DFD

BATON ROUGE, La. — Residents of a largely white suburb of Baton Rouge voted on Saturday to incorporate a new city of their own — to be called St. George — and take away control of the community’s taxes, schools and other services from the less affluent, more diverse surrounding parish.

The outcome was a rebuke to parish leaders, and illustrated just how strongly many residents wanted to separate themselves from Baton Rouge, the state capital, which is governed jointly with the parish.

Yet with just 54 percent of voters supporting incorporation, the referendum also demonstrated a split in the community over the proposition, with concerns that going ahead with incorporation could sow further division and financial uncertainty in what would be Louisiana’s fifth-most-populous city.

The yearslong effort began as an attempt to create a new school district, and evolved over time into a drive for a whole new city. Supporters said they wanted to improve schools, have more local control over infrastructure and have their tax dollars spent closer to home, rather than see the money spread across East Baton Rouge Parish. They said all areas of the parish would benefit as a result.

troyguitar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:32 am Is the big hole in the middle neighborhood?

Acid666 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:42 am Looks like they don't want any affiliation with that Wally World or the mall. And fuck this little neighborhood in particular.
Alan filled me in on a little of this at the race this weekend. I still don't grasp the whole scene but understand the concept.

LOLOL I just looked deeper and they cut around individual apartment complexes. Man, the gerrymandering game is full on eh?

troyguitar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:50 am I suppose this is better than the white people all moving to the suburbs?

troyguitar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:50 am I suppose this is better than the white people all moving to the suburbs?

Melon wrote:

troyguitar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:50 am I suppose this is better than the white people all moving to the suburbs?

Instead of moving, they just made a new city.

Big Brain Bradley wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:04 pm In on 1.

There will be much fuckery. Mayor threatening a 14th amendment challenge

Apex wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:07 pm So, on the day that we celebrate Columbus coming to ‘murica, ya’ll created a new city?

When does the pillaging of neighboring cities start?

Melon wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:13 pm

Big Brain Bradley wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:04 pm In on 1.

There will be much fuckery. Mayor threatening a 14th amendment challenge

Yeah, I don't see what there is to challenge. It's unannexed area, the people petitioned for it, out to a vote and it passed.

Approximately 59%, or 32,293 people, of the more than 54,000 registered voters living in the St. George area cast ballots Saturday in the incorporation election, according to complete but unofficial election results. The incorporation was approved by 54% of those voters, or 17,422 people, with 46%, or 14,871 people, voting 'no.'

But it’s no small thing. St. George revenues contribute 20% of the $322 million general fund, or more than $64 million. Some 55% of those revenues are basically untouchable, however, because they go to police and fire protection.

"The 2020 budget has already
been prepared without the cuts St. George will necessitate, and Chief
Administrative Officer Darryl Gissel says it’s too late to redo the
numbers for the upcoming fiscal year. The finance department recently
completed its draft of the budget, which by law, must be presented to
the Metro Council on Nov. 5 and approved by the council in December."

The is the perfect example of a poor Administration. IF they wouldn't have pushed the date to vote back to October and used the earlier date that St. George requested, adjusting the 2020 Baton Rouge city budget could have been done. Did they really think this would not pass??? People are sick of the incompetence of this mayor.

Just think...we wouldn't even be talking about this if you would have addressed our concerns about the schools in our area. So, instead of helping us, you tried to shut us up by telling us "go form your own city".

I agree. This is a perfect example of how an administration should NOT handle angry residence. When there was the very first mention of possibly starting their own school district, the mayor / president and school officials should have met with residence to hear their concerns and come up with a plan of action to fix things. Instead they decided to do nothing at all about the residence concerns and instead focus on how to derail them getting their own school district.

When you state "Every citizen of East Baton Rouge Parish has an equal say" conceptually, that's at the crux of the problems leading to the StG movement. Democracy in BR is broken. Just why becomes an ugly denoument of the reality at hand that most people are too uncomfortable to confront.

In other words, some people who live here should have their voices heard, and others should not. That message is clear as day in your comment.

I'm not too uncomfortable to confront the "reality at hand": the white power brokers that be are upset that Baton Rouge is no longer under their exclusive control.

Democracy in Baton Rouge is broken. You brought up the racial issue; so let's look at that.

Case in point: Mayor Broome. Her whole political background is in representing one extreme narrow demographic and that is what she still does. This can happen because black voters default to the black candidate regardless of job qualifications. It's just the way it is with blacks but not for non blacks. And this leads to democracy failing.

You want evidence? Kip Holden got 64% of the white vote and >98% of the black vote. Obama got >99% of the black vote and 40% of the white vote despite his extremely thin resume for the job. In the run off, Broome got 99% of the black vote and 29% of non black vote (in spite of her consummate lack of qualifications for the job of BR mayor).

So what happened since? Broome brought us Troy Bell, municipal contract for Silky Slim, Murphy Paul. and so on. Broome's lead resulted in things like increased property tax of another $8 million per year for BR COA, more property tax for needless empty CATS bus seats, etc.,etc.

BR blacks strongly tend to have their houses on the property tax rolls for near or below the $75k homestead exemption so they don't contribute to funding these things. And by (block) voting for them, as a bonus they get to see the Middle class demographic (who they often have disdain for) get socked with the recurring bill.

This is not a healthy democracy and it is getting worse. And yet you and some others act indignant and cry "white power" when a City of St George. is purposed.

This the reality I cited in my earlier comment above that most people are too uncomfortable to confront.