When the Metro Council voted in early September not to put Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s proposed 5-mill road improvements property tax on the November ballot, those who voted against the measure said their constituents overwhelmingly opposed the plan.
“But there’s more to it than that,” Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel writes in her latest column. “The bloc that killed Broome’s Better Transportation and Roads proposal represents a segment of East Baton Rouge Parish that has come to wholly distrust, if not despise, Broome and everything about her administration.”
The distrust is, in part, Broome’s own doing. The vote against BTR reflected the lack of confidence many have in the mayor because of the way she’s handled various controversies that have come to define her first nine months in office, Riegel writes.
Among those controversies:
- Broome’s refusal to speak out against the Council on Aging and its director Tasha Clark-Amar after state auditors confirmed unethical and possible illegal campaign activity. There’s also the mayor’s silence after black Metro Council members turned the “flap” into a racial issue.
- The lack of due diligence Broome’s administration demonstrated by the hiring of Troy Bell as chief administrative officer and his subsequent resignation five days later after reporters found he lied on his résumé. Broome still hasn’t found Bell’s replacement.
- Questionable BRAVE contracts—notably to community activist/agitator Arthur “Silky Slim” Reed, who at a Metro Council meeting said last year’s killing of several l law enforcement officers was justified—awarded by her administration.
There’s also the ouster of former Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr., the city’s rising crime rate, ongoing delays in permitting, and a general sense among those who deal with City Hall on a regular basis that no one over there really knows what they’re doing.
Whether the criticism are justified is debatable, Riegel says, adding they reflect sentiments Broome’s critics express online, in professional settings and in social situations.
And rightly or not, Broome’s critics are fed up and frustrated with an administration that they think does not represent the whole community and isn’t capable of doing so, she writes.
“All of which is playing directly into the hands of those preparing to again mount a campaign to incorporate an independent city of St. George after their narrow defeat in 2015. They’ve been laying low … ,” Riegel writes, “[b]ut they’ll be back with a renewed petition drive, likely early next year, and this time they’ll be better organized and better informed about what mistakes not to make. Ironically, they’ll also have the city’s own mayor inadvertently making their case for them. With every misstep of her administration, the howls for independence grow louder.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
