Contrary to what Gov. John Bel Edwards reportedly told the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry at the group’s annual meeting, Mayor Kip Holden says he was the one who pointed out a problematic bottleneck on Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge to President Barack Obama during his visit on Thursday—not the governor.
“With all due respect to the governor, he did not mention that … the only person who talked to the president about the interstate was me,” Holden tells Daily Report, “and he’s taking 100% credit for it.”
Edwards was quoted in multiple media outlets as telling the LABI crowd that he alerted Obama to the fact that Baton Rouge is the only place along the 2,460-mile stretch of interstate in which the highway narrows to just one lane, near the Washington Street exit.
The Associated Press quoted the governor as saying: “I said, ‘This is the only place in the United States of America where there’s one travel lane on a major interstate.’ He didn’t know that before.” The Advocate, meanwhile, quoted Edwards as saying: “He didn’t know that before, and had I not taken advantage of the opportunity, he wouldn’t have known it today.”
Edwards stands by his comments, according to a statement from his office provided to Daily Report.
“The governor stands by his remarks,” reads the statement. “He appreciated the president letting him, and others, discuss the traffic problems along I-10. The president and his staff followed up with the governor the very next morning, and we’re looking forward to continuing these conversations with our federal partners. As long as the job gets done right, the governor isn’t concerned with who gets credit.”
Both Edwards and Holden rode with Obama during his visit to Baton Rouge, and along the ride they passed by the notoriously congested stretch of I-10. Both also gave Obama letters asking for his support of several key projects in Louisiana and the Baton Rouge area, and both letters mention the widening of I-10 near the Washington Street exit bottleneck.
According to the official White House transcript from Obama’s address at McKinley High School, the president said: “I know that your mayor was talking about how the interstate here narrows, and we may need to do something about it to relieve some traffic.”
Holden points to the transcript as evidence that he was the one who raised the interstate issues with Obama, and says he was surprised and upset with the governor’s comments at the LABI annual meeting on Thursday.
“That’s what blew me away, because that’s what I talked about. For him to just act like I didn’t say anything about the interstate and he was the one to bring it to his attention … No you weren’t, man, and I’ll take a polygraph test,” Holden says. “I don’t want to get into a pissing contest. All I want him to do is tell the whole story.”
—Steve Sanoski
