Officials hoping to create a mental health diversion center in Baton Rouge have to decide by March 8 whether to put a property tax measure that would fund the center on the fall ballot.
Late last year, voters in East Baton Rouge Parish narrowly defeated a 1.5-mill dedicated property tax that would have generated an estimated $5.8 million a year for the Bridge Center, a facility designed to keep the mentally ill out of the crowded parish prison and emergency rooms.
Kathy Kliebert, who chairs the board of the nonprofit trying to establish the Bridge Center, met last week with Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and says she is waiting to hear back from the mayor as to whether the tax proposal will go forward this fall. The board wouldn’t consider pursuing the tax without the mayor’s support, Kliebert says.
“The mayor told us she would get back to us,” Kliebert says. “She has a lot of other things she has to consider, like the Green Light Plan II. But she has always been very supportive of our issues. I know if she can do this she will.”
Broome’s office did not respond to a request for comment by this morning’s deadline.
As it tries to figure out whether it will get a source of long-term funding, the Bridge Center’s board has had to scale back. In mid-January, it laid off executive director Rob Reardon, who left his position after 27 years as Director of Corrections in the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office last summer to establish and run the new Bridge Center.
In early January, Reardon told Daily Report he thought existing grant funds were sufficient to keep his position with the organization funded. But Kliebert says after meeting in mid-January, the board decided to reassess.
“We realized even if the tax does pass this fall it will be two years from now before we have a steady revenue stream,” she says. “The Baton Rouge Area Foundation will help us. We have a little bit of grant money and BRAF will help us administer those grants.”
BRAF was the brainchild behind the Bridge Center concept and has been instrumental in trying to get the facility off the ground.
Kliebert says she does not know what Reardon is doing since his position was eliminated. He did not return calls seeking comment.
—Stephanie Riegel
