There are those active in the St. George movement who suggest little will ultimately be at stake with the anti-incorporation lawsuit filed by Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and others.
No doubt, they’d rather the lawsuit—which kicks off in 19th District Court this month—go away. Or have District Judge William Morvant find a reason to either dismiss the lawsuit or ultimately rule in favor of St. George becoming East Baton Rouge Parish’s fifth incorporated city and the sixth-largest by population in Louisiana.
Fueling this boundless optimism is the theory that even as the legal maneuvering by both sides continues unabated, the decisive action on the future of St. George, say its zealots, will take place this spring in the Louisiana Legislature. It’s there—in a state Capitol that’s lopsidedly Republican and likely far more sympathetic to their plight—that incorporation activists hope to get their justice, writes Business Report Executive Editor J.R. Ball in his new opinion piece.
The linchpin of this utopian dream is resuscitating the St. George transition bill that won legislative approval a year ago before getting a death knell veto from Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. The bill, says a key figure in the St. George camp, will come from state Sen. Bodi White and pretty much mirrors last year’s legislation, which generally spells out which existing city-parish debt and government services the would-be hamlet will cover as well as broadly outlining how an unincorporated suburban chunk of the parish transitions into an incorporated suburban city.
While the bill will cruise control its way through the Legislature, the great unknown is what will Edwards do—WWED—once it lands on his desk?
His issues in vetoing the measure last year were threefold: 1) the bill was pointless until voters gave their approval to incorporation, 2) he wasn’t thrilled with 11th-hour amendments tacked onto the bill by White limiting the debt load responsibilities of St. George and 3) transition specifics are something a cooperative endeavor agreement between the two sides should address.
Two of those three items no longer apply: Voters within the boundaries of the prospective new city gave their thumbs-up this past Oct. 12, and there’s zero shot of these two sides agreeing to anything—cooperative or otherwise—in a world where St. George lawyers won’t stipulate that Baton Rouge “is in the vicinity” of the proposed new city.
The big question, Ball writes, is how much political capital is Edwards willing to spend on St. George.
Read Ball’s full column. Send comments to editor@Businessreport.com.
