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Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden slammed the proposal to incorporate the city of St. George during his “State of the City” address Wednesday afternoon, calling its supporters a “small group” seeking to divide the parish and “bankrupt our future.”

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Holden had previously been reluctant to comment on the proposal to create the new city in the southern part of East Baton Rouge Parish, but devoted several minutes of his speech at the Crowne Plaza hotel on Wednesday to the topic. He had harsh words for the St. George proposal, saying the city-parish is being “held hostage in a disagreement over schools.”

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The St. George effort started when people in the southern portion of the parish wanted an independent school district, but couldn’t get it passed through the legislature.

Holden compared supporters of the proposal to the characters in the story of the “Little Red Hen.” After the hen grows wheat, harvests it and bakes bread, all of the other animals want to eat it.

Likewise, the city-parish invested in the St. George area of the parish, creating major retail centers -- and now, supporters of the initiative want to keep that for themselves, Holden said.

“Isn’t it ironic that we teach our school children to pledge allegiance to the flag with the words ‘One nation, under God, indivisible,’ but now we’re talking about people who want to divide us in the name of the children?” Holden asked.

LINK

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“I’m the voice of reason,” Holden said. “I’m the voice of making sure this city does not end up dividing itself into two different factions, because everybody here deserves much better.”

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The Voice Of Reason neglected to mention that the St. George people are talking about using the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office rather than starting up its own police force, or that they’re already paying for fire protection and trash pickup.
He also didn’t address the fact that the numbers provided by his own economic development arm, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, in a much-discussed study published in the fall show that some $50 million in tax receipts from St. George per year are funneled into the city proper.
And he absolutely didn’t address the fact that across town, the state Department of Education was preparing to launch an investigation into widespread academic fraud within the East Baton Rouge public schools…

So instead of talking about the problems in the public schools and offering solutions to bring the city together, more divisiveness is issued by the mayor to further Antagonize the SG residents, just like nearly every other BR government official. People still wonder why the SG proponents are so entrenched. It's because of a-hole politicians trying to demonize the tax paying citizens rather than put forth any effort to work with the residents of SG.

POSSIBLE PUBLIC SCHOOL SCANDAL

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The state Department of Education will announce Thursday that it is auditing the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, following allegations that students were allowed to cheat in online courses and graduate without meeting requirements, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
State Superintendent John White confirmed to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune Wednesday that the state is looking into academic records in the school system.
“We have received some indication that there may be a discrepancy on some academic records in East Baton Rouge Parish,” White said. “We’re going to be looking into the situation.”
White said the next public step will be to issue written communication to the school district, but could not confirm when that would take place.
East Baton Rouge Parish School System spokesman Keith Bromery declined to comment on the situation until the state provides more specific information about what’s being alleged.

Possible cheating scandal brewing in EBR Parish School System

A fine example of why the school system is failing and why SG wants to form their own independent school system.

This post was edited on 1/9/14 at 8:50 am