Synchronized traffic signals. A low cost airline carrier for the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. A new site for the Baton Rouge Zoo. These are just some of the items on Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister’s wish list for the Baton Rouge area in the new year, as outlined in his new column.
Also on his list—once again—is converting City Park into a central park and doing away with the nine-hole golf course that routinely loses money. “I just can’t let go of this vision for the highest and best use for this site,” writes McCollister, who has pushed for changes at City Park for years.
McCollister also wants to see the city-parish government restructured to create some at-large seats on the Metro Council, and—like everyone else—he hopes traffic congestion can be addressed, particularly over the Mississippi River Bridge.
“I must admit: I fell out of my chair laughing when I wrote this one,” he writes.
But McCollister knows even longtime, laughable wishes can come true.
“Looking back, one wish of mine for quite some time has now become a reality: ‘Build something nice on the rusting City Dock on River Road,’” he writes. “That will happen in 2016 with the construction of the beautiful Water Institute of the Gulf headquarters.”
Also in his new column, McCollister wonders if state Treasurer John Kennedy can shake off the heavy blows he sustained after endorsing U.S. Sen. David Vitter in his failed bid for the governor and make a successful run for the Senate seat Vitter will vacate later this year. Kennedy, who ran in 2004 as a Democrat against Vitter in the Senate race and has since switched to the Republican party, is said to be mulling a run.
“I have no idea if Kennedy will run for U.S. Senate, as I believe he was banking on Vitter winning,” McCollister writes. “But he will have more baggage than just Vitter to deal with if he jumps in. His political history—as a Democrat and a Republican—will be hard to shake off. Vitter discovered that your history will follow you, and that an early lead in the polls and all that money can vanish quickly.”
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