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St. George City Incorporation News


richyb83

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If the mall of la is not incorporated they dont really have much choice.

I would not worry about ascension or Livingston. People that go there are trying to get away from EBR. They could move to st. George now if they wanted and aren't.

 

But they'd still be in Baton Rouge schools, which is what they moved to get away from. 

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If the mall of la is not incorporated they dont really have much choice.

I would not worry about ascension or Livingston. People that go there are trying to get away from EBR. They could move to st. George now if they wanted and aren't.

People are getting tired of the traffic woes in Ascension. The city of St. George will probably grow pretty fast if incorporated. People will move because of the schools and to be closer to work.

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Yeah, but I'd bet they want it to stay unincorporated.

I'm sure some council membets do....but they won't have input in St George. The voters in the unincorporated area will, and the state legislature will.

This won't happen unless the voters in that area want it to. I'm not sure how it's drawn, but there's no guarantee that the mall will actually be in the new city. The Town Center development is not in Baton Rouge.

FWIW, when he was in the state legislature, Kip

Holden was one of the major supporters of Central's incorporation and establishment of a school district.

The issue the city will raise is that the tax collected at the mall is currently allocated to the parish, which spends it accordingly. The St George area in question is about 25% of the parish. If they incorporate the mall, a portion of the sales tax revenue from there will go to St George and a smaller portion will go to the parish. IMO, the parish should have been spending about 1/4 of it's revenue in St George already.

Ever notice how there is only one public high school there despite being home to 100,000+ residents? It's all about the schools. St George has been getting screwed for a long time now. In my opinion, the mall is their due for having to support Baton Rouge while their kids get bussed all over the place.

If they are willing to pay taxes to support a city government and the people vote for it, it's going to be a very nice city....one of the largest in Louisiana.

Edited by cajun
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I think I am starting to lean towards favoring the break off city.  I think the competition will cause leaders in Baton Rouge to tighten things up a bit.  St. George is going to start out as a formidable suburb, but may have the potential to be the Fort Worth to Dallas.

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Thanks for all yall's replies/input :thumbsup:

 

Not sure when they make the name St. George "official"? Until then I like to call it Southeast BR...

 

The Millerville Road area is in no-man's land...but part of the Eastside Fire District...Wedgewood to the south is part of BR; interesting to see hoew they pull that off and wrap it around up there...

 

Where might the best location be for City Hall, etc?? There is a large strip of undeveloped land between Sherwood Commons & Sherwood Forest Blvd; south of Coursey Blvd...a few undeveloped tracts of land along Siegen; maybe the old vacant Tinsletown  Cinema in Siegen Market Place? Swagggart parking lot btwn Mall of La & Perkins Rowe? Somewhere along Airline Hwy adjacent to new Woman's Hospital? 

 

Does Baton Rouge make a last minute land grab to include the Mall of La. area?? It's only a matter of time before they annex the Towne Center.

 

Just curious...in Jefferson Parish what makes a place like Kenner incorporated & Metairie unincorporated w/ no mayor; council or police jury? Metairie is one of the Largest unincorporated communities in the U.S. ...would be Louisiana's 4th Largest City

Edited by richyb83
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As it currently stands as a suburb, sure its a plano or a metairie.  I believe though it will be good competition for Baton Rouge and has the potential to grow and be more a co-anchor type Metro Area - maybe :)  If the new to be city council was smart, they would tout the new school system and the demographics and get more businesses and economic growth.  Then again it IS in East Baton Rouge Parish

 

RIchy, Im having trouble visualizing the city limits and trying to think of a good center...

u216o.png

Is this somewhat of their saying.... 

Edited by BRPJ
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Nice work BRJP! Glad you could visit!

 

Looks close...it (St George)will extended further north to include Inniswold area to I-12....& on NE side stop near Florida Blvd(north of Comite River belongs to Central now)

 

However.......This  is a 1st for me....the map is showing BR's City Limits w those "Pink" Boundaries; is including everything SW of I-10; Bluebonnet Nature Center/Siegen/CC of La.  & future Harveston with Bayou Manchac as it's border?? Does this mean St.George(or whatever it is) gets everything East of I-10 then?

 

Finding a discernible city center seems to be a challenge...but I like your proposal near the future Pecue Lane/I-10 Interchange...there is some available land to do that for sure...

 

Should be interesting to watch manifest itself!

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St. George will become Metairie to New Orleans and I'm sure some of the same animosity will mozy on over to EBR with a distinction between St. George and Baton Rouge.

True...but that would be incredibly immature and pointless. They'd both be electing the same mayor to the whole parish.

The truth is that St George will never have LSU or downtown. Baton Rouge will never have the Mall of La. Baton Rouge would bend over backwards to encourage more sales tax generating developments into the city. They'd be encouraged to invest in the major retail corridors that they are ignoring (Florida, Airline, I-12 exits).

A little athletic rivalry wouldn't be bad though between the high schools either.

It's not really fair to see EBR as a parish with 4 cities. It's one city with 4 (and soon 5) districts. The whole parish elects the mayor and councl. That won't change with a new city. The system of government in EBR is consolidated. 450,000 people live in Baton Rouge- which includes the future St George area, which will contribute taxes to the parish government. They'd likely choose sales taxes for their local government to fund their schools, and they'll probably have to build another high school somewhere down there.

St Micheal's and Parkview would lose students overnight if the new district goes up.

This beats the hell out of suburban residents exclusively choosing AP or LP like they pretty much do today. Those areas will never match St George and EBR for retail amenities and infrastructure.

We should look at St George from the perspective of a Baton Rouge neighborhood that wants their own schools. It will always be Baton Rouge. So will Zachary and Central.

I honestly couldn't think of an easier way to keep the middle class tax base inside of East Baton Rouge.

AP and LP can use this as an opportunity to improve their planning if they don't sabatoge this effort in the legislature. They can't handle the growth now as it is.

Edited by cajun
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Do they actually want to extend the limits all the way up to Central like that?

I bet the folks who live up by Millerville north of 12 would be happy to join if it involves public schools. Maybe even Monticello although I hear they wanted no part of central.

If the new schools are even decent, EBR will reach 500,000+ people within 10 years of incorporation. Book it.

Edited by cajun
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Insane!  The new city will be approximately 84.6 square miles (The city of Baton Rouge is 76 square miles.)

*Here is the St. George website

http://www.stgeorgelouisiana.com/about/faqs

 

2013_08-City-Map.jpg

 

 

This entire project leaves me beyond furious. 

1. Why did Baton Rouge proper never annex St. George 

2. Why rather than break away and cause more problems why don't they just try and force the city into reforming education

3. There is no real point other to this other than for education; why further divide a city, create more urban development problems because I gaurentee you that when and if BR proper expands problems will come up.

4. Will the mayor do anything at this point to stop this from happening?

 

I am (as you can tell) very against this idea. I know I may be young, but I care about my city in a large way; my personal life would be divided and I hate to see such a city like ours with so great potential to be ruined by this. I am also very disappointed with our current leadership in that they are lacking the common sense to annex St. George. That should have been Holden's first order of business when he got into office.   

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This entire project leaves me beyond furious. 

1. Why did Baton Rouge proper never annex St. George 

2. Why rather than break away and cause more problems why don't they just try and force the city into reforming education

3. There is no real point other to this other than for education; why further divide a city, create more urban development problems because I gaurentee you that when and if BR proper expands problems will come up.

4. Will the mayor do anything at this point to stop this from happening?

 

I am (as you can tell) very against this idea. I know I may be young, but I care about my city in a large way; my personal life would be divided and I hate to see such a city like ours with so great potential to be ruined by this. I am also very disappointed with our current leadership in that they are lacking the common sense to annex St. George. That should have been Holden's first order of business when he got into office.   

1. The people in the future St. George would never vote to be in Baton Rouge, and I don't blame them.

2. Education has been terrible for decades. This is an attempt, slightly, of protesting education.

3. Baton Rouge proper is not expanding, and if it does, it'll annex Gardere.

4. What would Kip do?

 

This would be a great think for the parish. It'll bring more people into the parish than outlying suburbs and provide real competition for Baton Rouge.

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1. The people in the future St. George would never vote to be in Baton Rouge, and I don't blame them.

2. Education has been terrible for decades. This is an attempt, slightly, of protesting education.

3. Baton Rouge proper is not expanding, and if it does, it'll annex Gardere.

4. What would Kip do?

 

This would be a great think for the parish. It'll bring more people into the parish than outlying suburbs and provide real competition for Baton Rouge.

I understand that, but at this point BR does not need competition within it's limits. Maybe with Hammond and Covington, but not a part of the city that so many people including city citizens already consider a part of the city and a part that brings in most of their capital. 

 

As for education, I believe that the city should hold the teachers to a higher standards. Right now education is the easiest field to get involved in; so we have people who barely passed teaching kids. Next we should expand what students learn by giving them better structure. So an example would be Two Semesters a year each one you have three core classes and two extra classes. If we had this my schedule could look like this:

 

Semester 1

~ Math

~ English

~ History

~ Spanish

~ Choir

 

Semester 2

~ Literature

~ Science

~ Physical Education

~ Spanish

~ Choir

 

This system would allow the student to learn more, focus on less subjects, and balance school work in a more healthy and less stressful way. So better teachers, healthy schedule, and lastly more information; By 7th grade students will be in Algebra 1, Biology 1, Civics, English (current ninth grade level), and World Religion. So 7th grade would be the equal to of a normal ninth grade course, meaning 6=8, 5=7, 4=6, 3=5, 2=4, 1=3, K = 2, Pre-K = 1, EC (Early class) = K, Preschool=,

Pre-K. 

 

Know what Kip can do is grow a pair, put the Downtown off for a bit, annex St. George and Gardere, fix education, and take the new light rail to retirement.

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I don't see how breaking away will cause problems that weren't already happening. Baton Rouge won't be "ruined" by this.

St George will never ever vote to be annexed by Baton Rouge. It will never happen. Baton Rouge doesn't seem to want those people anyway.

Kip Holden supported the formation of Central while he was in the legislature. He governs the entire parish now...not just Baton Rouge. Those people in St George are not in the Baton Rouge city limits today and won't be after they create their own city- but they are a key component of his constituents, and will be a major source of political funding when he makes his move for Lt Governor. He does not need to "grow a pair". He's doing a fine job and had support from St George in his elections. He has no control or authority over schools. For 44 years, the school board didn't even have authority over the schools. There is absolutely nothing Holden could have done to prevent or facilitate this.

Unincorporated, developed land in East Baton Rouge is not Baton Rouge's land to take. It's not even necessary today with the consolidated government. St George will still vote for parish council members and the Mayor-President. They'll still contribute tax dollars to the parish- and will actually take control over public services within their boundaries previously handled by the parish.

St George is being considered today because of decades of mismanagement at the school board office. I think it will be a net positive for EBR to have a another viable middle class neighborhood within it's boundaries. This is about schools. Superman could be Mayor President and he wouldn't be able to fix the EBR parish schools.

I saw this coming when they closed Lee High. The wheels are in motion now. If the current outline of St George doesn't work, they'll redraw it and try again and again.

You are having a knee jerk reaction to this. Those people are not splitting from Baton Rouge. They were never a part of the city. If you have time, read the information on the link provided by Richy. There is already a lot of misinformation on this and people are getting upset when they shouldn't be.

Edited by cajun
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I understand that, but at this point BR does not need competition within it's limits. Maybe with Hammond and Covington, but not a part of the city that so many people including city citizens already consider a part of the city and a part that brings in most of their capital. 

Yes Baton Rouge does. And it's not Baton Rouge's limits. Competition is very healthy.

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Yes Baton Rouge does. And it's not Baton Rouge's limits. Competition is very healthy.

Exactly. This will put more competitive pressure on Central, Livingston, and Ascension. That's a great thing. People can choose another place in East Baton Rouge and still have good schools.

This is not Baton Rouge's limits. St George was never in Baton Rouge and will never be in Baton Rouge.

This is a great thing. This ensures that the tax base that the parish government controls remains viable for decades into the future and it may slow the exodus into LP and AP enough for them to get ahead of their infrastructure needs finally. This method of sprawling farther down the interstate just was not healthy. This is the best idea proposed so far that could potentially combat that.

The consolidated government depends on that tax base to fund projects within Baton Rouge. If you want Baton Rouge to compete with the Houston metro, this is how you do it. Provide options and choices for people.

Since the legislature didn't want independent schools without a new municipality, this is how things have to be. NOTHING is being taken that belonged to Baton Rouge. The neighborhood most likely to consider joining the city (Gardere) would benefit more from being in St George than in Baton Rouge.

Edited by cajun
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Exactly. This will put more competitive pressure on Central, Livingston, and Ascension. That's a great thing. People can choose another place in East Baton Rouge and still have good schools.

This is not Baton Rouge's limits. St George was never in Baton Rouge and will never be in Baton Rouge.

This is a great thing. This ensures that the tax base that the parish government controls remains viable for decades into the future and it may slow the exodus into LP and AP enough for them to get ahead of their infrastructure needs finally. This method of sprawling farther down the interstate just was not healthy. This is the best idea proposed so far that could potentially combat that.

The consolidated government depends on that tax base to fund projects within Baton Rouge. If you want Baton Rouge to compete with the Houston metro, this is how you do it. Provide options and choices for people.

Since the legislature didn't want independent schools without a new municipality, this is how things have to be. NOTHING is being taken that belonged to Baton Rouge. The neighborhood most likely to consider joining the city (Gardere) would benefit more from being in St George than in Baton Rouge.

Land wise it doesn't matter. but most people identify what would be St. George as a part of Baton Rouge Proper. It is an area that has become so embedded with our day-to-day life that it becoming a new city would be a very bad thing.

Yes Baton Rouge does. And it's not Baton Rouge's limits. Competition is very healthy.

Of course it is and if it is to become a large city like Huston then it NEEDS St. George.

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