Reaching out: Sharon Weston Broome, the former state senator running for mayor of Baton Rouge, has launched a campaign website and social media pages to keep voters abreast of her campaign and her stances on issues. “They will allow us to better communicate with the people of East Baton Rouge Parish as we continue to lay out our plans to make Baton Rouge a better place to live and work,” Broome says in a prepared statement. “Our city and parish are on the cusp of greatness.” Broome, who is seeking to become the first female mayor of Baton Rouge, says crime, infrastructure, traffic, education and health care will be the pillars of her campaign platform. Her only confirmed opponent so far is Metro Councilman John Delgado, but others, including former Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff Leduff, are mulling a run.
Action!: A portion of North Street in downtown Baton Rouge will be closed to traffic from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday for filming of Tom Cruise’s new movie, Jack Reacher 2: Never Go Back. According to a news release from Mayor Kip Holden’s office, Baton Rouge police will be in the 100 through 600 blocks of North Street before, during and after the closure to restrict traffic. In addition, no parking signs will be posted in the 200 and 300 blocks of North Street beginning at 7 a.m. Friday until Monday afternoon, and in the the other four blocks of North Street, 500 block of Lafayette Street, and 500 and 600 blocks of Third and Fourth streets from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.
Next step: A Louisiana company has asked a federal judge to block government plans to cancel a long-stalled federal energy lease on land considered sacred to American Indians, The Associated Press reports. The Interior Department announced in November that it plans to cancel the 6,200-acre lease near Montana’s Glacier National Park because it was improperly issued in 1982. The lease is owned by Solenex LLC of Baton Rouge. In a Tuesday court filing, company attorney Steven Lechner said the government arbitrarily reversed course last year after previous determinations that the leases were valid. He asked U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to bar federal officials from taking further steps to cancel the lease. Solenex sued the government in 2013 over the repeated delays it has faced as it seeks to drill for natural gas.
