District Attorney Hillar Moore says local law enforcement officials will be working together to campaign for passage of Mayor Kip Holden’s recently announced bond issue, which would raise $335 million for a variety of public safety projects, including construction of a new $204 million parish prison and $50 million juvenile detention facility.
Though Moore says he doesn’t like the idea of raising taxes, he believes the mayor’s proposal, which was unveiled last week, is the most sensible way to address some serious infrastructure problems in the parish criminal justice system.
“Surely, myself and the sheriff are going to reach out to friends and organizations and others in the public to trying help us get the message out,” says Moore, whose offices would be relocated to a new, $27 million judicial annex building if the bond issue passes. “I’m really cautious on taxes, but this one—we’re going to have to pay for this one way or the other and this is the most legitimate and sensible way to do it.”
Both the mayor’s administration and local law enforcement officials have voiced concern the city-parish could be placed under a federal consent decree that would require it to improve conditions at its aging parish prison and the juvenile detention center or face a possible closure of portions of the facilities.
The proposed bond issue would be financed by a quarter-cent dedicated sales tax. A pair of property tax increases, which together total two mills, also would be needed to help fund operations at the new prison and at a $16.5 million mental health facility that would be among the projects in the mayor’s bond package.
Moore says it’s unclear at this point how the political effort around the campaign will shape up. What is clear, however, is that veteran political consultant Rannah Gray, who handled Holden’s previous attempted bond issues, will not be involved in the effort. Gray, who is working on Holden’s campaign for lieutenant governor, tells Daily Report she will not be working on this bond issue campaign, but declines to say who will be.
Moore says a political action committee will be formed to raise money for the effort in the coming weeks, provided the Metro Council votes at its meeting this week to put the proposed property and sales tax increase on a May ballot.
“I think we’re united in what we want to do and we have a strong plan moving forward,” he says. “But right now it has to go to the council. Once that’s done then we’ll start to concentrate on getting the message out to voters.” —Stephanie Riegel
