After word came down early this week from the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters that the St. George incorporation effort is nearly 2,700 signatures short of the 17,859 needed to bring the measure to a vote of the people, a spokesman for the effort told Daily Report he’s optimistic supporters will be able to collect the necessary signatures within the legally prescribed 60 days.
“The volunteers and people involved are fired up and ready to get it finished, and we’re hoping to get a lot of people on the fence excited,” says Lionel Rainey, a St. George spokesman. “We feel confident we’ll be able to get this done and get above and beyond what we need and put this thing on the (fall) ballot.”
The Registrar of Voters office says the petition, submitted last July, fell 2,694 signatures short of the total needed. In the months since it was submitted, however, Rainey says volunteers have collected some 1,500 signatures and that they now only need about 1,200 more. But attorney Mary Olive Pierson, who represents the city in a series of legal issues related to the incorporation, says the signature shortage is proof that support for the St. George movement is waning.
Also this week, Baton Rouge General Medical Center officially closed the doors of its emergency room at its Mid City campus and turned its attention toward transitioning employees to its Bluebonnet Boulevard facility.
“Over the coming days, employees and physicians housed at the Mid City ER will transition to the Bluebonnet campus. In addition, a logistics team has been established to assess equipment, medications and supplies and to recirculate to other areas of the health system,” the hospital says.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Louisiana’s higher education institutions need to be more efficient with the research funds they spend in order to spur innovation in the state’s economy and bring more new ideas to the marketplace, Robert Travis Scott, head of the Public Affairs Research Council, told the Press Club of Baton Rouge.
- The Planning Commission later this month will consider a request by the Lafayette-based developers of the River District, a planned mixed-use development on Nicholson Drive, to exempt the project from the overlay zoning district that governs the area. The nearby Water Campus—up for approval this month as well—also plans to ask to be removed from the district, which is called the Old Town Redevelopment Overlay.
- Since taking their local TV show Out da Bayou national earlier this year, video producer John Jackson and Ruffino’s co-owner and executive chef Peter Sclafani have gotten such positive feedback they’re planning a second show about Louisiana cuisine. The new show, tentatively titled Louisiana Eats, is scheduled to shoot a pilot episode later this spring, with a hoped-for air date in the fall.
- Crawfish Aquatics has purchased a Siegen Lane building adjacent to where its new 40,000-square-foot swimming and recreational facility is under development, in a deal that closed Tuesday evening for $1.32 million. The 6,500-square-foot building at 8556 Siegen Lane was formerly home to Capital Golf, which recently closed, says Drew Pearson of Waters & Pettit Commercial Real Estate, who brokered the deal.
- Just in time for Easter, River Road Coffees products are appearing on local store shelves in brightly colored bags, a departure from the traditional gold foil packaging. But the spring-toned coffee bags are not a seasonal gimmick. Rather, they’re a stopgap solution to a problem the local coffee manufacturer encountered last month, when its West Coast-based bag supplier said it wouldn’t be able to deliver the next shipment of River Road’s signature gold bags due to a backlog created by the California dockworkers’ strike.
- As the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge begins its national search for its next president and CEO, the former head of the council has announced his next initiative. Eric Holowacz, former president and CEO of the Arts Council, announced he has partnered with local arts organizations including The Walls Project, Elevator Projects and the Art & Design Center to support the region’s creative minds with the new Creative Development Bureau.
- Comprehensive, statewide tax reform would improve the state’s business climate and, long-term, its economy. But residents of Louisiana likely would not feel the benefits of such reform any time soon, LSU economist Jim Richardson told members of the Louisiana Committee of 100 for Economic Development, a group of top business leaders from around the state, who gathered in Baton Rouge this week for their annual conference.
- The four major announced candidates for governor of Louisiana agreed on the need to scrutinize the state’s incentive programs, streamline sales tax collection and make it easier to cut spending categories currently protected by the state constitution. Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, State Rep. John Bel Edwards and U.S. Sen. David Vitter spoke at a luncheon in Baton Rouge hosted by the Louisiana chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Louisiana Restaurant Association and the Louisiana Retailers Association.
- Strong sales in East Baton Rouge and Livingston parishes helped push home sales in the eight-parish Capital Region up 4.8% in February, compared to sales during the same month last year. A total of 636 homes were sold across the region last month, which is 29 more than were sold than in February 2014.
- School systems around the state are embracing Jump Start, a new program designed to train high school students in the technical and skilled trades and get them into the workforce more quickly. As the first school year since Jump Start launched comes to a close, officials say the program is far ahead of schedule and exceeding expectations.
- After operating a catering business in Baton Rouge for the past 12 years, Elvondae “Von” Raybon is working to bring a new restaurant and seafood market called Pit-N-Peel to Mid City.
