Council debates East Madison drainage work and rejects additional project funding after split vote

The Broussard City Council on March 10 discussed a proposed budget amendment to increase funding for an East Madison Street drainage project tied to the city's drainage master plan, but the measure failed after extensive debate over potential downstream impacts.

Councilman David Boni pressed the council to begin localized work immediately, saying the area lacks drainage infrastructure and that the project would direct water to the outfall faster and relieve repeated neighborhood flooding. "We gotta start somewhere," Boni said, arguing that builders are preparing slabs and new houses that will make future work harder.

Opponents, including the city engineer and several council members, cautioned that the requested change was not in the current master plan and that moving water from one historic drainage system to another without full engineering modeling could transfer flood risk to homes that have not previously flooded. Walter (city staff/engineer) and Mel emphasized the need for maintenance and staged construction tied to the master-plan backbone projects.

After public and council discussion, the mayor called the question. The roll-call vote recorded multiple "No" votes from district seats and the motion to amend the operating budget for the East Madison drainage project failed.

Context: the city has posted its drainage system master plan describing long-term arterial and neighborhood drainage projects. Staff briefed the council that major arterial improvements are funded or underway, but neighborhood-level projects remain and require both engineering and maintenance resources.

Next steps: the master-plan projects that are funded will proceed; council directed staff to continue engineering and modeling work and to monitor sites presented during the discussion before additional budget amendments are brought back for a vote.