EBR Blight Strike Team To Hold First Meeting on Thursday

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BATON ROUGE - Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome's newly created Blight Strike Team is set to hold its first meeting this week.

"Part of the desire with the Blight Strike Team is to explain to neighborhood groups and people working on these efforts what the flow is," Chief Administrative Officer Darryl Gissel said.

Representatives from nearly two dozen local agencies and organizations will be working to curb blight.

"Realtors deal with it, neighborhood associations deal with it, historic groups deal with it," Gissel said.

Gissel says blight takes on many forms throughout Baton Rouge and there are a number of ways to deal with specific cases.

"Blight again has a lot of different meanings. Blight could be anything from an overgrown lot. A lot of complaints in Baton Rouge about abandoned swimming pools," Gissel said. "Abandoned buildings and buildings that are just in poor condition."

While tearing down dilapidated properties seems like the obvious choice, Gissel says that isn't always the case.

"Some neighborhoods may not want a house torn down," Gissel said. "They may want to encourage an owner to do certain things."

The Blight Strike Team will meet for the first time on Thursday at 2 p.m.

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