Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer is taking issue with a flier being distributed to homes in the proposed city of St. George by organizers of the incorporation effort.
The flier asks, “Will incorporating St. George raise my taxes?” and answers, “No, your tax dollars would be spent locally instead of being spent on projects downtown.”
Rhorer says the reference to downtown is divisive and misleading.
“Yes there is a lot of activity going on downtown, but the majority of it is private-sector driven,” he says. “You look at the Onyx, Commerce building, Capital One building, Raising Cane’s opening, expansion of Happy’s—what you have is stability and predictability that is encouraging private investment in downtown.”
St. George spokesman Lionel Rainey stands by the flier, saying its purpose is to point out that more than $50 million in tax money generated in the unincorporated portion of parish went to the city of Baton Rouge last year. As to why downtown is singled out, he says it’s because so much activity takes place there.
“What people see is continued projects going on downtown,” he says. “None of their tax revenue is spent on them. It’s being taken and spent on downtown projects.”
Not so, says Davis, who points out that few downtown programs are paid for through the parish operating budget. The DDD operating budget is funded by a 10-mill property tax paid by only by property owners in the district, and many infrastructure projects are funded by state and federal grants. But most of the investment is private, he says.
“Downtown exists for the entire parish,” he says. “It should never be an us versus them type thing.”
—Stephanie Riegel
