With less than 48 hours until voters go to the polls, attention in East Baton Rouge Parish is increasingly focused on the controversial effort to incorporate the city of St. George.
Mayor Sharon Weston Broome spent two hours this morning walking neighborhood streets in Westminster, an area on the edge of the St. George footprint. She was accompanied by volunteers from the One Baton Rouge group, whose campaign literature has accused St. George organizers of overstating projected sales tax revenues and underestimating expenses.
St. George supporters continued to blast the mayor on social media, offering data on Facebook that shows the population growth in recent years of Ascension, Livingston and West Baton Rouge parishes at the expense of East Baton Rouge.
Legendary retired LSU basketball coach Dale Brown somewhat stepped in the fray, penning a letter to the editor in The Advocate that urged voters to vote their conscience while also calling for an end to intolerance and a commitment to working together.
“The only notable advancement we have ever made is working together to solve problems,” Brown wrote.
The New York Times also wrote about St. George today, running a story about the incorporation effort, entitled: “Voters near Baton Rouge want better schools. First, they need a new city.”
Meanwhile, two key political action committees that have been raising money to fund the campaign on both sides of the issue filed new campaign finance reports this morning. The St. George PAC, which supports the effort, has raised far more than the opposition group in recent days.
According to latest report, the PAC received a $30,000 contribution from businessman Daniel Heard earlier this week.
Heard, who lists a Houston address on the report, was CEO at John H. Carter Co. and previously listed an address on E. Perkins Road. He was featured in several local and national TV interviews and magazine features in the mid-2000s about his high-end collection of sports cars.
The PAC’s previous campaign finance report, filed earlier this month, showed it had raised well over $100,000 this year, including $50,000 from Performance Contractors CEO Art Favre.
The No City of St. George PAC reported $7,500 in contributions in its most recent report, $2,500 of which came from Broome’s chief of staff, Darryl Gissel. Earlier this month, the PAC reported contributions totaling some $53,000—$35,000 of which came from H&E Equipment Services or its chairmain, John Engquist, and another $10,000 Kevin Reilly.
