The Current

Houston River Road in Westlake is a study in contrast. On one side of the road, giant rusted ground flares and smoke stacks loom. A nearby neighborhood street, now mostly owned by a chemical company, is almost entirely empty of homes and nature has taken over. In the midst of it all, a few houses and trailers remain.

Entergy Louisiana has proposed to add onto the existing industrial footprint by constructing a new natural gas-fired power station on undeveloped land near its existing Westlake site. If approved, its generators would add 750 megawatts of capacity, enough to power approximately 250,000 homes.

But some residents say the area is already overburdened by industry and question who the plant is really serving.

Westlake resident Amy Richard lives less than a quarter of a mile from the proposed project site. She’s one of the few residents left after South African energy and chemical company Sasol bought out their neighbors across the street for its plant.

After reviewing a map submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers that included the location of laydown yards for construction, Richard grew concerned. “That’s about 450 feet from my door. That’s scary,” she said at a recent permit hearing at Westlake City Hall. “The steam releases, the noise, the vibrations, all of that, it’s just too much for someone to live next to.”

Louisiana’s Gulf coast is one of the country’s most densely industrialized regions, primarily because of the petrochemical industry.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/westlake-neighbors-voice-concerns-over-new-power-station/

In a make-or-break vote last night, the Lafayette Parish School Board sealed Ovey Comeaux High School’s fate.

After months of turmoil for students and staff, the school was closed in a 5-4 vote and will be repurposed as the district’s career center.

For many supporters of the school, the decision merely formalized a decline they say began years ago through enrollment shifts and attendance-zone changes that steadily dwindled Comeaux’s student population.

District 5 School Board Member Britt Latiolais acknowledged as much last night.

“Ten years ago, I said it,” Latiolais commented at Thursday’s regular meeting ahead of the vote, which followed months of controversy and community outcry that included a court challenge to an earlier March vote to close the school. “With the way the zones were structured, Comeaux was dead.”

Many have pointed to a district-wide rezoning plan implemented in 2017 as the beginning of Comeaux’s decline. The changes to its attendance boundaries and feeder pattern, combined with the opening of Southside High School that year, steadily eroded enrollment.

Latiolais joined Ted Davidson, Roddy Bergeron, Hannah Smith Mason and Kate Labue in voting to close the school. Opposed to the closure were Amy Trahan, Josh Edmond, Jeremy Hidalgo and David LeJeune, the latter reiterating his commitment to never vote to close a high-performing school.

Last year, the Louisiana Department of Education rated the school a B with a score of 89.6, a slight decrease from the A rating of 92.2 the year before.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/narrow-vote-closes-comeaux-as-school-board-fractures-deepen/

For years, Jessica Brown-Mason and her board at the Resilience Rise Community Collaborative have been working to support residents of the Washington Heights neighborhood through advocacy, civic education, housing stability, and local youth empowerment.

And for years, they hoped to eventually be designated as an official coterie, so they could have access to funding opportunities, community leverage, direct recognition and a formal seat at the table.

Last week, that work finally paid off when the Lafayette City Council approved a resolution to establish the Washington Heights Community Coterie.

“It’s exhilarating. It feels really good after what, two and a half years in? At least — of really pushing hard,” says Jessica Brown-Mason, the chair of the Washington Heights Community Coterie. “It really feels good to be able to be recognized.”

Brown-Mason says now is the time to further educate residents on hyperlocal investment, problem-solving and productive engagement, which will be done through monthly meetings, information campaigns and surveys.

“One of our first initiatives that we really have been pushing is to ensure that people understand the policies and the practices around adjudicated properties and maintaining their properties,” says Brown-Mason.

Having a coterie allows for more direct communication and collaboration with the Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG), as well as external resource organizations like Extra Mile, to advocate for the neighborhood’s needs to be met — and help residents understand the processes for doing so themselves.

“We have to educate the neighborhood as to how you get a speed bump, who do you talk to to get a speed bump?” Brown-Mason says. “It’s not things that’s just going to happen quickly, there’s a process, and we have to teach our people that process.”

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/she-fought-years-for-representation-now-shes-getting-it/

Living sober in Lafayette requires several gears of thought, pulley systems, and spiritually and physically machinated mentalities. It can be a tug-of-war at times — shifts in feelings, relying on your gut, improvisation, routine and spontaneity.

When I say sober, I mean the unnatural way — like, living sober because of addiction, and for me specifically, alcohol.
Do I possess ethos? I don’t know. But for context, I checked into Victory Addiction Recovery Center for 35 days in September of 2018. This comes after a spiraling life, fallen deep into depression and darkness — lost in who I once identified as before the magnitude of alcohol overwhelmed my life.

It should be noted that I didn’t check in to Victory on my own accord — I was still in denial. I shouldn’t be here right now. I shouldn’t be around. I don’t know how I am still here. Grace.
Two close friends and former colleagues took me to rehab, and since then I’ve been sober for over seven years. One day at a time.

I’m often asked by people who know my story if I can still go out to bars to share time with friends. It’s a question that represents a certain culture, and my response is usually, “I can, but I don’t want to” or “why would I want to?”

While I can’t speak for those who are living in the same way as me for the same reasons, especially here in Lafayette — as living in recovery is truly an individual experience — I’ve found ways to find peace in living sober in a town and culture where alcohol plays a significant role in our lives. When I left Victory, I mainly kept myself limited in where I went —Barnes & Noble and Starbucks, and that was it, and then the occasional lunch with a couple of friends.

When I drank, I didn’t drink because I wanted to hang out with friends or be social. I went out for one reason and one reason only: to escape my reality through alcohol. For those who are in the same situation, we call it an allergy, in the sense that our body and mind react differently than those who can drink and stop themselves.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/its-not-easy-living-sober-in-lafayette/