In a new Q&A, 225 dives into issues such as race relations and flood recovery with Baton Rouge’s 12 mayoral candidates.
Candidates were asked whether Baton Rouge has a race problem, how they would strengthen and rebuild the community after the August flood and what would make their administrations a success.
On the topic of flood recovery, “Smokie” Bourgeois, a Republican, says he wants to divert money from projects like the proposed downtown tram to higher priorities such as drainage.
“That had a lot to do with the flooding,” Bourgeois says. “The Comite Diversion Canal, which we’ve been talking about for over 30 years, it’s not an end-all solution, but it can help. After 30 years of a talking about it, all you have is the outfall built. I’m not interested in excuses. I’m sure that diversion canal can be built, and we need somebody in the mayor’s office constantly doing something about it and keeping it in the forefront.”
Independent Darryl Gissel tells the magazine that he believes it’s imperative to have a point person in East Baton Rouge Parish to lead the flood recovery efforts and to keep all sectors—from real estate to business to key community leaders—engaged.
“We need to avoid government silos,” he says. “There needs to be planning sessions in different quadrants of the city. In the rebuilding, we have the ability to correct things like infrastructure, planning and housing.”
Libertarian Rufus Craig says he believes Baton Rouge has a race problem and would advocate ending the war on drugs.
“After two generations of this policy, it’s left behind the people of north Baton Rouge and created bad relationships between police and neighborhoods,” Craig says. “As a community and a nation, we really need to stop the war on drugs. We need to look at the Portuguese model of decriminalizing drugs. If you use drugs north of Florida Boulevard, you come in contact with Department of Corrections. South of Florida Boulevard, you get rehabilitation for a couple of months.”
Democrat Greg LaFleur, on the other hand, doesn’t believe there’s a race problem in Baton Rouge.
“It’s more of a poverty problem, and we have to do to better job of creating more jobs. Once we create more jobs that will go along in improving race relations,” LaFleur says, adding that he wants to recruit more companies to come to Baton Rouge and address education.
Read the full Q&A feature, which also includes responses from Republicans John Delgado and Mack “Bodi” White and Braylon Hyde, Independents Beverly Amador and Cade Williams, and Democrats Sharon Weston Broome, Byron Sharper, and C. Denise Marcelle.
