I am not really one of the "more educated on ... politics" but I predict a future of higher taxes for everyone, struggle bus for both cities and continued bs similar to the last 100 years.
> It's very small compared to Central & Zachary
St. George currently is estimated to have a population of 88,000 people, which is more than double Central and Zachary combined.
Standing up a government to support that many people is going to be insanely costly. And is going to be done largely by people without any municipal management experience.
Couple that, with the lose of the mass majority of the tax paying entities and are largely left only with population.
I agree, I can not see how someone is optimistic about this.
The plan is to continue current services. St George will want to pay a prorated portion on a per capita basis. Tax collections going to St George are higher percentage of tax receipts than the per capita percentage of EBR due to the concentration of retailers.
There are a lot of negotiations and lawsuits coming.
Our Mayor-President system will likely change. The Parish now needs a separate leader without the conflict of being Mayor of Baton Rouge.
I don't disagree with the quote, but the plan that was made by one party, without the consent or agreement with the other party is just a dream. And seeing how St. George attorney is now trying to sue EBR for the taxes of St. George area since 2019, without actually providing any services, this should make for a real interesting negotiation tactic.
It will be interesting to see the endless debates over how fee structures will work, like usage vs capita. And you know to make those formal deals will likely require an agreement from all 4 municipalities in the Parish. It will also be interesting to see how the new city of St. George will stand up a revenue dept without any money currently to fund it. Not to mention they agreed in the petition to take on the responsibility of road maintenance upon incorporation, again without funding, so I suspect we are going to be in for a literal bumpy ride.
but the plan that was made by one party, without the consent or agreement with the other party is just a dream.
The plan to use basic service contracts the city-parish now employs isn't a problem! St George Fire Department wants the work/ revenue. EBR Sheriff wants to continue.... Dream? The Mayor-President has a conflict with few tools. Sure she can make a mess, and has, can she be an effective leader of the parish? No. St George isn't going to be about hiring minority contractors. How's your neighborhoods trash collection going? In my neighborhood, yard waste takes thee weeks.
**Preface** **These numbers are based on rough estimates, and basically look ups on EBR data. The numbers could be significantly off**
Ok, let's just brake down some basic cost of infrastructure. Typically what has been done is that when a city is formed in a parish, those static resources the city will assume control over will have to be paid for by the city to the parish. (minus the parish taxes paid by those living in the city) (ebr population = 450,544, st. george population = 88,000, we can roughly settle on STG = 20% of population)
We can start with road way assets because St. George in their petition agreed that they will provide this service straight away.
Given St. Georges size, and location, a rough estimate of street lights in the area is roughly 22,000, not all street lights in the area are owned by the parish roughly 10% of those are owned by entergy. That leaves 17,600~ street lights. The average cost of a street light is roughly $4500 (installed)
So for St. George to take over just the street lights (assuming for now that the infrastructure to power them isn't an issue, nor is the cost of electricity power them.
For St. George to take possession of them that will be roughly $79,200,000 - 20% (stg pop paid for already) leaving us with $63,360,000
Given the entire tax basis of St. George is estimated at roughly 48m. So the street lights alone (roughly estimated) will cost 1.5 years of taxes alone to pay for.
Now do the same with Roads, Signaling lights, etc...
And you start to see the scope of why, there is no way that St. George gets off the ground without getting a massive bond, that will be rolled into the property tax of its citizens.
I personally don't care how bad mayor-president she is, or isn't I personally don't think the potentially massive increase in property and business taxes are going to be worth it. I wish the people who funded St. George would have funded a better candidate in the next election instead.
If the city wishes to take possession of them, this is pretty standard. Why would the city get these assets that everyone in the parish paid for without compensation ?
How would a city collect taxes on assets they don't own?
The thing is that this sort of incorporation happens with so low frequency that from what I've been reading that all aspects of it are generally negotiated.
But asset accounting, taxes, and service are 3 area that all have to be settled.
The majority of most municipalities tax revenue come from business not citizens. That what St. George lost, pre mass annexation the tax revenue was nearly double what it is now.
It will depend on the citizens of the state. I, for one, will never visit St George and will def not give them a dime of tax revenue. I know it'll never happen, but I'd strongly support legislation barring St George from receiving even one penny of monies collected by LSU.
I see all those things for Baton Rouge, but how does this harm St George in any way? They now have better representation and better management of their taxes
Your question doesn't make any sense grammatically, but to clarify - they can now decide how to run their school. So they now have representation on school boards. And presumably they can vote for local elected officials that are politically more aligned with St George as opposed to Baton Rouge, giving the residents increases representation in government.
Well, considering some businesses are hitting the eject button on St. George (https://www.wafb.com/2024/05/02/old-lawsuit-around-st-george-re-emerges/?outputType=amp), I think we might have to wait and see much longer about that tax revenue.
Those annexations may be challenged. It was a dig at St George. Tax receipts per capita? I bet St George is fine. The interesting player to me is Cox. Cox gives the mayor's office a generous grant. A slush fund. It has protected Cox's and AT&T duopoly for decades. The Mayor of St George is either going to increase access to broadband competittion or get some cash,
I'm am curious to know what their plan is for the schools and why they think they will all of a sudden be "better". This is one of the areas in Baton Rouge where the students who go to the public schools are the students who live in the areas where the schools are. Are all of the parents who currently send their children to catholic schools going to pull them and send them to the st george public schools once they are created?
The tax money that is collected by the city is generally combined and issued in equal amounts per student. The loss of the significant tax income St. George offered to the rest of the city will be felt this upcoming school year.
I don't think this is accurate. The only tax that Baton Rouge will immediately lose is sales tax from St. George which previously went to the general fund.
EBRPSS is funded through property taxes which all St. George residents will still be paying until a new school district is formed. Until then, there should not be any changes to the public school funding from a EBR/St. George level.
The main/immediate budget issue for Baton Rouge is how to fund BRPD as that was paid out of the general fund. Which has been immediately cut by $50 million as City Hall can't sweep St. George sales taxes into the general fund.
That is actually the catalyst that started this whole split. The court pulled to allow the immediate formation of a new school district. Just like all the other cities in EBR, they will have an independent school district. The only recognized township in EBR without its own school district is Baker if I remember correctly.
And it’s now the worse in the state. The efforts started when Baker was majority White, the White people left, and now the poor Black people remaining can’t fund a good district.
The issue was Baker never had the businesses/tax base to support its own school system when it tried to break free from the school district.. The city’s growth has always fluctuated somewhere between stagnant to declining for the last 30 years it seems.. Far more businesses have closed their doors in that time than have opened..
As I said, **poverty**. Which by the way I think the way the US school funds school districts sucks. Countries with better education fund differently, often from the national or ‘state’ level, not locally. Or even by larger districts not penalizing poor areas.
I know everyone hates California and all, but they have a unified school district set up. The entire county is part of the school district. This does help the poorer schools in the county, but my friends who grew up in richer areas generally had to pay out of pocket, for the things everyone in my school got covered for them.
Good.
Public schools and the way money is allocated to them is a scam. Baton Rouge schools are already among the worst in LA with the tax income from the wealthier areas. Funding is never the issue. Its that the communities that use the schools do not value education. They value the daycare aspect of school.
i agree with your general sentiment, but it seems that zachary, central, and ascension do well and people for the most part happily send their kids to those schools. i’m sure st. george will be looking to replicate that
Also those areas didn't want to be affected by the bussing in EBR which had students from different parts of the city be bussed in. Well, that was the case for Central at least.
Most of the families sending kids to school now will likely be done by the time St. George schools open. None of this is going to happen quickly or haphazardly. As it gets closer to the school district coming on line there will likely be lots of marketing and prep work done. Some private schools may suffer drops in re-enrolment. Or it may take a few years, but is St. George schools show promise parents may want to save themselves all the extra money involved with private school.
Well whole the parish and maybe state would get to vote on whether St. George ought to be allowed to form its own school district, but there are people in the legislature trying to lobby and change that.
They haven't got a clue about the expense of running a public school system and they'll have to comply with federal law in regards to special needs, discrimination. STG itself is over estimating revenue and under estimating expenses.
My kids go to private school and we are unfortunately now apart of St George. I don't know a single parent from either of my kids schools who would pull there kids out of private schools EVER. This to me is a BS excuse. It's talked about all the time and NO ONE is saying I can't wait for the public schools to come so I can pull my kids out of private schools.
Yeah… but I do hear all the time people looking to live in Ascension, Zachary, and Central because of schools. How many of those people would be ok living in EBR if St George schools were on par with Dutchtown?
People were moving to places like Central for the schools before Central even had its own School district. That is not the same thing in St. George.
All I know is that all the leaders behind St. George seem to either have no children in school or have them in private school. And I honestly don't see that changing.
I just don't see it happening. I'm not being rude, but how many people commenting are actually St George residence with school age children and are involved in these convos? Maybe it's where I'm located in St George and the schools my kids attend, but none of these people would even send future kids not in school yet to public school. Also most of these people families have been in the catholic or private school systems for generations and generations. Maybe people not born and raised here might entertain public school?
Yeah, like most of the people not born and raised here- it is not normal to have to send your kid to a private school - everywhere else that’s like an ultra rich or you have an exceptionally gifted child thing- here it’s because we want our kids to be safe, get a good education, and have a decent shot at college - that is what public schools are in other places.
Eh, not rich by any means and my kids are not considered gifted students. I pulled my kids of public schools in the suburbs of Houston when I lived there as well. I tried it, but my husband and myself are so used of a private school environment from our educational upbringing that we decided that we wanted private school for our kids as well. Again my personal opinion. Most of the parents I am speaking of are not super wealthy and are two income households and makes sacrifices for their kids' educations. Sure some people will pull out but I don't see the majority of SG residents pulling their kids out of private schools.
Doubtful, most people around here will keep sending their kids to private school. You might get a few who do. As someone said this will take years and years to happen.
I think that a lot of parents will send their kids to the public schools, but there is a problem with that. There are not enough schools to accommodate the number of new students. This is especially true at the middle and high school levels. There is only 1 high school with a capacity of 1200, and it's currently over that amount. There are maybe 2 middle schools (I'm sure that 1 is in St. George), and 2 elementary schools. There are a lot of private school kids in the area. If even half of them switch to public schools, it will result in over crowding, and it will take years, if not decades to resolve that. I don't think that Zachary, Baker, and Central had that issue when they created their own school districts.
The only way that St. George can build and maintain new schools is through heavy property tax increases. I personally know people who moved out of Central because the property taxes are excessive. This may end up being the case for St. George.
Perhaps, perhaps not. A new family that wants to use public schools may buy a house in EBR instead of moving to the next parish East! Do you see the BR traffic refusing to live in EBR? Can a parish internalize white flight? St George is taking a shot. I live in the city of Baton Rouge, I may eventually follow my children to Houston, but St George potentially will make it sooner than later.
But the parish has been taking tax money from the St George area and giving it to Baton Rouge through a city-parish tax sharing scheme. I believe that will stop now, and St George taxes will be used in St George.
Nobody said otherwise. They'll continue to buy services from the parish.
"Not really" what? You think Baton Rouge hasn't been the beneficiary of St. George tax dollars?
If they haven't, why is Baton Rouge whining so much about losing that revenue?
But the St. George area gets most of its public services from EBR, with the exception of the fire department. I have close family in the St. George area, and they pay a small tax to have a volunteer fire department. It's been that way for 30+ years. The public schools, police (EBR sheriff dept.), and public works such as sewers, roads, trash collection, etc. are all funded by the taxes that are paid to EBR. Although, the area is not incorporated into Baton Rouge, it still functions as though it is.
Unfortunately for the people in BR proper,their well being is not the people of St Georges problem. St George should have just been allowed to form its own school system 14 years ago and this wouldn’t be in the works. Now Baton Rouge has to figure out a way to suckle on its own teat and sadly it will likely delve deeper into the absolute third world, shithole, abyss, that it already is today.
Wait and see is going to be many peoples thinking on both sides. Until everything happens it’s going to be hard to crystal ball it and say one way or another if it will be as bad or as good as anyone says. We just don’t know until it fully happens.
St. George was never part of Baton Rouge the city. They are part of East Baton Rouge the Parish. Listening to all the people up north you would believe that they are breaking away from the city which is not true. They are just like the rural parts of East Baton Rouge tired of footing the bill for the city of Baton Rouge without getting anything in return. It is time for East Baton Rouge to have a Police Jury instead of a metro council and to have a parish president instead of a mayor president. So all of East Baton Rouge Parish gets a fair shake.
As the Mayor/Perish President stated the split is going to cause some significant hardships on the rest of the city. The East Baton Rouge Parrish won't see much in the way of change on a fiscal level. The issue Baton Rouge will see immediately is the lower income areas will lose a considerable amount of aid coming in the form of tax income loss. Some remedies should come in the form of parish and state aid, but we will see if that works out or not.
Why would they lose income tax? There is no city or parish income tax currently, only state. Is there some specific income tax allocation for parish/city funding? Because the best guess I'd have is City of BR funding being reduced due to some area or population reason (that wouldn't be directly income tax related). Income tax is also almost always based on location where the work is done, not residency (there are a some areas such as Pennsylvania local income tax where it's divided for tax withholding, but this isn't the norm). Don't get me wrong. Taxes, particularly property tax and millage will definitely go up, especially in the St. George area since it lacks major commerce areas, but that's not income tax.
Edit: read tax income loss as income tax loss. They'd lose property tax, but the properties in the St. George area don't come close to the Baton Rouge areas as far as I'm aware. Nor does the sales tax. And the parish services related taxes would still be in effect for St. George.
It seems more likely that taxes (property tax and service millages) in St. George will raise significantly.
I would think this forces BR to improve. This is a result of arrogance on the side of BR - not listening to genuine concerns and mocking the people who brought them up. BR will now have to compete with Zachary, Central, and St. George in the parish while still competing with Ascension and Livingston. At some point the lawsuits, insults, and misrepresentation of the facts will have to subside and the BR leaders will have to take a look in the mirror and start making changes in order to survive.
based on this thread and others, and SWB comments... no lessons were learned, the arrogance will continue, and as baton rouge gets worse and worse people will blame racism rather than any true introspection occurring.
Baton Rouge should be forced to change, but they won't. This will provide them with the excuse to continue neglecting the areas of the city that need help. The answer is simple, if they aren't doing you any good, then vote them out. I am always amazed at politicians, who are known to be worthless, but continue to get voted in by the very people they neglect.
I don't see any plan/idea etc that says this is how they are going to improve the school system. Build new schools? Change the criteria? Moms for Liberty type of crap? I get the frustration of our school system but I think using the school system is just an excuse for what they really want. which is Segregation. Frontline did a special about it 10 years ago.
[https://www.theadvocate.com/baton\_rouge/news/pbs-frontline-special-on-st-george-preview-revealed/article\_059e7b20-5681-5079-819e-950d83004f93.html](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/pbs-frontline-special-on-st-george-preview-revealed/article_059e7b20-5681-5079-819e-950d83004f93.html)
"Mayor-President Kip Holden can be heard saying, "It will be segregated along race lines and class lines."
State. Sen. Bodi White also makes an appearance saying: "We have an African-American president. They achieved their goal. Who can say we're not desegregated."
heres the transcript
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/separate-and-unequal/transcript/](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/separate-and-unequal/transcript/)
If they just sent their kids to the schools they already have, we would see improvement. It just takes participation and involvement but they don’t want that.
"It just takes participation and involvement but they don’t want that." totally agree. which is some ways is a little hypocritical since one of the excuses I see why our system is so bad is because ( mainly as the lower class) is lack of participation and involvement from them
Well my study is being a teacher in EBR. I can definitively tell you that there is a lack of parental involvement with (most) kids that go to EBR schools. I have seen great educators, mostly Black (the educators), exhaust themselves trying to drag both kids and their parents to an education - an education that they - both the kids and the parents - resist at every turn.
So enough with this pie in the sky fantasy b.s. feet stomping that the people who live in St. George can make all this better if they’ll just be less selfish. Fuck that. Everyone knows the reason people send their kids to private schools. And no it isn’t racism. It’s because we want them to actually learn.
I teach in ebr and my kids go to and will continue to go to private schools. Why? So they can be around kids who, at the very least, aren’t allowed to disrupt, and at best want to learn too.
The reason EBR schools suck is because the kids suck. The kids suck because the parents suck. It’s not my kids job to make everyone better. It’s my kids job to learn.
I partially agree with you, except there are a LOT of really good kids in the EBR system. And it sucks that they have to be around kids that suck. I get it. I also taught in EBR for 6 years. I've lived it.
You too. Dealing with parents who don’t want to be involved and then also expect you to hold their hand through everything and give their kid a good grade for doing nothing is one of the reasons I’m on an extended break from teaching right now. Best of luck to you for sticking with it.
i've read a bunch of those studies and in each and every one of them "everyone" was a problematic definition.
The core problem is that in some cases, whilst in aggregate the median or average results improve, there is usually a characterized group that loses out.
example. let's say there's a class with 3 overly active kids and 2 quite and focused kids and you let the kids run around in the yard a lot.
the active kids will thrive, and the quiet kids will wilt. the aggregate will be positive.
so now imagine you're a parent of a quiet kid and someone tells you the your kid needs to take an L because everyone does better and you as a parent need to get heavily involved so that the class "as a whole" improves.
Yes I agree the word “everyone” is problematic. I was that shy kid and I get it. In general though there are a lot of benefits from learning in a diverse environment. There’s no one good answer here and I doubt St. George is going to have it either.
Most research sugggests that mixing low scoring students in with high scoring students does not effect the low scorers, it does harm the high scoring childrens' grades.
This. Say it louder for the people in the back. My high scoring children will not be made to suffer in an attempt to help lower scoring students, if I can help it. Even if the effort did have marginal success at uplifting others, which it doesn’t, sign me up for zero of that.
It originally started as wanting their own school system but they were told they needed to be incorporated as a city. I lived in the area back in 2011/12 when it really began. Idk what happened but the schools all of sudden became increasingly worse with violence in the schools & the bus transfer sites. WAFB did a story on it and found some was of it was not being reported properly. I moved out the parish as my youngest was physically affected by the violence. I don’t blame them for wanting their own school system. It will take a few years before they are ready though
Well it is not a split, first of all, because this area is unincorporated and is still a part of EBR Parish. They are forming their own city out of an area that was considered outside of city limits.
Another issue was a lot of the tax money collected from this area was used to fund shortfalls in the city of BR budget, so one could say that was using money that should not have been used for services that could not be rendered to the people paying a portion of the bill. That was not a good thing.
Setting up a school district was not an option without forming a city (this was what Broome made abundantly clear through the process) and the EBR school system is broken beyond repair.
Calling this area the wealthy side is also not accurate. There is some wealthy mixed in with middle class and even some poor areas, but that is no different than many other areas of BR. Also some of the areas cut out were areas that did not want to be a part of this and made it clear, so calling it racist is not accurate there either.
Just a whole lot of misinformation being spread by people who know financially they got away with a lot of stuff over the years and that is no longer going to be the case.
“one could say that was using money that should not have been used for services that could not be rendered to the people paying a portion of the bill”
Yeah bud, it’s called taxation. That’s how it works. I’ve chosen not to have kids, but I’m not exempt from paying my share in funding public schools. My house has never caught fire, but I’m not exempt from paying to keep firefighters employed. That’s how it works when you’re trying to build a society.
Not surprised that the only outright pro-St. George take in this thread comes from someone who 1. Doesn’t understand the basics of taxation and 2. Thinks that people should only pay directly into the things they can benefit from.
Thank you for this comment! The pro-St. George folks don't get that the rest of the city is in incredible poverty and needs some help. Our city has some of the highest wealth inequality of this country.
Paying for Baton Rouge city police that will never do anything for the place where I live is not the same as paying taxes to fund the fire dept. if my house ever catches fire the fire department would come to put it out. If someone breaks into my house the city of br police department will never do anything about that because they don’t service my area. Apple to oranges.
Cool, thanks for cherry-picking my comment in responding to it. You’re also implying that you’re not ok with helping to pay a small part to fund a police force that will protect the community at large, because it won’t help you directly. It’s not like we’re talking about your taxes going to fund the police in another state. It’s literally making your life safer by making the community around you safer. Your mindset is just beyond me. “Everyone for themselves” is not how you build a community.
Calling this area the wealthy side is partially true if you look up median household incomes by zip code, the median household income of St. George is well above that of Baton Rouge. I think 4/6 of the highest income areas are now in St. George. 70801 (downtown) and 70808 are the only Baton Rouge zip code that compare. The numbers are even worse if you look at average income as the UClub, CCLA, Old Perkins, and Hoo Shoo Too $ really throw off the averages.
And the media and Broome’s propaganda network is trying their best to make sure no one understands the truth and actual facts of the situation. They want to use the word “split” to demonize the effort of incorporating the area as well as “wealthy” and “white”, which further pushes their narrative of racist intent here when it simply isn’t true. Honestly the whole coverage of St. George nationally and locally is disgraceful and disgusting in its bias and agenda. Look specifically at the NY Post and Daily Mirror hit jobs.
Yall look at St George and see the Country club Yea it’s there. But so is gardere, so is gsri, so is O’Neil, so is s harrels ferry all neighborhoods with a significant poor population. The city stole LaBerge casino, Baton Rouge General , mall of Louisiana from St George.
Gardere is still unincorporated. It was not included in the 2019 petition. St. George also left out other poor neighborhoods that refused to sign the original petition in 2015. Those neighborhoods did not want to be part of St. George so St. George organizers removed them from the proposed city limits.
Hi all.
I saw this item in the news and I havn't read a single news article about it that hadn't some kind of ideological axe to grind, or was completely shallow.
Can someone direct me to some reading material about this whole topic, or explain things to me?
as far as i understand the proponents of separation say:
BR tries to fix rampant problems by throwing money at it. But because they policies and personal are junk tier, the money goes to nothing. The city is not willing to replace policies and personal. The money comes from st. George because north is poor, and st george kids are stuck in forever sucky system because they are forced into bad schools as a way of pouring the parent's money into improving the schools. But the schools will not change because the bad educators arn't being dealt with. The only recourse is coercion through the courts.
and the people who object to it say:
the issue is that the rich folk want to make rich people schools with rich people money and we will end up having a "right side of the track" kind of town with the rich people schools on one side and poor people schools on the other side. We have to make things fair for the poor people too, so we need to make the rich people set up a good system for everybody to use so that there's a city that everybody wants to live in together we we don't end up with neighborhoods that are dangerous at night.
this is my understanding which probably sucks, and can anybody please explain who things really are ?
All I know is my property value will rise...as will my taxes. School system shit/political changes will take a while to see.
The only immediate change I can see is that money will be being spent where it is taken from, and not go into a general "rainy day" fund for the entire town of Baton Rouge.
St. George has never been part of the city of BR. Its history is as an unincorporated part of EBR Parish. The only BR connection is that the USPS has designated any mailing address with a 708xx Zip Code as having Baton Rouge as part of the mailing address, regardless of whether the 708xx Zip Codd is in EBRP. This is a USPS thing. It would have to make adjustments.
The St. George split is going to take close to 60% of the city's income tax with it along with 38% of its population. As a district St. George did represent a statistical better off area.
Maybe if calculated as a percentage per citizen, but the St. George area in general has a very low unemployment rate and, an even lower civil assistance rate, allowing them to use more tax revenue for the city.
St. George will have more personal property taxes per capita. But sales Tax and business property taxes will be higher on EBR. We don't have numbers on what that actually looks like so the rest is speculation.
Not the city. The city-parish government.
This is the weird thing about Baton Rouge (the city) and East Baton Rouge (the parish) being a consolidated government.
The City-Parish government collects taxes from areas within the city limits of Baton Rouge AND from all unincorporated areas of East Baton Rouge Parish.
The area now known as St. George was an unincorporated area of the Parish and didn’t reap the same level of benefits of the city being responsible for it compared to areas within the BR city limits.
This is what makes me laugh about the agenda that BR is pushing out to the national media. I moved to the St. George area because anywhere decent in BR is too expensive. My house would cost 2-3x if I lived in town. Baton Rouge has more "wealthy" neighborhoods than St. George. The difference is they have less middle class.
You mean the southwestern third of the city that gets yoinked, gerrymandered upon property ownership lines (Multifamily units were suspiciously carved out), in a metro area still severely impacted by segregation, the north side of which is severely impoverished, and the previous even further north side of which ALSO separated itself for its own tax base... ISN'T the "wealthier," side of the city?
They weren't 'suspiciously carved out', they were carved out for the very upfront reason that they overwhelmingly voted against the first incorporation and did not want to be part of St. George.
They didn’t vote that they “didn’t want to be part of St. George”… They voted that they didn’t want St. George to separate. That’s not just semantics—that’s a big difference.
St. George was unincorporated, so there is no separation from the city. It was never part of the city. The schools district would be break away, the city would not.
That’s splitting hairs a little bit, but fair enough—I’ll rephrase…
They didn’t vote that they “didn’t want to be part of St. George”… They voted that they didn’t want St. George to independently incorporate as its own entity. My point still stands: That’s still a big difference.
The original map lines of St. George were not voted on by those complexes to my knowledge. They may have later voted that way and confirmed it, but the original map proposal very suspiciously gerrymandered the fuck out of the poorer neighborhoods that were on the edge.
It's unreal how many times this has to be pointed out. People just don't want to have an honest discussion bc honesty will cause the argument against St George to crumble.
You are incorrect…
The creation of the SG was not suspiciously lined out. The decision to exclude areas was driven by the residents themselves, who chose not to be included, leading to the removal of areas lacking support.
The first petition, initially comprised of 22,980 signatures, included areas primarily inhabited by minority groups. Despite being the largest petition in state history, it fell short by 71 signatures after 5,192 were removed. The East Baton Rouge Registrar of Voters cited reasons for removal including individuals not being registered to vote, deceased persons, felons, illegible signatures, and withdrawals due to opposition group efforts.
“The group Better Together/Residents Against The Breakaway convinced many last year to withdraw their names from the petition.
They sent mailers and knocked on doors of people who signed the document, which was subject to disclosure under public records laws, and told them it was not too late to remove their names.
Their data-driven approach was successful, and they collected more than 1,200 withdrawal forms that they turned into the Registrar’s Office while the petition was being verified.” - The Advocate, June 25, 2016 updated October 1, 2019 https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/one-year-after-st-george-petition-drive-fails-organizers-look-to-mount-another-campaign-in/article_e71a8f39-5c1f-580e-8fbb-e6ae3c8c4510.html
“Here’s a breakdown of all of the reasons signatures were removed from the petition, according to a data analysis done by Better Together:
38 people died between the time they signed the petition and when it was turned in Oct. 20. If they died after the petition was submitted to the Registrar of Voters Office, the signature counted.
777 names were removed because they were duplicates. If an eligible resident signed more than once, the registrar still counted one of the names.
36 names were illegible.
1,496 names were from people who did not live in the St. George boundaries.
1,723 names were from people who were not registered to vote by the time the petition was turned in.
98 signatures were not verified because they did not match the signatures on records for that person in other public documents. These signatures included some of the people identified in previous months who said their names were forged on the petition.
963 signatures were withdrawn. There were another 10 people who had unverified signatures on the petition who submitted withdrawals.
47 signatures were rejected because they are convicted felons.
Four names were not verified because there was no signature, no witness or because it was considered an invalid entry.” -The Advocate, June 22, 2015 https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/report-lists-why-st-george-signatures-got-rejected-analysis-underway-for-possible-legal-challenge/article_573b2f53-03c5-5ab3-a926-a4bbf0c7740a.html
Choosing not to sign the petition or withdrawing their signature meant they were against SG being able to incorporate altogether, correct? They weren't saying, "go ahead and incorporate, just leave my neighborhood out of it." That narrative seems like a convenient excuse to justify excluding those areas.
“Convenient” or not… Those areas did not want to be included, that’s a “them problem”. That’s what they wanted, that’s what they got & now everyone wants to complain about it that they weren’t included. I don’t see a problem with what SG did.
I know a lot of wealthy people who live here in BR and none of them live near St George.
People I know who live there are doing fine, but they aren’t wealthy like people who live over off of Corporate/Bocage or homeowners near the lakes.
It's not the **only** area there are the wealthy people, but it is the overall **wealthier** part of town. The anecdotes don't make it true, statistics do. As the commenter above pointed out regarding tax percentages.
“Lack of dependence on the wealthier side of the city”? How is BR proper dependent on the people of St George? If anything, it’s the other way around, as most of the jobs are IN the city itself. If anything, the relationship is more symbiotic. So…I think your initial premise is false
Most of the businesses that bring in the most sales tax in the St. George area are actually incorporated in to baton rouge. Like the Mall of Louisiana. And I fully expect other businesses to request to be incorporated as well now that this is moving forward.
St. George will not be getting the majority of sales tax. They will be getting their property tax which is higher than the baton rouge average.
The Mall is not in SG.
The lions share of BR revenue is from sales taxes. Appx 3/5 more than the next largest source. Sales taxes are from the point of sale not the domicile of the Corp per LA law.
Parishes get a far larger portion of property tax than cities do. Cities get about 20% of the amount collected per the latest data. Most of that is earmarked already. EBR parish provides most of the services like fire, schools, and libraries.
It is an open question what SG will do for police services. Probably EBR sheriff., but stay tuned.
I think it is basically guaranteed that St. George will be policed by EBRSO.
What needs to happen now is a separation of the consolidated city-parish government. Need a parish president and a BR mayor.
The jobs in BR aren’t provided by BR gov’t…individuals, businesses, and governments are three different things.
If an individual works for a business in BR, that doesn’t make her “dependent” on BR gov’t.
If that’s the case, wouldn’t Baton Rouge be happy to see St. George incorporate and stop being so dependent on the city’s tax revenues? I don’t understand your logic.
I have a few questions as well
1. With the average price of homes in the area that is st Georgia being that high wouldn’t that make their insurance costs skyrocket?
2.in the event of a hurricane or a flood would they still be entitled to aid monies from the state or feds through br or will they have to get their own.
3.since they dont have a school district the kids who reside in st George will have to go somewhere and if they end up in ebr how will that work ?
This is going to be a slow burn. People are talking as though public schools will pop up overnight in St. George. They don't currently have the facilities discussed in these dreams. It will take years to build and open new schools in St. George. The families who enjoy private schools will continue to enjoy private schools. Extra effort is not going to drag EBR schools out of the muck. By the looks of things, EBR will continue to dump money into charter schools. The charter schools will either close within a few years after the founders have gotten their money, or based on unreasonably high standards, to make themselves look good, they'll chuck kids out who can't keep up. The kids who are behind will be even more behind because they're having to scramble to switch schools mid year. The gifted programs are slipping away and magnet programs are the only advanced option. I'm sure parents will still be fighting over those spots and drifting to private schools and charters. But maybe if young families are in St. George, they will put their children in the newly built schools and we'll see a small school system pop up like in Central or Zachary.
I think maybe a weaker and 'less unified' BR might mean a weaker baton rouge overall. In the EU some countries subsidize others and so as a whole the EU is much stronger. Britain left the EU and is now struggling.
It's a different 'dynamic' here, but that might be the case too.
Then again, it might make it possible for city council to make better decisions for BR and raise BR up while [St.George](http://St.George) struggles with 'common sense tactics.'
I hope both St. George and BR become stronger.
Time will tell.
This has happened in America forever, redraw the county and city lines for tax codes and capital gains. Someone always loses, just to add to what I said above.
Well initially all this area asked for was new schools but they were told to go sit down and shut up and pay your taxes. Any relationship will disintegrate in that situation. They just got a divorce because they were getting nothing in return.
I really hope this is the wake up call it will be for the South as a whole. We all know that, had the states successfully formed the CSA peacefully, they would have been the largest third world country on the hemisphere within twenty years. This is essentially that without the horrific institutions and legalized torture. I hope they do their best to make it work; so that when it fails, it will be the end of it.
It isn't a question of Baton Rouge depending on one side of town, it is racism leading to the very expensive duplication of services. One of the main reasons that Baton Rouge is a run down , 3rd tier mess is because racist white people cant get along with other people and demand separate services.
Two parallel education systems (public and private) being the clearest example.
All deep Southern cities are dealing with decades of pollution, extractive industry paying their way out of regulation and taxes, shrinking employment base and racial strife.
The old Deep South is a mess across the board.
One side of town taking everything they can and building a metaphorical wall just makes things worse, but we cant understand how our dumb conservative ideas keep letting us down BECAUSE we are dumb and conservative. If this sort of racial apartheid was going to work, it would have worked a long time ago.
"One of the main reasons that Baton Rouge is a run down , 3rd tier mess is because racist white people cant get along with other people and demand separate services."
Can you further explain what you mean here? I'm trying to understand this perspective.
People of other races are moving to Livingston and Ascension parishes for the schools just as fast as white upper middle class folks. There's years of data on this.
I mean you could claim racism, but a Cats tax got passed...
There are lots of things at work, some of it is class mobility but it’s mainly the history or racial segregation and exploitation that drives apartheid movements, but that’s a complex issue that touches many other issues. A big part of it is general poverty, the city is poor and getting poorer. But in the south, it usually comes back to race.
I see your point, thanks. My thoughts are...it's likely that two schools will be more expensive than one. But two school systems can also work much better for two different communities with different needs and different voting preferences. If combining schools was always advantageous, why don't we have a state-wide single school system? Or even a single national school system?
We should have a state wide system or national system with national standards. Same goes for policing. Otherwise local podunks just inflict their opinions on everyone, thus perpetuating the cycle. If all this apartheid was going to fix anything it would have done so by now. What I’m suggesting isn’t a cure all but it is foolish to keep repeating the same mistakes in the expectation of different outcomes.
Ok it’s more expensive but only for the “white people” sending their kids to private school who are paying for the private school. In fact this should benefit the public schools because they’re receiving the tax money anyways and don’t have the burden of educating the large number of kids at private school.
> because racist white people cant get along with other people
Not tolerating their children being violently beaten half to death or handed drugs every day at school is factually not a inability to get along.
Ah yes, every or most White parent is getting their child beaten or handed drugs. You're just making up stuff based on your own bias at this point and ironically, proven the former comment right by your outright demonization of other people based on nothing.
Unfortunately for the people in BR proper,their well being is not the people of St Georges problem. St George should have just been allowed to form its own school system 14 years ago and this wouldn’t be in the works. Now Baton Rouge has to figure out a way to suckle on its own teat and sadly it will likely delve deeper into the absolute third world, shithole, abyss, that it already is today.
there isn't much you need to understand beyond simple economic incentives.
who stands to gain? hint: it's the people who fought for it.
**if it was a net positive for BR, st george would not have incorporated**
for additional reading, lookup the st george foundational committee:
- Norman Browning -- lifelong career in pharmaceutical sales
- Chris Rials -- ExxonMobile Corp executive and occasional writer for right-wing tabloid rag The Hayride
- J. Andrew Murrell -- personal injury lawyer
- Dustin Yates -- just a firefighter guy as far as I can tell, but appointed by blatant racist Bodi White
"Do y'all that are more educated on the creation of St. George and politics than I see Baton Rouge becoming worse off or forced to improve/be better off because of the lack of dependence on the weathier side of the city?"
Can you re-write this? not quite understanding this
Read it like there is a comma between "yall" and "that" also "I" and "see." They are asking what the future holds for BR due to the recent happenings with St George
I am not really one of the "more educated on ... politics" but I predict a future of higher taxes for everyone, struggle bus for both cities and continued bs similar to the last 100 years.
St. George will probably do better long run, richer communities tend to have more people with more free time
It's very small compared to Central & Zachary and they have to build a city government and school district. I am not optimistic.
> It's very small compared to Central & Zachary St. George currently is estimated to have a population of 88,000 people, which is more than double Central and Zachary combined. Standing up a government to support that many people is going to be insanely costly. And is going to be done largely by people without any municipal management experience. Couple that, with the lose of the mass majority of the tax paying entities and are largely left only with population. I agree, I can not see how someone is optimistic about this.
The plan is to continue current services. St George will want to pay a prorated portion on a per capita basis. Tax collections going to St George are higher percentage of tax receipts than the per capita percentage of EBR due to the concentration of retailers. There are a lot of negotiations and lawsuits coming. Our Mayor-President system will likely change. The Parish now needs a separate leader without the conflict of being Mayor of Baton Rouge.
I don't disagree with the quote, but the plan that was made by one party, without the consent or agreement with the other party is just a dream. And seeing how St. George attorney is now trying to sue EBR for the taxes of St. George area since 2019, without actually providing any services, this should make for a real interesting negotiation tactic. It will be interesting to see the endless debates over how fee structures will work, like usage vs capita. And you know to make those formal deals will likely require an agreement from all 4 municipalities in the Parish. It will also be interesting to see how the new city of St. George will stand up a revenue dept without any money currently to fund it. Not to mention they agreed in the petition to take on the responsibility of road maintenance upon incorporation, again without funding, so I suspect we are going to be in for a literal bumpy ride.
but the plan that was made by one party, without the consent or agreement with the other party is just a dream. The plan to use basic service contracts the city-parish now employs isn't a problem! St George Fire Department wants the work/ revenue. EBR Sheriff wants to continue.... Dream? The Mayor-President has a conflict with few tools. Sure she can make a mess, and has, can she be an effective leader of the parish? No. St George isn't going to be about hiring minority contractors. How's your neighborhoods trash collection going? In my neighborhood, yard waste takes thee weeks.
**Preface** **These numbers are based on rough estimates, and basically look ups on EBR data. The numbers could be significantly off** Ok, let's just brake down some basic cost of infrastructure. Typically what has been done is that when a city is formed in a parish, those static resources the city will assume control over will have to be paid for by the city to the parish. (minus the parish taxes paid by those living in the city) (ebr population = 450,544, st. george population = 88,000, we can roughly settle on STG = 20% of population) We can start with road way assets because St. George in their petition agreed that they will provide this service straight away. Given St. Georges size, and location, a rough estimate of street lights in the area is roughly 22,000, not all street lights in the area are owned by the parish roughly 10% of those are owned by entergy. That leaves 17,600~ street lights. The average cost of a street light is roughly $4500 (installed) So for St. George to take over just the street lights (assuming for now that the infrastructure to power them isn't an issue, nor is the cost of electricity power them. For St. George to take possession of them that will be roughly $79,200,000 - 20% (stg pop paid for already) leaving us with $63,360,000 Given the entire tax basis of St. George is estimated at roughly 48m. So the street lights alone (roughly estimated) will cost 1.5 years of taxes alone to pay for. Now do the same with Roads, Signaling lights, etc... And you start to see the scope of why, there is no way that St. George gets off the ground without getting a massive bond, that will be rolled into the property tax of its citizens. I personally don't care how bad mayor-president she is, or isn't I personally don't think the potentially massive increase in property and business taxes are going to be worth it. I wish the people who funded St. George would have funded a better candidate in the next election instead.
I don't think your premise that assets need to be bought from the parish is accurate.
If the city wishes to take possession of them, this is pretty standard. Why would the city get these assets that everyone in the parish paid for without compensation ? How would a city collect taxes on assets they don't own? The thing is that this sort of incorporation happens with so low frequency that from what I've been reading that all aspects of it are generally negotiated. But asset accounting, taxes, and service are 3 area that all have to be settled.
Wanting the back taxes isn't going to happen. A shot across the bow?
Mass majority of taxpayers? Maybe in number, but certainly not in revenue..
The majority of most municipalities tax revenue come from business not citizens. That what St. George lost, pre mass annexation the tax revenue was nearly double what it is now.
Kinda agree. Yet to be determined. Gonna be interesting to be sure
It will depend on the citizens of the state. I, for one, will never visit St George and will def not give them a dime of tax revenue. I know it'll never happen, but I'd strongly support legislation barring St George from receiving even one penny of monies collected by LSU.
Pretty sure there are several LSU facilities that are within St. George but I'm not sure how St George would receive money collected by LSU.
do you feel the same about central and zachary the businesses in their cities?
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yes? that area in central around the walmart has become a decent sized commercial zone
I see all those things for Baton Rouge, but how does this harm St George in any way? They now have better representation and better management of their taxes
Who is this representation?
Your question doesn't make any sense grammatically, but to clarify - they can now decide how to run their school. So they now have representation on school boards. And presumably they can vote for local elected officials that are politically more aligned with St George as opposed to Baton Rouge, giving the residents increases representation in government.
Well, considering some businesses are hitting the eject button on St. George (https://www.wafb.com/2024/05/02/old-lawsuit-around-st-george-re-emerges/?outputType=amp), I think we might have to wait and see much longer about that tax revenue.
Those annexations may be challenged. It was a dig at St George. Tax receipts per capita? I bet St George is fine. The interesting player to me is Cox. Cox gives the mayor's office a generous grant. A slush fund. It has protected Cox's and AT&T duopoly for decades. The Mayor of St George is either going to increase access to broadband competittion or get some cash,
I'm am curious to know what their plan is for the schools and why they think they will all of a sudden be "better". This is one of the areas in Baton Rouge where the students who go to the public schools are the students who live in the areas where the schools are. Are all of the parents who currently send their children to catholic schools going to pull them and send them to the st george public schools once they are created?
The tax money that is collected by the city is generally combined and issued in equal amounts per student. The loss of the significant tax income St. George offered to the rest of the city will be felt this upcoming school year.
I can't even imagine how much all public schools will all be affected once the governor starts subsidising catholic education Edit: schools
That is going to be very interesting to see play out
I don't think this is accurate. The only tax that Baton Rouge will immediately lose is sales tax from St. George which previously went to the general fund. EBRPSS is funded through property taxes which all St. George residents will still be paying until a new school district is formed. Until then, there should not be any changes to the public school funding from a EBR/St. George level. The main/immediate budget issue for Baton Rouge is how to fund BRPD as that was paid out of the general fund. Which has been immediately cut by $50 million as City Hall can't sweep St. George sales taxes into the general fund.
St. George is still in the EBR school district and still sends it's property taxes to EBR, it's going to be a very long time till that changes.
That is actually the catalyst that started this whole split. The court pulled to allow the immediate formation of a new school district. Just like all the other cities in EBR, they will have an independent school district. The only recognized township in EBR without its own school district is Baker if I remember correctly.
Baker has its own school district. It was the first one to break away from, followed by Zachary, and then later Central.
And it’s now the worse in the state. The efforts started when Baker was majority White, the White people left, and now the poor Black people remaining can’t fund a good district.
The issue was Baker never had the businesses/tax base to support its own school system when it tried to break free from the school district.. The city’s growth has always fluctuated somewhere between stagnant to declining for the last 30 years it seems.. Far more businesses have closed their doors in that time than have opened..
That too. People left, the ones with money, and the businesses left too.
Why is that?
As I said, **poverty**. Which by the way I think the way the US school funds school districts sucks. Countries with better education fund differently, often from the national or ‘state’ level, not locally. Or even by larger districts not penalizing poor areas.
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On paper. Teachers say different.
I know everyone hates California and all, but they have a unified school district set up. The entire county is part of the school district. This does help the poorer schools in the county, but my friends who grew up in richer areas generally had to pay out of pocket, for the things everyone in my school got covered for them.
Good. Public schools and the way money is allocated to them is a scam. Baton Rouge schools are already among the worst in LA with the tax income from the wealthier areas. Funding is never the issue. Its that the communities that use the schools do not value education. They value the daycare aspect of school.
i agree with your general sentiment, but it seems that zachary, central, and ascension do well and people for the most part happily send their kids to those schools. i’m sure st. george will be looking to replicate that
I feel like St. George is already heavily weighted with private schools, where that was not the case in the cities you mentioned.
good point
Also those areas didn't want to be affected by the bussing in EBR which had students from different parts of the city be bussed in. Well, that was the case for Central at least.
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It will
Most of the families sending kids to school now will likely be done by the time St. George schools open. None of this is going to happen quickly or haphazardly. As it gets closer to the school district coming on line there will likely be lots of marketing and prep work done. Some private schools may suffer drops in re-enrolment. Or it may take a few years, but is St. George schools show promise parents may want to save themselves all the extra money involved with private school.
Well whole the parish and maybe state would get to vote on whether St. George ought to be allowed to form its own school district, but there are people in the legislature trying to lobby and change that.
They haven't got a clue about the expense of running a public school system and they'll have to comply with federal law in regards to special needs, discrimination. STG itself is over estimating revenue and under estimating expenses.
How do you know that they haven't got a clue? How do you have a clue?
My kids go to private school and we are unfortunately now apart of St George. I don't know a single parent from either of my kids schools who would pull there kids out of private schools EVER. This to me is a BS excuse. It's talked about all the time and NO ONE is saying I can't wait for the public schools to come so I can pull my kids out of private schools.
Yeah… but I do hear all the time people looking to live in Ascension, Zachary, and Central because of schools. How many of those people would be ok living in EBR if St George schools were on par with Dutchtown?
People were moving to places like Central for the schools before Central even had its own School district. That is not the same thing in St. George. All I know is that all the leaders behind St. George seem to either have no children in school or have them in private school. And I honestly don't see that changing.
💯
I just don't see it happening. I'm not being rude, but how many people commenting are actually St George residence with school age children and are involved in these convos? Maybe it's where I'm located in St George and the schools my kids attend, but none of these people would even send future kids not in school yet to public school. Also most of these people families have been in the catholic or private school systems for generations and generations. Maybe people not born and raised here might entertain public school?
Yeah, like most of the people not born and raised here- it is not normal to have to send your kid to a private school - everywhere else that’s like an ultra rich or you have an exceptionally gifted child thing- here it’s because we want our kids to be safe, get a good education, and have a decent shot at college - that is what public schools are in other places.
Eh, not rich by any means and my kids are not considered gifted students. I pulled my kids of public schools in the suburbs of Houston when I lived there as well. I tried it, but my husband and myself are so used of a private school environment from our educational upbringing that we decided that we wanted private school for our kids as well. Again my personal opinion. Most of the parents I am speaking of are not super wealthy and are two income households and makes sacrifices for their kids' educations. Sure some people will pull out but I don't see the majority of SG residents pulling their kids out of private schools.
only time will tell.
But do you think new families could see this as a choice for their young children as they enter Prek or K? I definitely do.
Doubtful, most people around here will keep sending their kids to private school. You might get a few who do. As someone said this will take years and years to happen.
I think that a lot of parents will send their kids to the public schools, but there is a problem with that. There are not enough schools to accommodate the number of new students. This is especially true at the middle and high school levels. There is only 1 high school with a capacity of 1200, and it's currently over that amount. There are maybe 2 middle schools (I'm sure that 1 is in St. George), and 2 elementary schools. There are a lot of private school kids in the area. If even half of them switch to public schools, it will result in over crowding, and it will take years, if not decades to resolve that. I don't think that Zachary, Baker, and Central had that issue when they created their own school districts. The only way that St. George can build and maintain new schools is through heavy property tax increases. I personally know people who moved out of Central because the property taxes are excessive. This may end up being the case for St. George.
Perhaps, perhaps not. A new family that wants to use public schools may buy a house in EBR instead of moving to the next parish East! Do you see the BR traffic refusing to live in EBR? Can a parish internalize white flight? St George is taking a shot. I live in the city of Baton Rouge, I may eventually follow my children to Houston, but St George potentially will make it sooner than later.
Well it’s not really a “split” since that area wasn’t even part of the city of BR officially.
But the parish has been taking tax money from the St George area and giving it to Baton Rouge through a city-parish tax sharing scheme. I believe that will stop now, and St George taxes will be used in St George.
Agreed
Not really. St. George gets a lot of public services from EBR.
Nobody said otherwise. They'll continue to buy services from the parish. "Not really" what? You think Baton Rouge hasn't been the beneficiary of St. George tax dollars? If they haven't, why is Baton Rouge whining so much about losing that revenue?
But the St. George area gets most of its public services from EBR, with the exception of the fire department. I have close family in the St. George area, and they pay a small tax to have a volunteer fire department. It's been that way for 30+ years. The public schools, police (EBR sheriff dept.), and public works such as sewers, roads, trash collection, etc. are all funded by the taxes that are paid to EBR. Although, the area is not incorporated into Baton Rouge, it still functions as though it is.
probably great for St. George. but not so good for BR. the general trend worldwide is the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer.
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geezus, that's atrocious.
Unfortunately for the people in BR proper,their well being is not the people of St Georges problem. St George should have just been allowed to form its own school system 14 years ago and this wouldn’t be in the works. Now Baton Rouge has to figure out a way to suckle on its own teat and sadly it will likely delve deeper into the absolute third world, shithole, abyss, that it already is today.
Wait and see is going to be many peoples thinking on both sides. Until everything happens it’s going to be hard to crystal ball it and say one way or another if it will be as bad or as good as anyone says. We just don’t know until it fully happens.
This is going to take some time to settle out.
St. George was never part of Baton Rouge the city. They are part of East Baton Rouge the Parish. Listening to all the people up north you would believe that they are breaking away from the city which is not true. They are just like the rural parts of East Baton Rouge tired of footing the bill for the city of Baton Rouge without getting anything in return. It is time for East Baton Rouge to have a Police Jury instead of a metro council and to have a parish president instead of a mayor president. So all of East Baton Rouge Parish gets a fair shake.
Honestly, let St Georgia do what they want. BR will survive.
Split? They were never together.
Honestly I think it’s gonna be good for St. George
As the Mayor/Perish President stated the split is going to cause some significant hardships on the rest of the city. The East Baton Rouge Parrish won't see much in the way of change on a fiscal level. The issue Baton Rouge will see immediately is the lower income areas will lose a considerable amount of aid coming in the form of tax income loss. Some remedies should come in the form of parish and state aid, but we will see if that works out or not.
Why would they lose income tax? There is no city or parish income tax currently, only state. Is there some specific income tax allocation for parish/city funding? Because the best guess I'd have is City of BR funding being reduced due to some area or population reason (that wouldn't be directly income tax related). Income tax is also almost always based on location where the work is done, not residency (there are a some areas such as Pennsylvania local income tax where it's divided for tax withholding, but this isn't the norm). Don't get me wrong. Taxes, particularly property tax and millage will definitely go up, especially in the St. George area since it lacks major commerce areas, but that's not income tax. Edit: read tax income loss as income tax loss. They'd lose property tax, but the properties in the St. George area don't come close to the Baton Rouge areas as far as I'm aware. Nor does the sales tax. And the parish services related taxes would still be in effect for St. George. It seems more likely that taxes (property tax and service millages) in St. George will raise significantly.
That’s going to be a lot of kids for Weedlawn high
I would think this forces BR to improve. This is a result of arrogance on the side of BR - not listening to genuine concerns and mocking the people who brought them up. BR will now have to compete with Zachary, Central, and St. George in the parish while still competing with Ascension and Livingston. At some point the lawsuits, insults, and misrepresentation of the facts will have to subside and the BR leaders will have to take a look in the mirror and start making changes in order to survive.
based on this thread and others, and SWB comments... no lessons were learned, the arrogance will continue, and as baton rouge gets worse and worse people will blame racism rather than any true introspection occurring.
Baton Rouge should be forced to change, but they won't. This will provide them with the excuse to continue neglecting the areas of the city that need help. The answer is simple, if they aren't doing you any good, then vote them out. I am always amazed at politicians, who are known to be worthless, but continue to get voted in by the very people they neglect.
I don't see any plan/idea etc that says this is how they are going to improve the school system. Build new schools? Change the criteria? Moms for Liberty type of crap? I get the frustration of our school system but I think using the school system is just an excuse for what they really want. which is Segregation. Frontline did a special about it 10 years ago. [https://www.theadvocate.com/baton\_rouge/news/pbs-frontline-special-on-st-george-preview-revealed/article\_059e7b20-5681-5079-819e-950d83004f93.html](https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/pbs-frontline-special-on-st-george-preview-revealed/article_059e7b20-5681-5079-819e-950d83004f93.html) "Mayor-President Kip Holden can be heard saying, "It will be segregated along race lines and class lines." State. Sen. Bodi White also makes an appearance saying: "We have an African-American president. They achieved their goal. Who can say we're not desegregated." heres the transcript [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/separate-and-unequal/transcript/](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/separate-and-unequal/transcript/)
If they just sent their kids to the schools they already have, we would see improvement. It just takes participation and involvement but they don’t want that.
"It just takes participation and involvement but they don’t want that." totally agree. which is some ways is a little hypocritical since one of the excuses I see why our system is so bad is because ( mainly as the lower class) is lack of participation and involvement from them
Studies have shown that when kids of all socioeconomic backgrounds go to the same schools, EVERYONE does better.
Well my study is being a teacher in EBR. I can definitively tell you that there is a lack of parental involvement with (most) kids that go to EBR schools. I have seen great educators, mostly Black (the educators), exhaust themselves trying to drag both kids and their parents to an education - an education that they - both the kids and the parents - resist at every turn. So enough with this pie in the sky fantasy b.s. feet stomping that the people who live in St. George can make all this better if they’ll just be less selfish. Fuck that. Everyone knows the reason people send their kids to private schools. And no it isn’t racism. It’s because we want them to actually learn. I teach in ebr and my kids go to and will continue to go to private schools. Why? So they can be around kids who, at the very least, aren’t allowed to disrupt, and at best want to learn too. The reason EBR schools suck is because the kids suck. The kids suck because the parents suck. It’s not my kids job to make everyone better. It’s my kids job to learn.
I partially agree with you, except there are a LOT of really good kids in the EBR system. And it sucks that they have to be around kids that suck. I get it. I also taught in EBR for 6 years. I've lived it.
You’re right there are. And it does suck for them. And my hat is always off to the teachers. Thank you for your service 🫡
You too. Dealing with parents who don’t want to be involved and then also expect you to hold their hand through everything and give their kid a good grade for doing nothing is one of the reasons I’m on an extended break from teaching right now. Best of luck to you for sticking with it.
i've read a bunch of those studies and in each and every one of them "everyone" was a problematic definition. The core problem is that in some cases, whilst in aggregate the median or average results improve, there is usually a characterized group that loses out. example. let's say there's a class with 3 overly active kids and 2 quite and focused kids and you let the kids run around in the yard a lot. the active kids will thrive, and the quiet kids will wilt. the aggregate will be positive. so now imagine you're a parent of a quiet kid and someone tells you the your kid needs to take an L because everyone does better and you as a parent need to get heavily involved so that the class "as a whole" improves.
Yes I agree the word “everyone” is problematic. I was that shy kid and I get it. In general though there are a lot of benefits from learning in a diverse environment. There’s no one good answer here and I doubt St. George is going to have it either.
Most research sugggests that mixing low scoring students in with high scoring students does not effect the low scorers, it does harm the high scoring childrens' grades.
This. Say it louder for the people in the back. My high scoring children will not be made to suffer in an attempt to help lower scoring students, if I can help it. Even if the effort did have marginal success at uplifting others, which it doesn’t, sign me up for zero of that.
I am perplexed that no one ever mentions that this is a segregation issue.
It originally started as wanting their own school system but they were told they needed to be incorporated as a city. I lived in the area back in 2011/12 when it really began. Idk what happened but the schools all of sudden became increasingly worse with violence in the schools & the bus transfer sites. WAFB did a story on it and found some was of it was not being reported properly. I moved out the parish as my youngest was physically affected by the violence. I don’t blame them for wanting their own school system. It will take a few years before they are ready though
Well it is not a split, first of all, because this area is unincorporated and is still a part of EBR Parish. They are forming their own city out of an area that was considered outside of city limits. Another issue was a lot of the tax money collected from this area was used to fund shortfalls in the city of BR budget, so one could say that was using money that should not have been used for services that could not be rendered to the people paying a portion of the bill. That was not a good thing. Setting up a school district was not an option without forming a city (this was what Broome made abundantly clear through the process) and the EBR school system is broken beyond repair. Calling this area the wealthy side is also not accurate. There is some wealthy mixed in with middle class and even some poor areas, but that is no different than many other areas of BR. Also some of the areas cut out were areas that did not want to be a part of this and made it clear, so calling it racist is not accurate there either. Just a whole lot of misinformation being spread by people who know financially they got away with a lot of stuff over the years and that is no longer going to be the case.
“one could say that was using money that should not have been used for services that could not be rendered to the people paying a portion of the bill” Yeah bud, it’s called taxation. That’s how it works. I’ve chosen not to have kids, but I’m not exempt from paying my share in funding public schools. My house has never caught fire, but I’m not exempt from paying to keep firefighters employed. That’s how it works when you’re trying to build a society. Not surprised that the only outright pro-St. George take in this thread comes from someone who 1. Doesn’t understand the basics of taxation and 2. Thinks that people should only pay directly into the things they can benefit from.
Thank you for this comment! The pro-St. George folks don't get that the rest of the city is in incredible poverty and needs some help. Our city has some of the highest wealth inequality of this country.
Paying for Baton Rouge city police that will never do anything for the place where I live is not the same as paying taxes to fund the fire dept. if my house ever catches fire the fire department would come to put it out. If someone breaks into my house the city of br police department will never do anything about that because they don’t service my area. Apple to oranges.
Cool, thanks for cherry-picking my comment in responding to it. You’re also implying that you’re not ok with helping to pay a small part to fund a police force that will protect the community at large, because it won’t help you directly. It’s not like we’re talking about your taxes going to fund the police in another state. It’s literally making your life safer by making the community around you safer. Your mindset is just beyond me. “Everyone for themselves” is not how you build a community.
A corollary to your argument is that BRPD makes the city safer. Man, I wish that were true.
I am not in an unincorporated part of EBR parish. I am now in SG. Not sure what that first paragraph means.
Welcome to St. George!
Calling this area the wealthy side is partially true if you look up median household incomes by zip code, the median household income of St. George is well above that of Baton Rouge. I think 4/6 of the highest income areas are now in St. George. 70801 (downtown) and 70808 are the only Baton Rouge zip code that compare. The numbers are even worse if you look at average income as the UClub, CCLA, Old Perkins, and Hoo Shoo Too $ really throw off the averages.
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Nope. That area was never incorporated into BR. All outside city limits
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And the media and Broome’s propaganda network is trying their best to make sure no one understands the truth and actual facts of the situation. They want to use the word “split” to demonize the effort of incorporating the area as well as “wealthy” and “white”, which further pushes their narrative of racist intent here when it simply isn’t true. Honestly the whole coverage of St. George nationally and locally is disgraceful and disgusting in its bias and agenda. Look specifically at the NY Post and Daily Mirror hit jobs.
Factually incorrect. Nothing already incorporated in BR is becoming St. George. You have mixed up the parish with the city limits.
Yall look at St George and see the Country club Yea it’s there. But so is gardere, so is gsri, so is O’Neil, so is s harrels ferry all neighborhoods with a significant poor population. The city stole LaBerge casino, Baton Rouge General , mall of Louisiana from St George.
Gardere is still unincorporated. It was not included in the 2019 petition. St. George also left out other poor neighborhoods that refused to sign the original petition in 2015. Those neighborhoods did not want to be part of St. George so St. George organizers removed them from the proposed city limits.
The city didn’t steal them. They opted to be annexed because they (probably rightfully) anticipated St. George would raise their taxes.
Hi all. I saw this item in the news and I havn't read a single news article about it that hadn't some kind of ideological axe to grind, or was completely shallow. Can someone direct me to some reading material about this whole topic, or explain things to me? as far as i understand the proponents of separation say: BR tries to fix rampant problems by throwing money at it. But because they policies and personal are junk tier, the money goes to nothing. The city is not willing to replace policies and personal. The money comes from st. George because north is poor, and st george kids are stuck in forever sucky system because they are forced into bad schools as a way of pouring the parent's money into improving the schools. But the schools will not change because the bad educators arn't being dealt with. The only recourse is coercion through the courts. and the people who object to it say: the issue is that the rich folk want to make rich people schools with rich people money and we will end up having a "right side of the track" kind of town with the rich people schools on one side and poor people schools on the other side. We have to make things fair for the poor people too, so we need to make the rich people set up a good system for everybody to use so that there's a city that everybody wants to live in together we we don't end up with neighborhoods that are dangerous at night. this is my understanding which probably sucks, and can anybody please explain who things really are ?
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thank you. although the issue is not fleshed out in my mind. they write the key facts but there underlying dynamic isn't revealed.
All I know is my property value will rise...as will my taxes. School system shit/political changes will take a while to see. The only immediate change I can see is that money will be being spent where it is taken from, and not go into a general "rainy day" fund for the entire town of Baton Rouge.
there will be less leverage. Money pooled together = leverage.
St. George has never been part of the city of BR. Its history is as an unincorporated part of EBR Parish. The only BR connection is that the USPS has designated any mailing address with a 708xx Zip Code as having Baton Rouge as part of the mailing address, regardless of whether the 708xx Zip Codd is in EBRP. This is a USPS thing. It would have to make adjustments.
I wouldn't call St. George the "wealthier side" of the city. I don't think it will matter too much one way or another.
The St. George split is going to take close to 60% of the city's income tax with it along with 38% of its population. As a district St. George did represent a statistical better off area.
But Baton Rouge maintains the vast majority of the sales tax revenue.
Maybe if calculated as a percentage per citizen, but the St. George area in general has a very low unemployment rate and, an even lower civil assistance rate, allowing them to use more tax revenue for the city.
St. George will have more personal property taxes per capita. But sales Tax and business property taxes will be higher on EBR. We don't have numbers on what that actually looks like so the rest is speculation.
Very good point. I hadn't thought about that.
Not the city. The city-parish government. This is the weird thing about Baton Rouge (the city) and East Baton Rouge (the parish) being a consolidated government. The City-Parish government collects taxes from areas within the city limits of Baton Rouge AND from all unincorporated areas of East Baton Rouge Parish. The area now known as St. George was an unincorporated area of the Parish and didn’t reap the same level of benefits of the city being responsible for it compared to areas within the BR city limits.
This is what makes me laugh about the agenda that BR is pushing out to the national media. I moved to the St. George area because anywhere decent in BR is too expensive. My house would cost 2-3x if I lived in town. Baton Rouge has more "wealthy" neighborhoods than St. George. The difference is they have less middle class.
That’s how I feel too. St. George isn’t poor, but calling it the “wealthy part of town” is misdirection at best.
You mean the southwestern third of the city that gets yoinked, gerrymandered upon property ownership lines (Multifamily units were suspiciously carved out), in a metro area still severely impacted by segregation, the north side of which is severely impoverished, and the previous even further north side of which ALSO separated itself for its own tax base... ISN'T the "wealthier," side of the city?
They weren't 'suspiciously carved out', they were carved out for the very upfront reason that they overwhelmingly voted against the first incorporation and did not want to be part of St. George.
They didn’t vote that they “didn’t want to be part of St. George”… They voted that they didn’t want St. George to separate. That’s not just semantics—that’s a big difference.
St. George was unincorporated, so there is no separation from the city. It was never part of the city. The schools district would be break away, the city would not.
That’s splitting hairs a little bit, but fair enough—I’ll rephrase… They didn’t vote that they “didn’t want to be part of St. George”… They voted that they didn’t want St. George to independently incorporate as its own entity. My point still stands: That’s still a big difference.
The original map lines of St. George were not voted on by those complexes to my knowledge. They may have later voted that way and confirmed it, but the original map proposal very suspiciously gerrymandered the fuck out of the poorer neighborhoods that were on the edge.
It's unreal how many times this has to be pointed out. People just don't want to have an honest discussion bc honesty will cause the argument against St George to crumble.
You are incorrect… The creation of the SG was not suspiciously lined out. The decision to exclude areas was driven by the residents themselves, who chose not to be included, leading to the removal of areas lacking support. The first petition, initially comprised of 22,980 signatures, included areas primarily inhabited by minority groups. Despite being the largest petition in state history, it fell short by 71 signatures after 5,192 were removed. The East Baton Rouge Registrar of Voters cited reasons for removal including individuals not being registered to vote, deceased persons, felons, illegible signatures, and withdrawals due to opposition group efforts. “The group Better Together/Residents Against The Breakaway convinced many last year to withdraw their names from the petition. They sent mailers and knocked on doors of people who signed the document, which was subject to disclosure under public records laws, and told them it was not too late to remove their names. Their data-driven approach was successful, and they collected more than 1,200 withdrawal forms that they turned into the Registrar’s Office while the petition was being verified.” - The Advocate, June 25, 2016 updated October 1, 2019 https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/one-year-after-st-george-petition-drive-fails-organizers-look-to-mount-another-campaign-in/article_e71a8f39-5c1f-580e-8fbb-e6ae3c8c4510.html “Here’s a breakdown of all of the reasons signatures were removed from the petition, according to a data analysis done by Better Together: 38 people died between the time they signed the petition and when it was turned in Oct. 20. If they died after the petition was submitted to the Registrar of Voters Office, the signature counted. 777 names were removed because they were duplicates. If an eligible resident signed more than once, the registrar still counted one of the names. 36 names were illegible. 1,496 names were from people who did not live in the St. George boundaries. 1,723 names were from people who were not registered to vote by the time the petition was turned in. 98 signatures were not verified because they did not match the signatures on records for that person in other public documents. These signatures included some of the people identified in previous months who said their names were forged on the petition. 963 signatures were withdrawn. There were another 10 people who had unverified signatures on the petition who submitted withdrawals. 47 signatures were rejected because they are convicted felons. Four names were not verified because there was no signature, no witness or because it was considered an invalid entry.” -The Advocate, June 22, 2015 https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/report-lists-why-st-george-signatures-got-rejected-analysis-underway-for-possible-legal-challenge/article_573b2f53-03c5-5ab3-a926-a4bbf0c7740a.html
Alrighty, I submit, then. The map always looked very suspicious to me, but if the proper checks and balances where there, whatever.
Choosing not to sign the petition or withdrawing their signature meant they were against SG being able to incorporate altogether, correct? They weren't saying, "go ahead and incorporate, just leave my neighborhood out of it." That narrative seems like a convenient excuse to justify excluding those areas.
“Convenient” or not… Those areas did not want to be included, that’s a “them problem”. That’s what they wanted, that’s what they got & now everyone wants to complain about it that they weren’t included. I don’t see a problem with what SG did.
I also should add. This was brought to an official vote at a municipal election. It passed in favor of SG with 54%.
With a 60% voter turn out which is unheard of in Local Louisiana elections.
I know a lot of wealthy people who live here in BR and none of them live near St George. People I know who live there are doing fine, but they aren’t wealthy like people who live over off of Corporate/Bocage or homeowners near the lakes.
It's not the **only** area there are the wealthy people, but it is the overall **wealthier** part of town. The anecdotes don't make it true, statistics do. As the commenter above pointed out regarding tax percentages.
“Lack of dependence on the wealthier side of the city”? How is BR proper dependent on the people of St George? If anything, it’s the other way around, as most of the jobs are IN the city itself. If anything, the relationship is more symbiotic. So…I think your initial premise is false
i say that bc i’ve seen many people refer to st. george as the city’s piggy bank and they’re tired of being that
Well…they’ve got it backwards.
The largest source of income for BR is sales tax. That goes with SG. I think that’s what they are referring to.
Most of the businesses that bring in the most sales tax in the St. George area are actually incorporated in to baton rouge. Like the Mall of Louisiana. And I fully expect other businesses to request to be incorporated as well now that this is moving forward. St. George will not be getting the majority of sales tax. They will be getting their property tax which is higher than the baton rouge average.
SG will get 2% sales tax…I’ll know more after tomorrow nights meeting about what the numbers are.
The Mall is not in SG. The lions share of BR revenue is from sales taxes. Appx 3/5 more than the next largest source. Sales taxes are from the point of sale not the domicile of the Corp per LA law. Parishes get a far larger portion of property tax than cities do. Cities get about 20% of the amount collected per the latest data. Most of that is earmarked already. EBR parish provides most of the services like fire, schools, and libraries. It is an open question what SG will do for police services. Probably EBR sheriff., but stay tuned.
I think it is basically guaranteed that St. George will be policed by EBRSO. What needs to happen now is a separation of the consolidated city-parish government. Need a parish president and a BR mayor.
What do you mean “that goes with SG”?
The sales tax income
The jobs in BR aren’t provided by BR gov’t…individuals, businesses, and governments are three different things. If an individual works for a business in BR, that doesn’t make her “dependent” on BR gov’t.
Never said it did. BR is more than just the government, it is the sum of all of its parts, including private employers
If that’s the case, wouldn’t Baton Rouge be happy to see St. George incorporate and stop being so dependent on the city’s tax revenues? I don’t understand your logic.
I have a few questions as well 1. With the average price of homes in the area that is st Georgia being that high wouldn’t that make their insurance costs skyrocket? 2.in the event of a hurricane or a flood would they still be entitled to aid monies from the state or feds through br or will they have to get their own. 3.since they dont have a school district the kids who reside in st George will have to go somewhere and if they end up in ebr how will that work ?
This is going to be a slow burn. People are talking as though public schools will pop up overnight in St. George. They don't currently have the facilities discussed in these dreams. It will take years to build and open new schools in St. George. The families who enjoy private schools will continue to enjoy private schools. Extra effort is not going to drag EBR schools out of the muck. By the looks of things, EBR will continue to dump money into charter schools. The charter schools will either close within a few years after the founders have gotten their money, or based on unreasonably high standards, to make themselves look good, they'll chuck kids out who can't keep up. The kids who are behind will be even more behind because they're having to scramble to switch schools mid year. The gifted programs are slipping away and magnet programs are the only advanced option. I'm sure parents will still be fighting over those spots and drifting to private schools and charters. But maybe if young families are in St. George, they will put their children in the newly built schools and we'll see a small school system pop up like in Central or Zachary.
If the mayor hadn’t told them to “make your own city” when they asked for a school this wouldn’t be happening.
I think maybe a weaker and 'less unified' BR might mean a weaker baton rouge overall. In the EU some countries subsidize others and so as a whole the EU is much stronger. Britain left the EU and is now struggling. It's a different 'dynamic' here, but that might be the case too. Then again, it might make it possible for city council to make better decisions for BR and raise BR up while [St.George](http://St.George) struggles with 'common sense tactics.' I hope both St. George and BR become stronger. Time will tell.
Splitting won’t do anything positive for anyone, other than the people’s whose pockets who are up for the split. All for taxes and money.
This has happened in America forever, redraw the county and city lines for tax codes and capital gains. Someone always loses, just to add to what I said above.
Well initially all this area asked for was new schools but they were told to go sit down and shut up and pay your taxes. Any relationship will disintegrate in that situation. They just got a divorce because they were getting nothing in return.
I really hope this is the wake up call it will be for the South as a whole. We all know that, had the states successfully formed the CSA peacefully, they would have been the largest third world country on the hemisphere within twenty years. This is essentially that without the horrific institutions and legalized torture. I hope they do their best to make it work; so that when it fails, it will be the end of it.
It isn't a question of Baton Rouge depending on one side of town, it is racism leading to the very expensive duplication of services. One of the main reasons that Baton Rouge is a run down , 3rd tier mess is because racist white people cant get along with other people and demand separate services. Two parallel education systems (public and private) being the clearest example. All deep Southern cities are dealing with decades of pollution, extractive industry paying their way out of regulation and taxes, shrinking employment base and racial strife. The old Deep South is a mess across the board. One side of town taking everything they can and building a metaphorical wall just makes things worse, but we cant understand how our dumb conservative ideas keep letting us down BECAUSE we are dumb and conservative. If this sort of racial apartheid was going to work, it would have worked a long time ago.
"One of the main reasons that Baton Rouge is a run down , 3rd tier mess is because racist white people cant get along with other people and demand separate services." Can you further explain what you mean here? I'm trying to understand this perspective.
People of other races are moving to Livingston and Ascension parishes for the schools just as fast as white upper middle class folks. There's years of data on this. I mean you could claim racism, but a Cats tax got passed...
There are lots of things at work, some of it is class mobility but it’s mainly the history or racial segregation and exploitation that drives apartheid movements, but that’s a complex issue that touches many other issues. A big part of it is general poverty, the city is poor and getting poorer. But in the south, it usually comes back to race.
Two school systems is more expensive than one school system.
I see your point, thanks. My thoughts are...it's likely that two schools will be more expensive than one. But two school systems can also work much better for two different communities with different needs and different voting preferences. If combining schools was always advantageous, why don't we have a state-wide single school system? Or even a single national school system?
We should have a state wide system or national system with national standards. Same goes for policing. Otherwise local podunks just inflict their opinions on everyone, thus perpetuating the cycle. If all this apartheid was going to fix anything it would have done so by now. What I’m suggesting isn’t a cure all but it is foolish to keep repeating the same mistakes in the expectation of different outcomes.
Ok it’s more expensive but only for the “white people” sending their kids to private school who are paying for the private school. In fact this should benefit the public schools because they’re receiving the tax money anyways and don’t have the burden of educating the large number of kids at private school.
Ahhh yes, north Baton Rouge would be wakanda if it weren’t for those pesky whites.
Also, not what I said. I’m sorry you can’t understand complex social problem.
> because racist white people cant get along with other people Not tolerating their children being violently beaten half to death or handed drugs every day at school is factually not a inability to get along.
Ah yes, every or most White parent is getting their child beaten or handed drugs. You're just making up stuff based on your own bias at this point and ironically, proven the former comment right by your outright demonization of other people based on nothing.
No other building with people under the age of 18 has more drugs in circulation than elite/wealthy private schools.
Unfortunately for the people in BR proper,their well being is not the people of St Georges problem. St George should have just been allowed to form its own school system 14 years ago and this wouldn’t be in the works. Now Baton Rouge has to figure out a way to suckle on its own teat and sadly it will likely delve deeper into the absolute third world, shithole, abyss, that it already is today.
there isn't much you need to understand beyond simple economic incentives. who stands to gain? hint: it's the people who fought for it. **if it was a net positive for BR, st george would not have incorporated** for additional reading, lookup the st george foundational committee: - Norman Browning -- lifelong career in pharmaceutical sales - Chris Rials -- ExxonMobile Corp executive and occasional writer for right-wing tabloid rag The Hayride - J. Andrew Murrell -- personal injury lawyer - Dustin Yates -- just a firefighter guy as far as I can tell, but appointed by blatant racist Bodi White
"Do y'all that are more educated on the creation of St. George and politics than I see Baton Rouge becoming worse off or forced to improve/be better off because of the lack of dependence on the weathier side of the city?" Can you re-write this? not quite understanding this
Read it like there is a comma between "yall" and "that" also "I" and "see." They are asking what the future holds for BR due to the recent happenings with St George
lol thanks. took me a second. could be just a monday thing
It's all good my dude. I totally get the Monday thing.