Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker wasted no time setting the tone for a contentious and divisive campaign against Mayor Kip Holden in this fall’s mayoral election.
Walker kicked off his campaign announcement this afternoon by asking the crowd of mostly white supporters: “Are we becoming New Orleans?”
Walker says the question was asked in reference to Baton Rouge’s growing crime problem, which he says will be his No. 1 priority if elected.
Other key elements of his platform will include streamlining the city permitting process to create a more favorable business environment, “ending foreign junkets”—which is a direct swipe at business-recruiting trips Holden has made—and reforming public education. While acknowledging education is not within the purview of the mayor’s office, Walker says improving it is something a mayor can help do by setting a good example as a leader.
Walker, whose audience of supporters included two sitting Metro Council members—Ulysses “Bones” Addison and Scott Wilson—says he decided to enter the mayor’s race because relations between Holden and the Metro Council have deteriorated in the past 18 months.
“Communication has stopped. We can’t get the information we need,” he says, adding that Holden is at times “dictatorial … and often tyrannical.”
Walker made his campaign announcement to a crowd of about 50 in the studios of the Around Town TV show, opening with a five-minute video of his life—which so moved him with emotion that when he took to the podium he was all choked up, telling supporters: “That’s just how I am. What you see is what you get.”
Walker then devoted most of his speech to his plans for addressing crime. It is a three-pronged approach that will target drug gangs, truancy and reducing minor offenses that can lead to larger crimes.
He pledged to create a working group composed of local law enforcement agency representatives along with the superintendents of all four school districts in the metro area to better address the truancy problem. Cooperation with Baker, Center and Zachary was a theme that peppered his entire speech.
With respect to education reform, Walker had few specifics, saying only that he “wants to walk into the school board office and shake hands” and set an example through leadership.
Walker pledged to limit himself to two terms in office if elected.
