Leaders Outline Reasons For Creating St. George

During the campaign to incorporate St. George, Chris Rials and Andrew Murrell, two leaders of the St. George movement, explained the goals of incorporating the new city.

Murrell cited the top five reasons for the City of St. George as:

1)Fighting Crime. The 193 murders in 2017 and 2018 were the highest two-year total in East Baton Rouge Parish history. St. George will increase East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s office coverage of St. George.

2)Holding Down Taxes. A total of 23 new taxes have passed in the parish since 2003. That totalled $53 million in additional taxes in 2018 — more than the total proposed budget of St. George. Since 2009, Baton Rouge has increased spending by more than the cumulative total budget increases of Lake Charles, Lafayette, New Orleans, Alexandria, and Shreveport. In 2017, JP Morgan identified Baton Rouge as the 5th most over-leveraged city in the U.S. They said the city must raise taxes 24 percent to meet its 30-year liabilities. There are no documented plans by the administration or the Baton Rouge Area Chamber to address this financial reality. 

Rials said Central has not raised its taxes since they incorporated in 2005, and neither will St. George.

3)Improving Drainage. The City-Parish administration would not prioritize $2 million in a nearly $1 billion budget to obtain $255 million in federal monies secured by Congressman Garret Graves. The City-Parish administration asked the governor and state taxpayers to pay for East Baton Rouge Parish drainage improvement. Look at your ditches — overgrown with grass, trash, sediment-filled culverts. The City of St. George will address drainage.

4)Creating a Great New School System. The East Baton Rouge Parish School System ranked 58th out of 70 statewide school districts, with the lowest performance scores among large municipalities. There have been five school closures since 2014, while surrounding school districts have expanded their schools and economies. St. George’s future majority minority school district will compete with Zachary and Central.

5)Reversing the Unprecedented Exodus from the Parish. Residents have been voting with their feet. There are 6,000 fewer residents in East Baton Rouge Parish now than in 2016. An East Baton Rouge Parish School System study forecasts a further loss of nearly 20,000 residents by 2030. An EBR Parish Land Use Study confirms that by 2030 there will be fewer residents in EBR Parish, residents over 60 years of age will increase by 50 percent, and residents over 70 will double. 

However, Rials and Murrell agreed that the City of St. George will turn this around and grow the city and East Baton Rouge Parish.