B.R. business owner announces mayoral candidacy

Gordon Mese, owner of Garden District Nursery, says he’ll run against incumbent Mayor Kip Holden as an independent in next year’s election. A Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate with a degree in landscape architecture, Mese is a newcomer to politics and the first challenger to announce his candidacy. Mayor Pro Tempore Mike Walker, who is term-limited on the council, has begun raising funds but says he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll run for mayor. Mese has never run for a political office before. He’s owned and operated the nursery on Government Street for 26 years. “I’ve been writing letters to the editor and going to meetings over the years to no avail, and so I finally said, ‘You know, I’m about to be 45 and it’s time for me to throw myself into the mix and see if people want to give a new guy a chance to accomplish something,’ ” he says. The candidate will be running without a party affiliation, and Mese says he’s not going to take any campaign donations. “I will be beholden only to the people of this parish if elected, with my hands and feet free to do whatever needs to be done,” he says. “Professional politicians have failed on every level, and we’re seeing the results of that all over now. My approach is going to be different.” Mese says his platform will focus on overhauling the planning office and development code. “We have a disease in this city, and it’s called unexecuted planning and poor development practices,” he says. —Steve Sanoski