Despite word today from the East Baton Rouge Parish Registrar of Voters that the St. George incorporation effort has fallen nearly 2,700 signatures short of the 17,859 needed to bring the measure to a vote of the people, a spokesman for the effort is optimistic supporters will be able to collect the necessary signatures within the legally prescribed 60 days.
“The volunteers and people involved are fired up and ready to get it finished and we’re hoping to get a lot of people on the fence excited,” says Lionel Rainey, a St. George spokesman. “We feel confident we’ll be able to get this done and get above and beyond what we need and put this thing on the (fall) ballot.”
The Registrar of Voters office says the petition, submitted last July, fell 2,694 signatures short of the total needed. In the months since it was submitted, however, Rainey says volunteers have collected some 1,500 signatures and that they now only need about 1,200 more.
But attorney Mary Olive Pierson, who represents the city in a series of legal issues related to the incorporation, says the signature shortage is proof that support for the St. George movement is waning.
“What people need to understand is they have spent 15 months in earnest gathering signatures,” she says. “They have been on the phone, in the mail, in the shopping centers, going door to door, now they’re even resorting to forgery and they still can’t get to the 25% (threshold needed to call an election.) So the way I look at it the vast majority of people out there don’t want it. That’s why they haven’t gotten it so far.”
Last week, the Registrar’s office tossed several signatures from the petition that were deemed to be forgeries, though they represented just a handful of the total signatures.
While today’s developments represent a major setback for St. George, Rainey continues to maintain his unwavering positive outlook about the movement’s ultimate chances of success.
“We really just started proactively gathering signatures over the last several weeks so we feel confident we’ll get above and beyond what we need to get them on the ballot,” he says.
Pierson predicts the group will fall short, and she says to expect more annexation requests from property owners in unincorporated East Baton Rouge Parish in the coming weeks. In recent months, several property owners have taken themselves out of the proposed St. George area by petitioning the city for annexation.
—Stephanie Riegel
