Imagine it’s a Sunday morning in late 2019 or early 2020 and you wake up in your home in Santa Maria or Jefferson Terrace or Harveston to find you are no longer living in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish.
In a controversial and closely watched election the day before, a majority of the 86,000 residents in your area voted to incorporate themselves into a 60-square-mile, independent city called St. George.
Congratulations, but what exactly comes next is still a conundrum, as Business Report details in its new cover package.
It’s an important question because there is a growing sense of inevitability that St. George will happen and no one is quite sure how it will play out if—or when—it comes to pass.
A few things appear increasingly certain.
For one, many municipal services in the new city will be privatized, though some will still be provided by the city-parish government.
In another change, Baton Rouge’s consolidated form of government will likely be disbanded within a couple of years, if not sooner. With the creation of St. George, there will be five separate cities within East Baton Rouge Parish, including Baker, Baton Rouge, Central and Zachary, each with its own city council and its own city departments. The rationale for a city-parish government, with its inherent economies of scale and regional jurisdiction, will be obsolete.
Perhaps what is most certain, though, is that the transition will not be as simple or as relatively seamless as it was when Central incorporated a little more than a decade ago.
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