Dugas replaces another long time employee, Lloyd Rochon who is retiring. One man is hospitalized in Lafayette and police are investigating after a shooting last night. Police say he is in stable condition this morning. No arrests have been made in this case. Meanwhile Lafayette police are waiting on autopsy results after the body of a man was discovered early yesterday morning on the side of Madeline Street.
Police suspect the man died of natural causes.
The budget was sent to the senate in balance and in routine fashion. House members made few efforts to add money to a bill that includes no major cuts for vital services, thanks to extra revenue expected from sales and income taxes. Louisiana is enjoying a windfall in tax revenue. A Houston man who was on the run for more than four years on cocaine distribution charges has been sentenced in federal court in Lafayette to ten years in prison. He fled in May 1997 just before he was scheduled to be sentenced in the drug case that netted five others.