St. George Mayor, Council Organizing New City; Mayor Broome Continues to Resist Cooperation

On Tuesday, Aug. 13, the St. George City Council was busy working at City Hall adopting a city budget and ordinances, appointing members of boards and commissions, and preparing to take over the business of running the new City of St. George, pop. 87,000.

However, at the same moment, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome was preparing a letter to St. George Mayor Dustin Yates and members of the City Council outlining her objections to cooperating with the new city.

The letter is not conciliatory and indicates a continued unwillingness to work with St. George.

Basically, Mayor Broome’s objections boil down to money. The voters of St. George approved incorporation in October 2019.  Since then, the City-Parish has been collecting $4 million a month in sales taxes that rightfully belong to the people of St. George. 

Instead of accepting the decision of the voters, Broome filed suit in November 2019 to throw out the vote of the people and prevent the new city from coming into existence.

Not only that.  She also sued the incorporators of the City of St. George, Norman Browning and Chris Rials personally, putting them at great financial risk.

During the pendency of her suit against St. George, Broome should have been putting $4 million a month in escrow for the people of St. George or gotten some guidance from the court on what to do.  Instead, she collected it and spent it.

Shortly after Mayor-President Broome filed her suit, the St. George Leader of Nov. 2019 published an editorial, entitled “Mayor-President Broome Will Not Be Able to Continue as a Plaintiff Against St. George.”

State law was clear.  Broome had no legal authority to sue to block St. George.  Bear in mind that she acted on her own accord personally.  The Metro Council never authorized her to sue on behalf of the City of Baton Rouge or the City-Parish government.  It was an independent frolic of her own making.

State law provides that to contest an incorporation, a plaintiff must either reside in the area proposed for incorporation, own land in that area, be a municipality adversely affected, or be a member of the Metro Council.

Mayor Broome was none of those.  Nor was her co-plaintiff, M.E. Cormier, who is now her campaign manager.

In 2023, after delaying the incorporation of St. George for nearly four years, Broome was thrown out of court by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal as an improper plaintiff.  Then on April 26, 2024, the Louisiana Supreme Court threw out the entire case against St. George and ruled that it was in fact properly incorporated.

Meanwhile, the damage done to the people of St. George by Mayor Broome is incalculable.

For nearly five years, the will of the people of St. George to have their own city was denied them.

Infrastructure that should have been built including roads to solve our immense traffic problems have not been built.

Economic development that could have occurred in the new City of St. George has not happened.

Most important, the new communityschool system that likely would have followed incorporation has not been created.

As we said in the editorial in November 2019, “All you are doing is maliciously trying to impose your will on the people of St. George and substitute it for the democratic expression of the people there and what they want for their future.  You should be ashamed.”

Yes, she should be ashamed, but she should also be liable. She wasn’t acting in her official capacity as Mayor-President but as an individual.  She used the legal system through a frivolous, unlawful action to deprive the citizens of St. George of their civil rights under Louisiana law.  She didn’t mind filing a suit against Norman Browning and Chris Rials personally, and she should be subject to the same redress.

Now in her letter, Broome is proposing that incorporation be calculated beginning July 1. 

That would be unjust.  Probably incorporation should be calculated in different ways.  For example, for purposes of annexation, incorporation should be calculated from October 2019 to stop the illegal annexations that occurred.

For sales tax collection purposes, annexation could begin April 26, 2024. But all of these matters are for the city officials of St. George to consider and negotiate.  

One thing is certain: As long as Sharon Broome is Mayor-President, the people of St. George will continue to get a raw deal.

That’s why the election Nov. 5 is so important to St. George.