Among the growing list of potential candidates for Baton Rouge mayor is local real estate broker Darryl Gissel, who says he’s strongly considering a run because he wants to bring together a seemingly increasingly divided community.
Gissel is a lifelong Republican and former executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party. He also served as a special assistant to former Gov. Dave Treen in the early 1980s. But if he enters the mayor’s race it will be as an independent.
“We have made a lot of progress in our city over the past eight years but we still face big challenges that affect the quality of life for all of us,” Gissel says. “The Mayor’s race should focus on improving that quality of life. I would like to be part of that discussion without the division that party labels bring today.”
Gissel, a native of New Orleans, moved to Baton Rouge in 1978 to attend graduate school at LSU and found his home in Spanish Town. In the decades since, he has been instrumental in helping restore Baton Rouge’s oldest residential neighborhood. He has also been involved behind the scenes in numerous civic initiatives and is active in the preservationist community—experience he says would serve him well in office.
“In the decades-long fight to bring back our old neighborhoods I have earned a doctorate in city government,” he says. “I would like to put that knowledge to good use.”
So far, two candidates have officially announced they will run for mayor, Metro Councilmember John Delgado, a Republican, and former state Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, a Democrat. Among those considering a run are: former Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff, Councilmember Chandler Loupe, State Sen. Bodi White, activist Sarah Holliday-James and businessman Marty Maley.
—Stephanie Riegel
