“Quick! Think of the names of four fictional mayors. I’ll do the same,” Jeremy Alford asks in his latest column.
Now, think of four real mayors from Louisiana.
“You can pull your personalities from any village, town or city. The mayors can even be dead, alive, in office, retired or in prison,” Alford writes, before launching into a series of questions.
Was your hometown mayor on the list? Is he or she running for re-election this fall? If so, who are the other candidates who have qualified? Or do you have an open seat in your backyard, or perhaps no race at all?
Alford notes the fall election cycle will host mayoral races in Alexandria, Broussard, Crowley, Minden and Shreveport, just to name a few among at least 11 other competitive mayoral races unfolding in the state.
This unofficial tally includes a half dozen or so first-term mayors who are looking to build legacies via re-election, and a couple of interim mayors begging voters for full-time jobs, Alford says.
“Now, the thing about those fictional mayors,” Alford writes. “Is that they’ll always be where they are right now.”
Our most veteran mayors in Louisiana, by contrast, are disappearing. When viewed in conjunction with the incoming wave of new and second-term mayors, Alford says what we’re witnessing is part of the changing face of Louisiana’s municipal landscape.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
