re: Another Loss for OneBR/TogetherBR - St. George GAINS Over 70 New Signatures By Deadline

BR from the Florida Blvd north will become Beruit 2.0 on steroids.

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We live in the city limits but I'm rooting for you baws. It would be good for the parish.

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Amen, live in the city limits, and entire family does as well. Rooting for them because it cannot get any worse, so why not try so something else. I understand north Baton Rouge democrats specifically black Democrats leading the charge to prevent it for tax revenue purposes. But what I know is wrong, is those same Democrats when given the option of retaining the tax revenue if they let them have an ISD said no to that as well.

I understand it is not a BR vote on an ISD, its a state vote, but the whole issue comes down to education. People in St. George got sick and tired of paying for failing non-magnet public school system while having to send their kids to private school. Central and Zachary are not exactly heaven on earth but they are 10X better than anything Scotlandville, Tara, or Woodlawn put forth currently.

The Advocate said Ms.Cormier was frantically running around town yesterday collecting withdrawal forms.

It appears she accomplished nothing.

Correct

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Why are so many non- St George residents so adamant that they not be allowed to form own city?

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What you have to understand is that East Baton Rouge Parish and the City of Baton Rouge have a joint government. The parish government is also the city government, and the Parish President is also the mayor and there is no city council, just a "metro" council. That means that the school system is administered at the parish level as are parks, and roads.

Once this consolidation occurred back in the 70's, there became no reason to expand the city limits, especially since the voting rights act has been interpreted to prevent municipalities from expanding their boundaries in a way which would dilute minority voting power.

However, despite the parish seemingly being run by only one body, there is a separate general fund for the City of Baton Rouge which is used to pay for the Baton Rouge Police Department, city fire, and pet projects. The dirty secret is that a huge portion of that general fund comes from taxes on the unincorporated areas of the parish. Those areas are paying the taxes, but are not getting the benefits of those additional services. For example, they still have to pay extra for their own fire protection from a private company (The St. George Fire Department).

All of this, however, started almost 20 years ago when people in the suburban parts of the parish (unincorporated white neighborhoods on the Southeast side of town) demanded the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board build them a new high school and end the forced busing programs. They were told to pound sand. So, they proposed forming their own independent school district. They were told by the state legislature that they couldn't do so without forming a city. They then tried to form a city, but had just enough signatures thrown out. In addition, the city rushed to gerrymander in commercial properties around the mall, Laberge Casino, and hospitals to rob the fledgling city of those potential sales tax sources.

After that effort failed, the St. George proponents proposed an olive branch to the city and the parish school board. Once again, all they demanded was a new high school and a few new middle and primary schools on their side of town. Once again, they were told to go piss up a rope.

Since they were accused of being white supremacists when they drew the boundaries the last go around (which included all of the unincorporated areas south and east of Baton Rouge including multiple large black neighborhoods like Gardere), this time, they drew boundaries which excluded those black neighborhoods as well as several large apartment complexes. They formed borders that were consolidated and less spread out. After the intimidation shenanigans and corrupt antics by the sitting mayor, St. George is likely going to happen this go-around. Better Together really overplayed their hand and pissed off a lot of people sitting on the fence.

If you want to know why St. George people want schools so damn bad, look at a map of Baton Rouge. Look how massive of an area St. George is relative to the rest of the parish. There's only one high school out there, one. Most of the kids are bused deep into the city for school, thus, most of the middle class kids go to private school instead.

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So if SG becomes a city, it forms a great ISD, and it prospers; the entire parish benefits.

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Baton Rouge has several massive problems which deter investment and drive residential growth out to the suburbs:
1. traffic
2. crime
3. terrible public schools

By forming a city with an independent school district, St. George proponents believe that they can create a viable public school district inside the parish boundaries. Because traffic is already far better when you live inside the parish rather than have to commute in from Ascension Parish or Livingston, if there were a decent school system in EBR, a lot more people would choose to live there.

They also believe that at least within their new city, they could aggressively police it to keep it relatively free of crime.

Creating an area of EBR that has great schools, low crime, manageable traffic, and a large population would improve the viability of the parish as a whole, reverse the eroding of the tax base, and attract outside investment like never before.

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Creating an area of EBR that has great schools, low crime, manageable traffic, and a large population would improve the viability of the parish as a whole, reverse the eroding of the tax base, and attract outside investment like never before.

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Good points.

It would also create competition with the city of BR, which we'd HOPE would make the voter base elect competent officials who use the money wisely.

You’re spot on.

Did Russian pull a Delgado and give in to the idea? IS Russian Delgado? He's been quiet for SG 2.0