Mayor of Thibodaux

The race for Mayor of Thibodaux between Charles Caillouet and Tommy Eschete is not focused on issues as much as experience, “staleness” and change.

Eschete, a retired Thibodaux City Council administrator, said a new administration would increase public involvement and feedback.

“We feel like the policies in the current administration are stale,” Eschete said. “We feel we can improve the level of participation in the city. We feel that new leadership brings about a higher level of citizen participation. There is no better way to assess the way of our citizens than taking their input.”

The challenger said it’s not about the changing the goals in place, but the means to achieve them.

“The goals and objectives aren’t going to change,” Eschete said. “We need to take our decision-making process and scrub the politics out of it as much as we can, and move that priority as far down to the bottom as we can and move our citizens needs as far to the top as we can.

“It’s all a change in how we actually approach administering government day to day.”

Mayor Caillouet, who has held the position for 12 years, argues against enacting change in the face of success.

“My philosophy is if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Caillouet said. “There is no need for change. He wants to go in a different direction than we are going in, but our plan has been in action for 12 years, and you can see it. His plan is on paper, and you don’t know what that direction will turn out to be.

“We will continue our yearly street improvement program, and we will continue to do the many infrastructure projects that we are working on now. By conservatively managing our money in the past, we have to money to do these things.”