Baton Rouge split in half?

[tvc184]

It seems from what I have read, that Baton Rouge, LA has been split almost in half, with a new city called St. George being incorporated.

 I think that St. George is an area of the city much like South Park is in Beaumont or Port Acres in Port Arthur. 

Apparently people living in the St. George area of the city wanted a new school district because of how bad the Baton Rouge school district was. When denied, they organized and voted to form their own city. After the vote passed to incorporate, Baton Rouge fought it in the courts which ended last week with the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling in favor of St. George.

At least the way I read it, Baton Rouge just lost about 85,000 people (almost half) and about $50 million from their tax base.

Baton Rouge probably should have let them start their own school district….

 

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[SmashMouth]

5 hours ago, tvc184 said:

It seems from what I have read, that Baton Rouge, LA has been split almost in half, with a new city called St. George being incorporated.

 I think that St. George is an area of the city much like South Park is in Beaumont or Port Acres in Port Arthur. 

Apparently people living in the St. George area of the city wanted a new school district because of how bad the Baton Rouge school district was. When denied, they organized and voted to form their own city. After the vote passed to incorporate, Baton Rouge fought it in the courts which ended last week with the Louisiana Supreme Court ruling in favor of St. George.

At least the way I read it, Baton Rouge just lost about 85,000 people (almost half) and about $50 million from their tax base.

Baton Rouge probably should have let them start their own school district….

 

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Interesting. I hadn't heard that. I bet it's hard to set up a new city.

I wonder if Baton Rouge would be best served to appeal with the caveat of allowing the new ISD in the St. George area.

[tvc184]

20 minutes ago, SmashMouth said:

Interesting. I hadn't heard that. I bet it's hard to set up a new city.

I wonder if Baton Rouge would be best served to appeal with the caveat of allowing the new ISD in the St. George area.

We all know that each state has its own laws which can be very different, especially in endeavors like annexation or incorporation, so there is no telling what Louisiana law says.

I don’t know but I doubt that there is a point of appeal for Baton Rouge to force St. George to be absorbed back into Baton Rouge by now giving them what they asked for years ago. “Oh, we lost? Well let’s just undo incorporation, ruled as legal by the Supreme Court (of LA)  by going back and giving them what they asked for”.

There has to be a law allowing such an appeal.

I think what I read about the lower court decisions which actually backed up Baton Rouge, they did not all rule that incorporation was illegal but that they did not think the city could have services up and running soon enough. So you have a court saying that sure you can split but only if we agree that you can provide services get enough. In Louisiana, who knows?

I doubt that Texas has such a mechanism to allow a city to split, for example, could the west end of Beaumont say that they wish to make their own city against Beaumont’s objection? I doubt it. Certainly Beaumont could allow a city to be created as Port Arthur did with Bridge City and Taylor’s Landing. There is a huge difference in allowing and forcing which is what happened in Baton Rouge.

Similar to the sometime discussed topic of Texas splitting off from the United States because they don’t like the way things are going, think if citizens in any city in the United States were allowed to create their own city, which could not be stopped by the parent city.

 That could get interesting!!

Don't like what is happening in the south side of Chicago? Just de-annex and create your own city!!

Anyway, I thought that it is an interesting story when the capital city splits in half. 

 

[SmashMouth]

7 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

Anyway, I thought that it is an interesting story when the capital city splits in half.

No doubt. It's definitely intriguing enough to watch how this all plays out...

[tvc184]

After listening to a podcast from the Michael Berry show yesterday, interviewing the lawyer that led the fight to the Louisiana Supreme Court, it changes things a bit.

St. George was never part of Baton Rouge proper. According to Louisiana law though, the mayor of Baton Rouge was automatically the president of the parish which I believe is roughly, the equivalent of the county judge in Texas. So the mayor of Baton Rouge had control of the city and the parish  simultaneously. As such she had control over Baton Rouge and St. George, but without having to provide city services to St. George.

According to the St. George lawyer, Baton Rouge could have annexed the St. George area at any time but apparently chose not to as they had access to that tax base but did not have to provide any city services. So St. George decided to create their own city but not by separating from Baton Rouge who had some control over them even though they were not within the city limits.

It kind of harkens back to taxation without representation. We want your money but you don’t have a say so in how we spend it. I guess St. George had their own mini revolution.

The Baton Rouge response was something like, “how dare you use state law to create your own city and take your money away from us!?” 

[Separation Scientist]

It’s exactly the same thing with Buckhead trying to leave Atlanta, except this is on firmer legal ground. St. George citizens were fed up with crime, a piss poor Baton Rouge ISD, high taxes, poor services and wholesale corruption. You know, it’s same story in so many places. They are just seeking a better more secure life. 

[CardinalBacker]

Part of Orange County from the Neches River through GSU’s power plant were annexed by the City of Port Arthur years ago so PAT could tax the power plant. Anybody in that area pays PAT city taxes but receives ZERO city services. If you call Port Arthur they’ll say “you need to call Orange County.” 
 

At least PAT has been a good steward of that tax money, lol. 

[bullets13]

really interesting story.

[tvc184]

11 hours ago, CardinalBacker said:

Part of Orange County from the Neches River through GSU’s power plant were annexed by the City of Port Arthur years ago so PAT could tax the power plant. Anybody in that area pays PAT city taxes but receives ZERO city services. If you call Port Arthur they’ll say “you need to call Orange County.” 
 

At least PAT has been a good steward of that tax money, lol. 

Port Arthur has been taxing GSU/Entergy for decades through in lieu of tax agreements.

Bridge City was making some noise about trying to undo Port Arthur’s lawful ETJ so Port Arthur simply ended the discussion by annexing what they already had control over.

I have responded to calls at Entergy so they are receiving at least police services.