Following Wednesday’s Baton Rouge Metro Council meeting, residents will be paying $1 more a month for solid waste and recycling services, a Michigan-based consulting company will begin evaluating medical services at the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison and a new Courtyard Marriott will move forward downtown.
The council initially voted against raising the solid waste user fee from $19 to $20 at the meeting. But after continued discussion—and a reminder from Chief Administrative Officer William Daniel that recycling in the city-parish would cease after Nov. 1 without the increase—the council passed the item by an 8-3 vote.
The fee is paid parishwide, except by residents of Baker and Zachary, who pay for their own solid waste and recycling services.
The council also approved by a 9-2 vote a $95,000 contract with Health Management Associates to begin a comprehensive study of the medical practices in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. and Parish Prison Warden Dennis Grimes all asked the council to approve the study, saying it is woefully needed to identify what could be done to improve medical care in the facility.
“We do not have adequate services at that prison to provide for the prison population,” Gautreaux told the council.
The council also approved the creation a special tax increment financing district to help fund the construction of the downtown Courtyard Marriott hotel. The council voted against the district in July, but representatives of the hotel developers—South Carolina-based Windsor Aughtry Company and their local partners Gordon “Skeet” Leblanc and his sister, Moffett Leblanc Strain—met privately with council members since the first vote and convinced more than enough to approve it on the second try. The developers had said the hotel would not be feasible without the TIF.
Ryan Heck was the lone council member to vote against the TIF. Councilwoman Ronnie Edwards was absent. All of the other council members supported the TIF.
The council also approved a $94,327 contract with Pictometry International Corporation to provide aerial photography of the city-parish to update and improve the Geographic Information System mapping data used by city-parish agencies.
A public hearing on the elimination of two Capital Area Transit System routes serving downtown will be held at the council’s Nov. 10 meeting, after the council OK’d introduction of the measure at Wednesday’s meeting.
—Ryan Broussard
