Have your say: With Environmental Protection Agency staff and experts in Baton Rouge this week to discuss options for creating a bike share program, the Downtown Development District is seeking public input on the proposed program via an online survey. In addition, the public is invited to attend an information meeting on the program on Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum, 100 River Road. The survey is relatively brief, with just 13 questions about potential use of a bike sharing program should it come to fruition. Take the survey.
Rooms for rent: Guests staying in the Alexandria-Pineville area in central Louisiana are about to get a lot more lodging options. The Town-Talk reports several planned new projects in the two cities will add about 450 hotel rooms, boosting inventory by at least 18%. In downtown Alexandria, the Hotel Bentley and Holiday Inn Downtown Convention Center (formerly the Alexander Fulton Hotel) are undergoing renovations. Two hotels are under construction near the Alexandria Mall, and a third is about to break ground. Pineville recently approved a Holiday Inn Express to be built on U.S. 165. It’s been years since the area has seen such activity in its hotel market. Read the full story.
Taking aim: Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, Louisiana’s most well-known 21st century military hero, says America is mired in a state of denial about its gun culture that’s harming the country. “As a country we’re in a state of denial because we’ve confused the right to bear arms with the right to carry arms all the time anywhere or anyplace you want,” Honoré tells Gannett Louisiana. “We have to have a different kind of conversation in America and be prepared to speak about the politically unspeakable.” Honoré said the string of recent mass gun murders—including the tragic movie theater shooting in Lafayette on Thursday in which two victims and the shooter died—should provide a wake-up call. Read the full story.
