St. George organizers have the required amount of signatures

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St. George supporters celebrated a major victory Sunday evening when they announced that enough signatures have been collected to put the proposal to create their own city in the southern part of the parish to a vote of the people.

“Everyone who said we’d never get the required number of signatures to put this on a ballot was wrong,” Lionel Rainey, a St. George spokesman, said Sunday shortly after the announcement was made. “We just climbed a hill that virtually everyone said was unclimbable.”

However, Rainey also was cautious.

“The fight is nowhere near over,” he said.

Petitions as of Sunday had 17,750 signatures, he said. The group was informed last week by the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters that it needed exactly 17,746 signatures from residents within the proposed area.

“We could turn it in today if we wanted to,” Rainey said.

But that’s not what they’re planning to do. To be safe, Rainey said, the group will refrain from submitting the petition for validation until supporters can collect about 1,750 more signatures, which is 10 percent more than required.

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LINK to article on The Advocate

This of course doesn't mean that it's official that the city is going to happen, just that they have enough signatures to put the issue on the December ballot with the Senate and Congressional run-offs. Expect a retaliation and of course an attempt to change the election rules by EBR Parish in the next few days.