc. as the actual owner.

Regardless of who holds the title, legal concerns remain unresolved.

Legal Concerns

Judge, a devout Catholic, thought the Holy Rosary site’s long history made it an excellent location for the library. However, when Judge attempted to move forward with this site, the Library Board of Control attorney Paige Beyt cited an Attorney General’s opinion prohibiting public funds from being used to improve private property. Instead, she suggested: “I’ve also reached out to contacts I have at LEDA, and the only property they were aware of that would fit our needs is the Shadowbluff property.”

There have been many Attorney General opinions that prohibit the use of public funds to improve private property over the years:

• Funds cannot be used by a police jury to provide in whole or in part for the construction of privies on private property. Atty. Gen. No. 1942-44
• Unless a legal obligation on the part of the political subdivision exists, the Louisiana Constitution would prohibit, as an unlawful donation, the use of public funds and labor to furnish, install, and maintain drains on private property. Atty. Gen. No. 89-335
• Use of municipal equipment and employees to maintain streets on private property is not for a public purposeas contemplated by this section, which allows the state and its public subdivisions or political corporations to engage “for a public purpose” in cooperative endeavors with each other, with the United States or its agencies, or with any public or private association, corporation or individual. Atty. Gen. No. 89-452
• In accordance with LSA-Const. 7, § 14 a city cannot donate funds to repair sewerage lines on private property unless the donation is a program of social welfare for the aid and support of the needy. Atty. Gen. No. 98-432
• Even though the City-Parish of East Baton Rouge is obligated to the EPA to reduce sewer discharge, it can not publicly fund the repair of sewer lines located on private property. Atty. Gen. No. 00-0014
• Public funds cannot be utilized for installation or maintenance of lights on private property, along private streets or roads, or in subdivisions where streets or roads have not been properly dedicated to and accepted for public use. Atty. Gen. No. 02-0262
• Town of Jena may not use public funds to relocate a sewer line that is on private property. Atty. Gen. No. 02-0341
• The Village of Moreauville has the authority to undertake improvements to a drainage ditch on private property if it determines that the work will benefit the Village and that the benefit received by the Village is at least equivalent to the expenditure of public funds. Atty. Gen. No. 12-0233
• Public funds cannot be used to make repairs to bridges located on private property unless the Parish determines that the benefit of doing so would accrue to the Parish and not the private landowner. Atty. Gen. No. 13-0065
• Parish governments may not use public funds to conduct drainage operations on, or to acquire a right-of-way over, private property for the sole benefit of the owner of immovable private property, as this would amount to a gratuitous donation of public funds in violation. Atty. Gen. No. 23-0065

These are just a few examples of why doing so would be illegal. But this has been a slippery slope brought on by the language in Article VII, Section 14 of our constitution. The first part of the article states:

Except as otherwise provided in the constitution, the funds, credit, property, or things of value of the state or of any political subdivision shall not be loaned, pledged, or donated to or for any person, association, or corporation, public or private.

Then the section goes on to cite fifteen separate exceptions and provides that “for a public purpose, the state and its political subdivisions or political corporations may engage in cooperative endeavors with each other, with the United States or its agencies, or with any public or private association, corporation, or individual.”

What constitutes a public purpose?

Well… you know. They only need to invoke the magic words “public purpose” (i.e., the Carencro C’est Bon Seasoning Festival). Our courts have established the Cabela’s Test to help us determine the answer to that question. The government purpose must be one the entity has legal authority to pursue (essentially anything the government wants); the expenditure does not appear to gratuitous (in actuality it can be gratuitous if it is shrouded in the right clothes) and the public entity has a “demonstrable, objective, and reasonable expectation of receiving something real and substantial in exchange” (just an expectation, it doesn’t actually have to come to fruition).

This is the present situation. What was once a Constitutional prohibition can now, through the careful preparation of a legalese document, magically transform into a legitimate transaction, at least in the eyes of the court. The possibilities are endless!

Will it ever end?

As long as the government defines its own limits and legal semantics, and can rewrite public purpose to mean nearly anything, this battle will continue. Political pressure outweighs legal restraint. The ends justifies the means. That is the nature of unchecked executive power. (Something St. Martinville may soon get a taste of.)

Ultimately, the decision to build the Northeast Regional Library on the Holy Rosary site rests with the Parish Council. The Library Board of Control members have put their blood, sweat, and tears into the project for many years to get it to this point.

Over those years we have enjoyed the laughter “Comedy Hour” Kenneth Boudreaux has brought us. We have often remarked about the day the Kenneth Boudreaux Memorial Library would finally be built. Once it is finally constructed, we will probably continue to laugh, knowing the foundation, the rock, that ultimately led to its construction was not Boudreaux but Robert Judge. Isn’t it funny how many people opposed Robert Judge’s plans to end up siding with his vision for not only building a Northeast Regional Library but even placing it on the site he advocated for it to be built?

Epilogue

Robert Judge wasn’t targeted because of what he did, but because of what he represents. And while his opponents claim to fight for transparency, they’ve repeatedly tried to silence those who disagree.

Now they’re negotiating settlements to lawsuits sparked by meetings they intentionally disrupted. Amanda Jones and Lynette Mejia—co-founders of Lafayette Citizens Against Censorship—sued the Library System after being escorted from meetings they derailed. Meanwhile, Jones sued this very organization for reporting her speech defending vulgar books in children’s sections. All of it is likely part of a larger premeditated plan.

Some argue that the cost to defend order and decency, around $200,000, is too high. But compare that to the $330,000 already spent on a property we may never use.

They may win headlines, but the groundwork? That was Robert Judge’s.

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