Lafayette Officials Remember Former City Council Chairman Pat Lewis After Unexpected Passing

LAFAYETTE, La. — Former Lafayette City Council Chairman Patrick “Pat” Lewis has died unexpectedly, according to sources with Lafayette Consolidated Government. Lewis served on the City-Parish Council and later on the City Council, where colleagues chose him as the body’s first chairman in 2020.

City Council Chair Kenneth Boudreaux said on Facebook that Lewis’s passing was sudden. He also released a statement remembering Lewis’s humility and generosity. No cause of death or funeral arrangements have been announced.

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From Banking and the School System to Public Office

Lewis graduated from Lafayette High School and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He worked 14 years in banking, then 26 years with the Lafayette Parish School System in its transportation and sales tax divisions. His 2019 campaign biography said 18 of those years were in the transportation department, with the remainder as an auditor in sales tax.

Lewis’s business career included owning a grocery store, a mortgage company and a medical transportation service. His 2019 campaign biography called him a lifelong Lafayette resident raised in what was then City-Parish Council District 3. It listed his wife, the former Tracy Mouton, along with two children and one grandson.

Service on the City-Parish Council and the City Council

Voters elected Lewis to the nine-member City-Parish Council in 2015, and his colleagues chose him as vice chairman. A Home Rule Charter amendment approved by voters in December 2018 split that body into separate five-member city and parish councils. Lewis won the City Council District 1 seat in 2019, one of four members of the old council who won seats on the new ones.

The separate City Council met for the first time in January 2020 and selected Lewis as its first chairman, with Liz Hebert as vice chair. During the 2018 charter debate, Lewis had offered an alternative to the split. His plan would have kept the nine-member council and weighted members’ votes on city issues based on their districts.

The Protect the City Committee

Lewis, who chaired the council in 2020, proposed a resolution in January 2021 to create a “Protect the City Committee.” The group was to study whether consolidated government served the city of Lafayette. In a news release, he said the autonomy voters wanted in 2018 had not been realized on joint city-parish matters.

The council voted unanimously to create the committee in January 2021. Lewis said he hoped to place a charter amendment on the fall 2022 ballot. The committee later recommended that the City and Parish Councils convene a charter commission to consider deconsolidation.

Run for Louisiana House District 44

In 2023, Lewis ran for the Louisiana House of Representatives District 44 seat in North Lafayette, held by Rep. Vincent Pierre, D-Lafayette, who was barred by term limits from running again. Lafayette Parish School Board member Tehmi Chassion won the seat outright in the Oct. 14 primary, with Lewis finishing second at roughly 39% in a three-candidate field that also included Ravis Martinez.

Lewis remained active in the community while on the council. In December 2023, he helped hand out jambalaya plates to seniors at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center during an annual giveaway hosted by Lafayette City Marshal Reggie Thomas and his cooking team.

Tributes From Lafayette Leaders

Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet said she was “heartbroken to hear of the unexpected passing of Pat Lewis”. She said Lewis served the community honorably as a City Councilman and always looked for ways to help the people he served. Boulet said she and her husband, David, are praying for his family.

In a statement, Boudreaux said he joined the community in mourning with “profound sadness.” He wrote that Lewis “lived a life marked by hard work, perseverance, and a genuine concern for others,” and described him as “approachable, unassuming, and never too busy to extend a helping hand to someone in need.” Boudreaux pointed to Lewis’s years in banking and school transportation and his work as a business owner and elected official.

Boudreaux said he served alongside Lewis on the former City-Parish Council beginning in 2016, and that the two helped shape policies and address issues of lasting importance to Lafayette. He said he respected the commitment Lewis brought to that responsibility and the perspective he offered for the people he represented.

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Boudreaux said the suddenness of Lewis’s passing “makes this moment especially painful.” Together with the staff of the City and Parish Councils, he extended condolences to Lewis’s family, friends and former colleagues. Boudreaux said Lewis’s “place in the history of our Council family will not be forgotten.”