The Current

For months, as rumors about a potential aerospace project in Vermilion Parish continued to swirl, local State Senator Bob Hensgens emphasized that he decided not to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would have prohibited him from speaking on the matter. It turns out, he was already under an NDA with the state anyways.

Hensgens, who spoke to residents about the project at a Rotary Club meeting in Erath on Wednesday, said he was “shocked” when he received a call from Louisiana Economic Development on Monday, informing him that he was under a “general NDA” with the state agency.

In a text message, the senator said he must have “signed without reading, because I still don’t remember doing it.”
The agreement, which Hensgens signed electronically last September covered “any and all prospective projects” in Louisiana and was set to run through 2027. It was in effect during his first public confirmation of a rumored aerospace land deal in his district, two subsequent interviews with The Current, and a town hall last week where he addressed roughly 200 constituents on the subject.

Hensgens says the state economic development agency never enforced the existing NDA with regards to his public comments about the rumored aerospace project or reached out to inform him that he was at risk of violating it.

When he learned about it on Monday, he asked LED to rescind it, which the agency promptly did that day.

In his comments to press about refusing to sign an NDA, Hensgens tells The Current, he was referring to a separate NDA specific to the aerospace project in his district that he was asked to sign in April, but didn’t. He’s previously said he believes that not signing this specific NDA is what has kept him out of loop on details of the proposed project.

“I get NDAs, I do, but in this situation it just didn’t work for me,” he said via text. “I’d rather only know a little and get to talk to Vermilion residents.”

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/abbeville-sen-bob-hensgens-said-he-didnt-sign-an-nda-he-was-wrong/

The chief financial officer of Coushatta Casino Resort says budgeting and communication failures have led to a multimillion dollar shortfall for its Legacy Tower project. Taking responsibility for the financial crisis, she outlined two potential solutions to address it, according to an internal memo obtained by The Current.

In the July document sent to the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana’s Tribal Council, CFO Tanya Duhon wrote the casino is facing “two immediate financial challenges”: securing an additional $40 million in cash to complete the Legacy Tower and meeting requirements under its loan agreement with Wells Fargo.

The Legacy Tower is a new hotel for Coushatta Casino Resort composed of 204 guest rooms, including 100 suites, that opened May 18.

In the memo, she also recommended extensive cost control measures, including freezing further hiring for nonessential positions, freezing overtime unless justified and approved and postponing nonessential capital projects through the end of 2026. Duhon also wrote that the budget for 2027 should be built using only required maintenance capital expenditures.

“Non-essential improvements and discretionary projects will be deferred until the organization returns to a stronger financial position,” Duhon wrote.

Duhon wrote the issues resulted from “a combination of my own shortcomings, faulty assumptions inherited during the transition of financial leadership and gaps in communication between departments.”

At the time the memo was written, the casino had an estimated debt balance of approximately $136 million and projected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $86.8 million, according to Duhon.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/coushatta-legacy-tower-project-faces-40-million-shortfall/

Budget Proposal. Mayor-President Monique Boulet will publish her budget proposals at tomorrow’s joint council meeting, with her administration’s plan public and available on LCG’s website as early as tomorrow evening. The introduction is mostly a procedural step that kicks off the councils’ editing of the mayor-president’s budget proposal in official budget hearings from August through October. The roughly $800 million budget will need to be approved by Nov. 1, the start of the new fiscal year. In previous years, the City and Parish councils have removed pieces of Boulet’s proposals, such as a $17 million remodel of City-Parish Hall with city funds. The administration has already publicly announced some of the proposed items in the new budget, including a minimum $3,000 raise for all Lafayette Police and Fire Department officials, funded by a 6% increase in sales tax collections and city retirement savings.

Read more at thecurrentla.com/2026/council-preview-lafayette-m-p-rolls-out-2027-budget-proposals/