The details are hazy, but—at some point between Wednesday’s retail bottle night at The Grape and Saturday evening’s Christmas party where Kleinpeter eggnog spiked with Old New Orleans Spiced Rum and butterscotch Schnapps 9 was the drink du jour—an emergency meeting of The Status Quo was called to discuss the state of affairs for the year that [almost] was and to analyze what 2009 means for Baton Rouge.
For the unfamiliar, The Status Quo is a secret society of disillusioned idealists-turned-cynics who gather whenever the breeze blows from the northwest, causing the burnt-toast aroma that pours from the Community Coffee plant at the base of the Mississippi River bridge to waft in our direction.
After sorting through scores of stained napkins filled with scribbled thoughts [some legible] and a few coherent ideas, here’s what we agreed were the biggest stories of 2009:
• Bashing of the bond: How one interprets the lopsided defeat of the mayor’s $901 million sins-of-the-past-plan-for-the-future bond proposal depends on where you stood on the issue—and especially on the downtown riverfront Alive project. Supporters angrily declared the message was Baton Rouge isn’t willing to do what it takes to build a thriving downtown and become America’s next great city. Opponents countered it was too much tax at a time of economic uncertainty and that the private sector, not taxpayers, should foot the bill for economic development projects. There’s truth in both positions, but the lasting legacy is that the fractured nature of this parish known as East Baton Rouge was on nasty display for all to see.
• Stanford scandal: For nearly a decade, there were whispers that something wasn’t kosher about the high-yielding certificates of deposit offered by Stanford Financial Group. Advisers with the firm dismissed the rumors of ill-gotten gains, claiming it was merely the gossip of the jealous and those who simply didn’t understand. Whatever they may have been, the SEC alleged in February that the CDs were ultimately a fraud and part of what it says was a massive Ponzi scheme.
The collapse of Stanford hit hard in Baton Rouge, where the investment division was born. It’s estimated that area investors—including many former ExxonMobil employees now near financial ruin—lost more than $1 billion. Moreover, the arts community, which Stanford and its wealthy advisers generously supported, took a major philanthropic hit.
Who knew what and when will play out in criminal courts, and dozens of lawsuits will sort out how many pennies on the dollar investors might one day get back. This much we know: The impact of Stanford’s collapse was immediate and will be long lasting.
• Riding out the recession: Try to find a week this year when some local or state politician or economic wonk didn’t declare that Baton Rouge is weathering the national recession better than most other parts of the nation. And they were right, but that doesn’t mean the impact wasn’t felt, especially in the residential and commercial construction sectors. Uncertain is whether Baton Rouge will remain relatively insulated. Credit markets are still tight, construction-related businesses have run through cash reserves and are beginning to close and consumers, it seems, are starting to worry as local sales tax collections are on a three-month losing streak. And, oh yeah, there’s also that matter of state government’s fiscal crisis, which, we learned last week, is getting worse. Yet the depth and length of any downturn likely rests with the health of a local petrochemical industry that’s under pressure on several economic, employment and political fronts.
Those were our big three, here’s the best of the rest:
• State fiscal crisis/higher ed under assault: This would have ranked higher except the worst is yet to come. The state’s outdated health care model is on the verge of financial collapse, and higher education, said by all to be the key to this state’s economic future, is being financially gutted while at the same time redefining itself. This will be the story of 2010.
• Baseball wins the College World Series: Coach Paul Mainieri, a former golden domer, wakes up the echoes of LSU’s dynasty decade of the ‘90s.
• Saints are favorites to win the Super Bowl: Do you believe in miracles?
• Les Miles blunders at Ole Miss: The key, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, isn’t the knowing of the timeout, it’s the actual calling of the timeout.
• Tommy Spinosa’s Perkins woes: Big dream projects [Perkins Rowe and the planned Rouzan TND] are threatened by big-dollar liens and lawsuits.
There were some others, but notes that made sense at 2 a.m. aren’t so clear in the sober light of day.
