Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome speaks in a press conference Friday afternoon in response to the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the controversial proposed City of St. George at City Hall on April 26, 2024. Although the mayor-president says she is not fighting St.
George's incorporation, her administration claims unresolved issues remain surrounding the new city's governance, calling into question recent work done by its leaders. On Tuesday, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome sent a letter to St. George Mayor Dustin Yates and St.
George Transition District Chairman Andrew Murrell. In the letter, several concerns about the work of St. George's Transition District that she said are in need of "urgent attention.
" The first major concern cited was a lack of agreement on the incorporation date of the city of St. George, which is relevant for numerous reasons. Yates and Murrell both said Tuesday that they believe Oct.
12, 2019 — the day the city was approved via a ballot initiative — is the date of St. George's incorporation. For city-parish officials, that date creates a handful of problems.
Broome pointed out that according to the outlining the taxing procedure for the St. George Transition District, the district can exist for only 12 months following the city's incorporation date. "If incorporated in 2019, the authority of the transition district, including the authority to levy a tax, expired in 2020," Broome wrote in responses to The Advocate's questions on Friday.
"In our view, an incorporation date of 2019 is the worst possible date for the residents of St. George, as St. George would have 4 years without any tax revenue.
" Murrell is St. George's acting spokesperson, and although he did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, he spoke strongly earlier in the week against any other date than Oct. 12, 2019.
"We won a lawsuit. The lawsuit they filed, they drug out for a long period of time. But we won it.
Why would (the incorporation date) not be back to 2019? What's the rationale for having a prevailing party lose?" Murrell said Tuesday. Broome said the city-parish is not willing to agree to the 2019 incorporation date claimed by St. George leaders.
Jan. 1, 2025, would be a more appropriate date, the mayor said, though she is willing to agree to July 1, 2024, as part of an agreement. In Tuesday's letter, Broome said the city-parish had not received any notice of a St.
George resolution for any On Friday, Broome said this had not changed. "The City Parish has received no notices from the City of St. George or the transition district," she said.
Attorney J. Andrew Murrell speaks during a press conference at St. George Fire Department Headquarters on Tuesday, May 21, 2024.
St. George leaders plan to have a 2% sales tax on the ballot in December. If it passes, the city will receive income from the city-parish via this tax, though it is unclear what the effective date of this measure would be.
Since 2019, the city-parish has been the provider of services to the area included in city of St. George, such as EMS and maintenance of roads. Going forward, the transition district has been tasked with deciding what services the city-parish will continue to provide to St.
George and what services St. George will take care of on its own. For the city-parish to distribute this tax revenue, St.
George needs to pay for the services provided by the city-parish for the previous five years, Broome said. "The City Parish has been the sole provider of services from 2019 to date and would have to be compensated for those services," Broome said Friday. "It is unreasonable to suggest that the City Parish distribute tax revenue without being compensated for the services provided for the last five years.
" On Tuesday, the St. George Council approved a budget for the remainder of 2024. In it, $8 million was allotted for services from the city-parish through an intergovernmental agreement, though the council did not specify the services it is seeking or break down the cost of any services adding to the overall figure.
St. George Mayor Dustin Yates, left, chats with St. George Police Chief Todd Morris during a meeting of the St.
George Transition District, Monday, June 24, 2024, at the St. George Fire Protection District headquarters in Baton Rouge, La. This makes it difficult for the city-parish to do any cost analysis, Broome said.
"Absent an intergovernmental agreement specifically defining the services and the time frame over which they will be performed ...
the City Parish is not able to easily quantify the value of services to be provided," she wrote. As of Friday, St. George leaders had still not told the city-parish what services it will need.
Another concern voiced by the mayor is a possible violation of the Louisiana Open Meetings Law by the St. George Transition District. Under the law, bodies like the transition district are required to post notice of meetings including the date, time, location and agenda at least 24 hours beforehand, both physically at the meeting place and on the public body's website.
Publishing on a Facebook page is not sufficient, the mayor's administration noted. The transition district reportedly did not provide proper notice for any meetings held prior to July 10, Broome administration officials said. Nor did give the required 20- to 60-day prior notice for a June 27 meeting in which the agenda included calling a special December election to levy a 2% sales tax.
Any action taken at a public meeting that did not meet open meetings law requirements could later be nullified if someone were to file suit. While some St. Georgians like Murrell seem to think the mayor's letter was a divisive attempt to disrupt the new city's governance, Broome contests otherwise.
Both in her letter and again on Friday, the mayor-president said she shared her concerns only in hopes of facilitating a smooth transition period for St. George as it continues to build its government. "Nothing that I do as Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish is born out of divisiveness.
Everything that I do is for the overall well-being of the City of Baton Rouge and the Parish of East Baton Rouge," Broome said. Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome speaks alongside Chief TJ Morse during a press conference to discuss recent shootings in the city, Monday, March 25, 2024, at Baton Rouge Police Headquarters. And while some took offense to the letter, she says her intention was only to communicate that the city-parish needs more information from St.
George leaders to move forward. "The letter was not threatening or intended to be threatening. It was written in response to their request to reduce various matters to writing," Broome said.
"We believe that by creating a list of issues, we can more effectively negotiate a constructive solution to this transition." While Broome and her administration do not agree with the state Supreme Court's decision regarding St. George, "we are bound by it," she said, and intend to honor it.
"We need to resolve the issues presented consistently with the statutes governing City Parish operations and the transition district," Broome said. "Our meetings have been very productive, and I am certain we will be able to come to a positive solution for all.".
