State lawmakers from the Capital Region Legislative Delegation gathered on the steps of the Capitol this week with dozens of leaders from local community groups and faith-based organizations to protest the recently announced closure of Baton Rouge General Medical Center’s Mid City emergency room.
“We are here today to demand—to demand—that the Mid City emergency room stay open until a viable plan has been devised,” said event organizer Alma Stewart, who heads the group Campaign for Health Care for Everyone Louisiana.
Last week, Baton Rouge General announced that mounting losses of some $2 million per month will force the hospital to shutter the facility within 60 days. Though hospital officials have said they are working with Our Lady of the Lake and other community partners on an alternative plan, which will include opening an urgent care center near the existing hospital, lawmakers said closing a major emergency room in the middle of the city will put everyone at risk.
“In less than 60 days we will all be in danger,” said Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb, D-Baton Rouge.
Meanwhile, downtown residents and workers are also concerned about what the ER closure will mean for their ability to access care. Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer sent an email Monday to Baton Rouge General CEO Mark Slyter and Board Chair Janice Pellar underscoring how many people visit downtown on a daily basis and how they potentially will be at risk without a nearby ER.
Also this week, Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle held a press conference to call for the resignation of Capital Area Transit System CEO Bob Mirabito, saying he lacks leadership skills, mistreats employees and has failed to deliver on bus services promised in the 2012 CATS tax election. Mirabito defended his performance, and CATS board chairwoman and Metro Councilwoman Donna Collins-Lewis also came to his defense, saying she stands firmly behind the CEO.
“We are committed to making sure our riders remain the focus of all that we do as an agency,” Collins-Lewis says in a statement. “Bob Mirabito has shown us through the improvements made over the past year that he has that same commitment.”
Here’s a rundown of the other top local stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Construction officially got underway at the Water Campus, a 33-acre riverfront research park devoted to deltaic studies and coastal issues. Gov. Bobby Jindal joined other state and local officials, LSU administrators and business leaders at a ceremonial groundbreaking on the site of what will be the first building on the campus—the $16 million Center for River Studies, which will house a full-scale model of the lower Mississippi River.
- As many as roughly 28,000 contract laborers are expected to be needed in the greater Baton Rouge area through next summer, a new semi-annual forecast from the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance says. Welders, pipefitters, and instrument and electrical technicians will be the most in-demand skilled laborers, according to the forecast, which GBRIA compiles based on surveys with its 60 members in the eight-parish Capital Region.
- Hotel occupancy in Baton Rouge increased nearly 7% in 2014 over the previous year, thanks to several major events held here last summer. Total room nights for the year topped 104,000, while some 337 conventions and groups held meetings in Baton Rouge, according to the Annual Report released by Visit Baton Rouge. “Last year will go down as one of the best for Baton Rouge tourism,” Visit Baton Rouge President and CEO Paul Arrigo says.
- A public hearing will be held on a proposed barge cleaning facility to be located on the Mississippi River near BREC’s Farr Park Equestrian Center, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Quality says, but it’s not clear yet when or where the hearing will take place. Residents near the proposed plant, as well as BREC officials, have raised concerns about the facility and the chemicals that will be used at it.
- The Rotary Club of Baton Rouge is sponsoring an international competition to design a piece of original art that will be displayed on the downtown riverfront at Florida Street and will serve as a gateway to the area.
- Baton Rouge specialty skin surgeon Dr. Stephen Antrobus has purchased a 48,000-square-foot office pad in the Jefferson Place Office Park at 7722 Office Park Blvd., located just off Jefferson Highway between Corporate Boulevard and Essen Lane, with plans for a new office.
- Roughly 20 months since an explosion at the plant killed two workers and injured scores of others, Williams Partners’ Geismar facility is once again making and selling ethylene, a key ingredient in chemical manufacturing.
- The Baton Rouge Police Department has stepped up its communications and sensitivity training in an effort to make officers more aware of cultural diversity and respectful of those they interact with on the streets. Chief Carl Dabadie says he is trying to “continuously change the culture of the Baton Rouge Police Department.” Meanwhile, as many as 22 full-time police officers could be assigned to the new downtown police precinct as soon as late summer, Dabadie says.
- Chabill’s Tire and Auto Service has broken ground on its third Baton Rouge area location, with hopes of having the center open by the end of July, says owner Charley Gowland. Gowland purchased a roughly one-acre site at 10404 Burbank Drive—near the new Walmart Supercenter—last fall for $823,480, on which the new tire and auto center is being built.
- In a move company officials say will ensure its data is more secure and will free up its employees to focus on its core business, Baton Rouge-based Lamar Advertising Company has moved all of its data infrastructure to Venyu’s storage and service center on Florida Boulevard.
- Three Republicans and an independent candidate for the recently vacated House District 66 seat took aim at constitutional fund dedications, tax exemptions and credits, and Baton Rouge’s traffic woes during a debate at the weekly Baton Rouge Press Club meeting.
- Leadership Greater Baton Rouge Alumni is bringing its “Reverse Canvas” event back for a second year next month, and organizers hope to attract twice as many attendees of the day-long summit on a wide range of issues concerning the Capital Region.
- Two Baton Rouge-based restaurant chains have made a Top 10 list of quick-service restaurants in the country. Raising Cane’s tied for fourth with Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop on Sandelman & Associate’s Quick-Track list, while CC’s Coffee House is tied for sixth with Café Zupas.
- Nationally renowned New Urbanist planner Andres Duany—best known locally for Plan Baton Rouge, his 1998 master plan for downtown—says downtown Baton Rouge today is at the tipping point and that the newly opened downtown Matherne’s supermarket is the “great breakthrough.”
- Triumph Kitchen, the nonprofit educational venue headed by Chris and Sommer Wadsworth, will now work out of the kitchen of Modern Meals, a Mid City restaurant that offers healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner options for on-the-go patrons.
- Mama Della’s, the New York-style pizzeria at 8190 Jefferson Highway that last year was featured in an episode of the Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible, has been closed for nearly five weeks now. Owner Barry Kalt says he hopes he can find some help to keep his restaurant alive, but it’s unclear if the closure will be temporary or permanent.
- Business partners and developers Kent Walker and Donnie Jarreau have purchased for $868,750 a building at 2975 Highland Road that’s home to a Family Dollar store. Walker says the two bought the building as an investment and anticipate Family Dollar will remain in the building.
- Capital Valve and Fitting has filed for a permit to build a new 13,500-square-foot warehouse with a loading dock and training facility. The new $2.8 million facility will be located behind the company’s existing headquarters at 9243 Interline Ave.
- In hopes of helping the state address its skilled worker shortage, LSU is preparing to launch both a new graduate certificate in workforce development, as well as a master’s program, that have been developed in consultation with Louisiana Economic Development’s FastStart workforce development team, the Louisiana Workforce Commission and the state’s community and technical college system.
- Questions are being raised about whether the Livingston Parish Council violated Louisiana law when it recently went behind closed doors to discuss a settlement with engineering firm Alvin Fairburn and Associates over $312,000 in alleged overbilling.
- Attorneys for Dow Chemical and the federal government have until mid-March to argue what kinds of penalties the specialty chemical company should pay for its $1 billion phony tax shelter that in part involved its Louisiana operations in Plaquemine.
- Fueled by job growth in its key industries as well as its emerging tech sector, Baton Rouge made the biggest jump of any American city ranked among the top 25 of the Milken Institute’s 2014 list of the “Best Performing Large City.” Baton Rouge jumped 55 spots from its ranking last year to No. 21 on 2014 list.
- South African firm Sasol Ltd. announced that five Baton Rouge-based construction firms have been awarded a total of more than $1 billion in contracts to construct its $8.1 billion ethane cracker in Lake Charles, including Cajun Constructors, James Industrial Constructors, ISC Constructors and MMR Constructors.
- Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister is endorsing Republican Metro Councilman Buddy Amoroso in the race for House District 66, in which Amoroso is running against two Republicans and an independent.
- The 2015 Baton Rouge Business Awards and Hall of Fame winners will be honored at a gala set for Thursday, March 19, at the Crowne Plaza, 4728 Constitution Ave. Tickets for the gala—which is presented annually by Business Report and Junior Achievement—are available for $80 each, with tables of 10 available for $750. Tickets are available online or by calling (225) 928-1700.
