The end to a drawn out legal fight for incorporation had opponents crying “white flight” at the dawn of a new Louisiana city.
Friday, roughly five years after residents of East Baton Rouge Parish had voted in favor of forming the City of St. George, the Louisiana Supreme Court handed down a 4-3 ruling in favor of municipal break. While the movement’s leaders and supporters cheered after the end of a litigious chapter it marked the beginning of the work to get the city operational and detractors continued to cry racism over the demographic schism.
“It’s white flight. I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m not going to live in an echo chamber of acting like I don’t know what it is,” said new St. George resident Malika Wyche to The Advocate after a Monday meeting at the fire department’s headquarters.
Like others, the mother of a school-aged daughter voiced concern over how roughly $48 million in annual tax revenue would cover the needs of the 60 square mile city of 86,000 residents while also speaking to the impact Baton Rouge would have losing out on those monies.
“There is no basis in fact that the existence of St. George is positive or will bring positivity or have a positive impact on any areas of the cities or the parish,” M.E. Cormier, a leader against the incorporation had argued to the New York Times. “The detanglement, logistically speaking, is going to be an absolute nightmare.”
Efforts to form the new city stretched back to a desire for St. George residents to have their own school district about 15 years earlier. To make that possible, they had to form their own city and after a majority vote in 2019 had passed, the incorporation was challenged in court as Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome had sued organizers citing revenue issues for the parish as well as the city’s own expected deficit.
Similar to Wyche’s claims, social media users jumped at the opportunity to cry racism over the incorporation of the predominantly white city as a 2014 study from the Baton Rouge Area Chamber had determined at the time, the average annual income of St. George would be $30,000 higher than Baton Rouge and with half the unemployment rate.
“The segregationist won. I’m no longer a citizen of Baton Rouge. I now live in the white enclave of St George,” wrote one individual as another posted a video of herself claiming “redlining” had been approved as she addressed her message, “dear white girl like me in Baton Rouge.”
“The Breakaway city of St. George in Baton Rouge is not about better school…it’s redlining with a different name”
A deeper story into the split pic.twitter.com/ARz9FF3k5z
— D’Pate (@bunno333_) April 30, 2024
Baton Rouge is where they want to send all the blacks … that’s what is was made for… they just building the foundation for resegregation
— Amari August (@diaryofamari) April 30, 2024
The rich continue to defeat the poor. Cool
— Adam (@pistolfan23) April 26, 2024
The Baton Rouge Chapter of the NAACP heaped onto the pile with the release of a statement that said in part, “The St. George plan poses significant risks to our education system, threatens the continuity of critical programs, and challenges community representation.”
“The creation of a new municipality introduces considerable uncertainty around funding allocation for our schools, jeopardizing the cornerstone of our community’s future: education,” they added.
Meanwhile, the St. George group’s spokesperson Andrew Murrell had said at Monday’s press conference, “We’ve celebrated. Today is the end of that celebration. We’re going to work.”
It was also made clear that the incorporation did not yet mean a new school district had been formed and that there was a plan under consideration to attempt to force the parish to turn over all tax dollars collected since the 2019 vote that St. George might have the revenue they should have had before they were taken to court. “Well, I’ll tell you, everything’s on the table. That’s the easiest answer I can give you without going into further details.”
In the meantime, Gov. Jeff Landry (R) was required to appoint a mayor and five council members until a municipal election could be held, according to The Advocate.
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Author: Kevin Haggerty
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