re: Judge rules against St. George incorporation

I read the judge's ruling. It seems as if though the biggest issue that is preventing the incorporation from happening is the $3 million deficit that the City of St. George would be running on day one due to the estimated cost of pension and other post-employment benefits that are paid to City-Parish Employees. Also, it appears that the incorporators did not meet with the EBR Sheriff to determine what monetary contribution the City of St. George would make to have the EBR Sheriff provide additional public safety services.

It looks like there was an attempted bait and switch by incorporators trying to get people to vote for incorporation, promising no tax increases, but knowing that people who lived within the boundaries of the City of St. George would have their sales and/or property taxes increase to cover these budget shortfalls and money that would have to be raised via tax revenue to pay the EBR Sheriff for additional public safety services.

Pages 8-10 explain the judge's ruling more than anything else. The judge is pretty much saying that if you want the city, you're going to have to find a way to pay for it.

Welp - page 9 of 10 is so fricking fundamentally hilarious that the First Circuit may reverse sua sponte.

So, because the City of St. George MIGHT run a deficit without raising taxes (which it has not had the opportunity to try to so since it doesn't exist yet) the court concluded it couldn't fund services.

But, the coup de grace is the statement that because the $48 million would not go to "the City of Baton Rouge" after St. George was "severed from the City of Baton Rouge" that it would have an adverse impact.

holy
fricking
shite