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When Mayor Kip Holden presented his $901 million bond issue last year, it was billed as a vision for East Baton Rouge Parish—a practical economic and cultural driver that would address past infrastructure neglect while forging a brilliant path toward the future by capitalizing on the desire for an innovation-driven community.

The capital-improvements package, which included infrastructure, public-safety and economic-development items, was soundly defeated at the polls. That election, in which rhetoric abounded and debate spread, exposed the divisiveness of the parish.

But the fractured nature of the city-parish came to light even before Metro Council member C. Denise Marcelle raised the question: Would it be better to break up the consolidated form of government?

The idea is as appealing as it is appalling. East Baton Rouge Parish is a fabric of opinions, aspirations and goals clustered around specific geographic locations. While every local government will always have disagreements and hang-ups, the city-parish is in a uniquely vulnerable position because its consolidated form assumes some thread of commonality joins its many parts. Too many identities—and the fierce territorial differences that come with them—are a threat to the tax base and hamper ability to move forward with services and economic development.

“It’s the people,” Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker says. “The mind-set of the person is, ‘I don’t need anything in the city. I live in the parish so I don’t need to contribute;’ or ‘I don’t go out there to the rural areas because I live in the city. I’m not going to help them.’ That’s not a public official problem. It’s a people problem.”

It was the need for improved services in the parish—from finance to fire protection—that drove the desire for government consolidation in the 1940s. In the aftermath of World War II, the landscape of Baton Rouge changed because soldiers were returning home and because unincorporated parts of the parish were growing rapidly. The parish, governed by a 10-ward police jury, was unprepared for the influx of people.

Because those highly populated areas remained outside of the city limits, community leaders pursued consolidation of the city and parish governments as the most logical way to solve the problem. The proposed plan of government expanded the Baton Rouge city limits from five square miles to 30 square miles, combined most city and parish agencies, and expanded the scope of the services they offered.

But conflict between incorporated and unincorporated areas was in existence even then. Consolidation was not widely supported in the parish at the time. Some 14,000 voters—slightly more than one-third of those registered—turned out to the polls on April 12, 1947, but the measure passed by just 307 votes, despite being favored by a 3-to-1 margin in the city.

So why consolidation? In Baton Rouge’s case, it was a way to make the best of a financially ruinous situation, says Brian Jensen, senior vice president of civic policy for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

“Annexation just wasn’t the practical way to go, so they decided to consolidate instead,” he says. “Other consolidations have been driven by similar circumstances, but each is unique in the way they approach the issue.”

There are more than 30 consolidated city-county governments in the United States. Four city-parish consolidations are in Louisiana: Baton Rouge, Houma, Lafayette and New Orleans. Most consolidations are driven by one of two elements: capturing growth within an area, or leveraging political power within a state.

Photo by Marie Constantin

DOOMSAYER: Former Metro Council member Darrell Ourso says the incorporation of parts of south East Baton Rouge Parish would be a disaster that could lead to the decline of the city.

There are some potential financial benefits to an area that avoids duplicating two sets of services, but the true strength of a consolidated government is the united front present when applying for federal and state funds for roadways, economic development and other investments. Rather than each existing municipality and the parish as its own entity duking it out for the same dollars, the theory goes that consolidation of parts focuses on what is in the best interests of the whole community.

“When you are talking about everyone in one ship on one course, the image resonates,” Jensen says. “While you’re always going to have different interests, being able to project an image as a region allows you to present your case in a more coherent fashion.”

The reality is that as the identities and culture of a certain area fragment, the more difficult it is to maintain that holistic sense of purpose. And there is no better example of conflicting viewpoints than East Baton Rouge Parish, especially as deeply rooted differences of opinion take center stage in the ongoing debate on the best way to move out of the recession and into a potentially bright future.

North vs. south

Baton Rouge always has had a prominent voice in that conversation because of its population density and tax base. While much is left up to the discretion of the mayor and elected parish officials, the municipalities of Baker, Central and Zachary, along with the unincorporated southeastern part of the parish, also have a role in that process.

Traditionally, the three municipalities make up a major voting bloc that has a powerful voice in everything from mayoral races to bond issues. Three of the past five mayors have come from Baker and Zachary, owing in part to the strength of that faction and to the large number of candidates who come out of the rest of the parish, which splits the vote and forces a runoff. Of the two mayors not from the northern part of the parish, Pat Screen was elected in part because of his status as an LSU football hero, and Holden was elected after two failed bids largely because of negative public sentiment toward then-incumbent Bobby Simpson.

When Holden first presented a $989 million bond issue to parish voters in 2008, Central and Zachary were instrumental in voting it down in a race decided by 3,071 votes. While the municipalities were not solely responsible for the revised proposal’s overwhelming 20,085-vote defeat last year, the opposition’s rhetoric was mainly guided by the northern part of the parish.

The priorities of Baker, Central and Zachary can be summed up in three words: Roads, drainage and schools, albeit with a smidgen of public safety thrown in for good measure. The municipalities participate in the parish sewer system and rely on the Recreation and Parks Commission, Library Board and Department of Public Works to provide services. Baker and Zachary have their own police departments, but Central has a police chief and a contract with the Sheriff’s Department to provide civil services within its city limits.

DPW Director Pete Newkirk says his department has a 93% completion rate on reported complaints within the city-parish since 2005. When a problem within his jurisdiction is reported, it is prioritized by area of the parish and severity of the issue. Newkirk says the division of resources is pretty even, depending on the problem. If there are flooding issues in the southeastern part of the parish, for example, more resources would be allocated to fix that problem.

But there is some uncertainty about where the parish’s jurisdiction begins and ends. While the municipalities say the working relationship with the city-parish generally is amicable, it becomes thorny when trying to determine who is responsible for what, especially when dealing with drainage and road-maintenance issues. There is a written agreement between Central and DPW determining the parish’s jurisdiction, but historically, the arrangement with Baker and Zachary has been oral, though the department meets regularly with municipality officials.

WRONG WAY: Metro Council member Joel Boé opposes the incorporation of additional cities in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Take Groom Road. The road itself is a major thoroughfare in Baker but has been designated as a parish road and is the city-parish DPW’s responsibility. Metro Council member Trae Welch says the road now is buckling, but it is unclear who is responsible for its maintenance: Baker or the city-parish. While the city-parish has committed to finding and fixing the root of the problem, it took a great deal of communication with Baker’s DPW to reach that agreement. In most cases, the underlying cause of the problem plays just as large a role as geographic location in determining which agency will address the issue and who has the best resources to do so. But some maintenance problems, like road deterioration or sewage backups, must be addressed without the luxury of time.

“You get into a situation where people will look at the municipalities and say, ‘You are an island unto yourselves, and our services stop at your border.’ They do not,” Welch says. “The problem is there is so much of a blur between what are services provided to the city of Baton Rouge as opposed to services provided to the unincorporated and the outlying incorporated parts of the parish that still have road and drainage issues.”

And then there are the schools. The municipalities have established independent school systems, and Central and Zachary have levied property taxes on their residents dedicated to their respective school districts in the past two years. While the East Baton Rouge Parish School System is not under the direct control of the city-parish, it is a factor in why the municipalities so fiercely guard their independence.

“We’ve lost the sense of community in Baton Rouge,” former legislator Louis “Woody” Jenkins says. “That sense of community was mainly based around good public schools in a neighborhood, and that is gone.”

Baker and Zachary sought legislative approval to form their own school districts in large part because of the desegregation suit brought against East Baton Rouge Parish in the 1960s. Some people contend that suit, which was settled in 2003 and required cross-parish busing of students and other initiatives that increased the number of black and white students in various schools, also eroded the quality of the public-school system by restricting the resources available, especially to rural parts of the parish. That perception was a large factor in Central’s desire for an independent school system and subsequent incorporation in 2005.

While the municipalities currently are pursuing economic-development opportunities—thereby increasing their cut of the local sales taxes that fund their budgets—most sales-tax revenue goes to Baton Rouge and the parish. While Baton Rouge remains on top in generating sales-tax collections—$72.2 million from January 2009 to October 2009 as opposed to the parish’s $61.3 million—the parish is not far behind. That means residents expect to see a bang for their buck when it comes to investment in their areas, and parish taxes that don’t directly benefit them get little support at the polls.

“We might be better off not having a consolidated government,” Central Mayor Shelton “Mac” Watts says. “It puts Mayor Holden in a difficult position. It puts us in a difficult position. If we did not have a consolidated form of government, where we had a parish president and a mayor of Baton Rouge, we might work better together.”

The perceived lack of investment by BREC is sure to raise the hackles of Central residents. Rep. Bodi White, a Denham Springs Republican whose district includes the northern parts of East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes, filed legislation that would have allowed Central to break away from the parish system and form its own recreation district; he dropped the effort in May 2008 after BREC agreed to accelerate some of its recreation projects planned for that area.

While BREC has followed that up with purchasing 50 acres for a sports park in June and another 495-acre parcel of wetlands this month as part of a parishwide conservation program, Central residents still question why they should pay BREC taxes if they don’t see any visible return on their tax dollars.

POWER OF THE PEOPLE: Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker says the mind-set that parish residents don’t need to contribute to the city or that city residents don’t need to contribute to the parish is a ‘people problem.

The conflict that arises over allocation of city-parish resources is one of the reasons the original government charter included a stipulation that no other municipalities beyond the ones that already existed—Baton Rouge, Baker and Zachary—could be incorporated in the parish. The provision, however, was deleted when it conflicted with the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, which does not allow parishes to forbid the incorporation of municipalities.

The upshot is that the founders of consolidated government anticipated more incorporated areas and land occupation would strain the new system. Since that safeguard is no longer in place, more incorporation has occurred, eroding a one-parish mentality, which in turn makes it more difficult to pass parishwide taxes.

“It’s not just about money. It’s about having a sense of community and people having their own way of life,” Jenkins says. “It’s completely different. To try to say, ‘Well, we’re all one parish. …’ It’s all in East Baton Rouge Parish, but there are different municipalities, and it is going to get increasingly that way.”

Finding a voice

East Baton Rouge Parish also faces challenges on a new front. Visualize driving south on Jefferson Highway on a Saturday afternoon and having a sudden desire to check out the Mall of Louisiana or Perkins Rowe. So you turn right onto Bluebonnet Boulevard, and by doing so drive into the heart of the newly minted city of St. George.

A far-fetched concept? To be sure. But hazy, on-again, off-again discussions that use the boundaries of the St. George Fire Protection District as the jumping-off point for incorporation are a very real indicator of the developmental and cultural fault lines separating the unincorporated southeast from the city.

The argument is remarkably similar to those made in the northern parts of the parish. The St. George district, which includes Country Club of Louisiana, Santa Maria and parts of historic Highland and Perkins roads, typically is high income, so there is some resentment that collected property taxes seemingly are not invested in the community and instead are used to benefit parts of the city and parish that don’t contribute as much to its coffers. Incorporation, some people argue, would be beneficial because the area has the financial and cultural wherewithal to support itself rather than propping up the city of Baton Rouge with its tax dollars.

“It’s the schools, it’s the fire department and the emphasis that the mayor and other mayors have put on downtown,” Metro Council member Joel Boé says. “You have a tug of war between those that live outside of the city limits vs. those that live inside the city limits.”

Jenkins says he has been informally approached about creating an independent school district in St. George and that, based on his experience in Central, incorporation might not be a bad idea if St. George has the financial resources to do so. While incorporation is not required by the state constitution in order to create an independent school district, state legislators—including Holden—established it as a precedent during Central’s quest for the same.

The realization of that idea would be a doomsday scenario for the city-parish. The boundaries of the St. George Fire District include the Mall of Louisiana and Perkins Rowe—two of the largest sales-tax generators. If St. George is incorporated into a new city, East Baton Rouge Parish would lose sales-tax revenues and some property taxes, causing the city-parish budget to take a hit. There is no way to know how that would impact the current level of services offered in the parish.

“It would lead to the decline of the city. It would lead to increased taxes in the city,” former Metro Council member Darrell Ourso says. “If the city core declines, then your crime increases. Where are [criminals] going to go? The new city in the parish, the one that’s right across the street.”

The erosion of the city-parish tax base would also be exacerbated should Baker, Central and Zachary break away from the rest of East Baton Rouge Parish. While no concrete leadership or serious movements have materialized for either cause, the discussion is an indicator of how much frustration parish residents feel when it comes to how tax revenues are spent. And that has implications beyond any bond issue. It endangers the tax base, which would have far-flung consequences for Baton Rouge and the future of its consolidated government.

“I don’t think [incorporation] is the right direction for the parish as a whole,” Boé says. “If you create another city or a town, it really goes completely against the whole consolidated form of government.”

While the obvious solution might be for the city of Baton Rouge to annex some of that high-income area, it’s not a simple process. If residents do not approach the city with a petition for inclusion, the city must present its case for annexation to the residents before putting it to a vote of those in the area. Residents of an unincorporated area typically might support annexation because of the improved amount of services that would be available to them as part of a city, says Charles Landry, an attorney with Jones Walker who specializes in real-estate development and finance. There also is a perception that property taxes are higher in the city, which might make the prospect more unattractive.

“It’s not easy to tabulate at first glance,” Landry says. “You really have to analyze the benefit of additional services to what you believe it’s going to cost.”

Because the perceived lack of investment is at issue in St. George, there isn’t likely to be a warm response to an annexation attempt by the city. But as long as there is significant dissatisfaction with the city-parish’s handling of the area’s tax dollars, the possibility of incorporation remains a blade hanging over the metropolitan government’s head.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen in the near future,” Boé says. “I don’t want it to happen. I don’t support it. If we all continually try to create our own cities within the parish, at some point you just need to give up on the consolidated form of government and change.”

A matter of representation?

Metro Council members labor to address problems in their individual districts, and the only designated source of parishwide input is the mayor, who is also committed to the city of Baton Rouge. Holden declined an interview request to explain how the administration assesses needs in the parish and allocates available resources. Speculation about that process, however, is rampant.

“It’s like having four kids. You’re going to have your preferences,” Baker Mayor Harold Rideau says. “That’s just the way it is.”

FOR PETE’S SAKE: Department of Public Works Director Pete Newkirk says the division of resources between the city and parish is pretty even, depending on the problem.

The existence of single-member districts might also be a contributing factor in the perceived disconnect between the city of Baton Rouge and the rest of the parish because there is a certain amount of inherent parochialism. Metro Council members are elected by their individual districts, and their job necessitates addressing their constituents first. While they also are elected to be the voice of the parish, it could be hard to prioritize that role, especially if what is potentially best for the parish as a whole is not the course of action their districts advocate.

That’s one reason former Metro Council member Pat Culbertson introduced measures in 2006 and 2008 that would have created two at-large positions to be elected parishwide. The councilman-at-large with the most votes would also be mayor pro tem. Currently, that position is filled through election by the full council.

The measures failed, but Culbertson maintains that parishwide voices on the Metro Council would go a long way toward healing some of the damage because they would represent more people and interests. By having a mayor pro tem elected in a parishwide vote, the mayor no longer would be the sole representative with the entire parish as a district.

That rebalancing of power theoretically would beef up the council’s position within the metropolitan form of government. A council led by a mayor pro tem elected parishwide would have a better grasp of the entire parish’s needs without having to rely as heavily on the administration’s perspective.

“It would definitely be a movement to strengthen the council in relation to the mayor’s office,” Culbertson says. “That’s a good thing, because the mayor-president has far too much power.”

In theory, a council of single-member districts with the duty to represent the whole parish works, but in practice, results are varied. Few parishwide measures have come before a Metro Council that took office last year with 10 new members, excluding Walker and Ulysses “Bones” Addison. Despite the fresh faces, the council failed its first big test. Support for a special taxing district that would have excluded Baker, Central and Zachary from voting on last year’s bond issue boiled down to the desires of individual district constituents, which was also the reason inner-city council members chose to vote in favor of putting the measure on the ballot as one proposal despite vehement opposition from the municipalities and unincorporated parts of the parish. That does not inspire much confidence that parochialism will be any less of a challenge regardless of the representation in office.

Nashville, Tenn., perceived a similar situation and chose to preempt it by adding five at-large council seats during its 1962 incorporation with Davidson County. When tempered by 35 single-member districts, it would be difficult to argue that anyone in that city-county consolidation is hard-pressed for representation, and there seems to be little conflict between the city and the unincorporated area surrounding it.

“There are differences of opinion every night the council meets, but I’ve never seen a case where it’s been the at-large seats teamed up against the individual council districts,” says Mike Safley, deputy director of law for the Nashville metropolitan government. “There may be some philosophical differences, but the system we have has been around for 46 years and it works well.”

Little interest has been shown in reviving the at-large debate, although it is not completely dead. Because the 2010 Census will require redrawing the single-member districts in response to population shifts, it would be an opportune time to revisit the issue.

But Walker says the integrity of either system depends solely on the individuals elected. The potential for parochialism will always exist because at-large members might feel beholden to one part of the parish more than another, thus resulting in two council members seeking to benefit only those constituents rather than the parish. In that case, at-large members would
expand the problem instead of fixing it.

“It’s really about the person you elect—whether they come from a council district or are elected at large,” he says. “Do they have the courage to plan and simply do what’s right for the whole parish? If you do what’s right for the parish, your district will benefit from that.”

Breaking it down

But while the metropolitan form of government continues to chug along, the question remains: Is it the most effective way to govern a parish so divided against itself?

The answer remains unclear. Separation is an option, although its viability is up for debate. Such an endeavor would take years and require a majority vote of the city-parish and a great deal of planning in terms of setting up a new, parishwide government. While all consolidated governments have had growing pains—mostly in the form of lawsuits challenging their constitutionality at the beginning of their tenures—Jensen says none have chosen to return to separate systems once consolidated because of their efficiency. Others say separation would be a bad idea just in terms of duplication—one more council, one more executive, one more DPW and every other service the city-parish now offers.

“It would be going backwards because then you would have exactly the same problems that Baker, Zachary and Central have when they try to get resources from the parish,” Welch says. “The city of Baton Rouge would then have to do that same dance. You would be duplicating services, and that’s not efficient.”

Like so many government issues, there is no clear-cut answer. Zachary Mayor Henry Martinez, who two years ago said his city’s residents should not have to pay parish taxes because the parish did nothing for the city, believes part of the solution might be facilitating better communication between the northern municipalities and city-parish leadership when it comes to the direction of the parish as a whole.

“We were never invited into the discussion,” he says. “If you want to talk about a discussion, you have to be a part of the conversation to begin with. It all comes back to communication.”

There is little doubt that the East Baton Rouge Parish metropolitan government has its benefits. Most services in the city-parish are offered by a single entity that has the capability to address issues throughout the parish. But the resources a $701 million budget can provide are finite, and the ensuing debate over the allocation of those resources does engender a set of challenges unique to consolidation. While the current form of government functions effectively, more incorporation on the horizon and, consequently, a parish divided, does not bode well for its future development.

“I don’t think any government is pretty at all times,” Ourso says. “We’re not unlike any other body. We will disagree. That is the nature of a legislative process. You work, you give, you take. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. But the process works.”

CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT TIMELINE

Aug. 12, 1947

The city-parish charter passes by 307 votes, with slightly more than one-third of registered voters casting a ballot; the measure, which was championed by local government leaders, received large support in the city but little in the parish

Feb. 1, 1972

East Baton Rouge Parish voters approve 12 single-member districts for the Parish Council to comply with the one-man, one vote requirement

Sept. 11, 1982

Voters approve the consolidation of the Baton Rouge City Council with the Parish Council into the single Metropolitan Council, which is comprised of 12 single-member districts

Nov. 8, 1995

Term limits of three consecutive terms are established for the mayor-president and members of the Metro Council

Jan. 1, 1949

Government consolidation takes effect, abolishing the police jury and substituting the mayor-president and separate councils for city and parish

Jan. 1, 1975

The Louisiana Constitution of 1974 abolishes the provision in the Plan of Government forbidding the incorporation of municipalities beyond the three already existing in the parish—Baker, Baton Rouge and Zachary

April 16, 1988

The Horizon Plan, a comprehensive master-land-use-and-development document, is added to the government plan

April 23, 2005

Central is incorporated into a city with 63% of more than 8,000 participating voters in favor of the measure

SOURCE: Council Administrator’s Office and Office of Public Information