In his latest column, Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball hails Jim Bernhard for confronting some uncomfortable truths about the state of our city as a featured speaker at the magazine’s recent Power Breakfast event.
“Normally, speaking truth isn’t cause for celebration,” Ball writes. “But this is Baton Rouge, a place where the powerful and ruling establishment pride themselves on ceaselessly proclaiming we’ve achieved great American city status no matter the reality.”
That’s why Ball says it took some “serious chutzpah” for Bernhard to publicly make his comments in front of leaders across the Baton Rouge business, political and community spectrum.
While the other featured speakers, Rep. Garret Graves and economist Loren Scott, celebrated the GOP tax cut, Bernhard rattled off a list of cities—such as Phoenix, Austin, Nashville, Atlanta and Raleigh—that share a common bond with Baton Rouge of being a state capital with a flagship university and a major, driving force industry. All ingredients, he believes, to be a great American city.
“The sad truth is that we don’t stack up. That’s a fact,” Bernhard said. “So where are the missing links, and how do we do better?”
Bernhard offered up a three-pronged solution: Investing in K-12 and higher education, pumping money into improving the region’s crumbling and inadequate infrastructure, and getting serious about Baton Rouge’s crime problem.
“Bernhard made it clear, he wasn’t talking about some major expansion of government, declaring the private sector must invest in the solutions,” Ball writes. “For maximum effect, he listed all the ways the University of Alabama is kicking LSU’s butt in areas other than the football field.
“If you’re an LSU fan—like I am—that should get your attention,” Bernhard said. “We must do better, and we can’t just wait for state legislative funding.”
He then challenged those in the room to rally behind an increase in the gasoline tax to fund projects for our “woefully behind” infrastructure, warning Louisiana risks not being able to meet a federal match if Congress later this year passes a major infrastructure bill.
“And then he threw down the gauntlet, pleading for Baton Rouge to unify behind the cause of getting its alarming crime problem under control,” Ball writes.
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