The Baton Rouge Area Chamber opposes the formation of a Baton Rouge City Council, it announced today, after Daily Report reported voters might have the option to restore the council on next spring’s ballot.
“We believe in a unified form of government for the city-parish,” BRAC Board Chairman Ric Kearny says in a prepared statement. “The creation of an additional body of government within East Baton Rouge (Parish) goes against this belief, proposing yet another wedge between the people and communities of the parish.”
Behind the movement is a group called Restore Baton Rouge, led by Ernest Johnson, president emeritus of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference. Johnson plans to bring a request before the Metro Council this fall to place an item on the spring ballot asking voters to recreate the Baton Rouge City Council, which was eliminated in 1983 and merged into the Metro Council.
“Their position is a suppression of the voting rights of residents within city limits,” Johnson says of BRAC’s statement. “If they were being fair, why don’t they say there shouldn’t be city councils for Central, Baker and Zachary?”
Supporters of the movement have said they want to give Baton Rouge residents a louder voice on municipal matters, with separate councils as the other cities in the parish have.
In the release, BRAC likens its case against a city council to its opposition to an incorporated city of St. George, saying both movements promote “division and self-interest above leadership and solutions.”
