Metro Council members are resurrecting a recently-defeated property tax that would fund a mental health facility in East Baton Rouge Parish in an effort to keep the mentally ill and drug-addicted from being unnecessarily jailed or hosptialized.
Councilwoman Tara Wicker took the first step Thursday, adding an announcement to the council’s agenda for its March 8 meeting. The council will vote on the measure in April, and it will need seven votes if it’s going to appear on the October ballot.
The 1.5-mill property tax would fund the Bridge Center for Hope, a nonprofit created by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to care for people with mental health and substance abuse issues. The money generated—around $6.1 million per year—from the tax would fund a mental health diversion center so those with mental illnesses will have a place to go besides jail or the emergency room if arrested.
“There’s a significant gap our police officers are facing with mental health,” Wicker says. “Many times their only option is to pick them up and put them in jail.”
The idea of putting the tax back on a ballot for voters to reconsider appears to have a healthy amount of support so far, especially among the council’s Democrats, and several have offered their support to the proposal. Placing the tax proposal on the ballot was widely supported by the council last year, and it doesn’t appear to be a non-starter among the anti-tax wing of the council despite it being defeated by voters in December.
“I wouldn’t say it would be dead on arrival,” says Republican Councilman Buddy Amoroso. “I would have to look at it.”
Wicker says there may be some minor changes to the new proposal, but Metro Council members will for the most part be voting on the same measure they placed on the ballot last year. BRAF has been meeting with council members to rally support and develop a messaging strategy to pitch the tax again to the public.
Still, Councilman Matt Watson, also a Republican, is on the fence, and says he will wait until the full proposal is unveiled before he makes a decision about it. He says he met with BRAF on Thursday to discuss the idea. There was a “tremendous” anti-tax push among voters in December, Watson says, and the Bridge Center tax still only failed by 3,140 votes.
Mayor Sharon Broome on Monday told members of the Press Club of Baton Rouge she would not be putting any taxes on the ballot. But when pressed about a mental health center, she said she supports the facility. Wicker says the mayor also expressed support for reintroducing the measure to her.
Attorney Richard Liebowitz, the city’s bond counsel, says Broome’s administration at one point this week instructed him to move forward with drafting a new proposal for the tax measure. But ultimately Wicker, Councilwoman Erika Green and Councilman LaMont Cole introduced the item Thursday afternoon.
Broome says in a statement she supports the mental health facility, but does not say whether she supports the tax.
Cole, whose district the proposed facility would be located in, says he also met with BRAF on Thursday and is confident both the Metro Council and voters will pass the tax this time around.
“It has to be extremely simplistic,” he says. “Citizens, including myself, don’t want to read a 300-page item that would raise taxes.”
Barbara Freiberg, a Republican who was elected last fall, supports the measure as well. If all the Democrats support the measure, they only needs one more Republican besides Freiberg to get on board to put it on the ballot. Freiberg notes the facility is expected to save the city-parish millions in the long run.
“I do know there are some people that with the flood, and their political bent, they oppose taxation,” Freiberg says. “But my sense is it will (pass).”
—Sam Karlin
