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Who will lead the new city of St. George? What will be the timeline for governance? How will the city provide services? When will the new school district be formed?
Those are some of the questions that remain unanswered following Friday’s Louisiana Supreme Court ruling to allow the incorporation of St. George, which would be the state’s fifth-largest city. The St. George Transition District is holding a news conference Monday morning to discuss the ruling and the next steps for incorporation. St. George leaders praised the ruling for concluding what they say has been a nearly 13-year process.
Efforts to incorporate St. George were born roughly a decade ago following two failed attempts by the community to form its own breakaway school district in southeast East Baton Rouge Parish. In 2015, efforts to incorporate fell short after organizers failed to collect the required number of signatures—just 71 signatures shy.
St. George leaders launched their second petition attempt in 2018, which was successful, and in 2019, 54% of voters approved the incorporation.
In 2018, LSU Economist Jim Richardson and the city-parish Finance Department estimated Baton Rouge would lose between $45 million and $48 million in sales tax revenues if St. George was allowed to incorporate.
Following the 2019 election, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome filed suit against two organizers of the incorporation effort, Norman Browning and Chris Rials, challenging their ability to provide services to voters in the proposed new city and claiming incorporation would “have a substantial adverse impact on the city of Baton Rouge as well as the remaining unincorporated areas of the parish.”
In a 37-page opinion released Friday, one of the justices writes that 54% of voters were satisfied with the proposed plan for city services and that none of the petitioners suing against incorporation live within the boundaries of the proposed community.
“We find St. George can, in all probability, provide its proposed public services within a reasonable period of time,” the ruling reads.
On Friday, Broome said she was disappointed in the ruling but that her administration had been preparing for the impact the incorporation would have on potential city-parish budgets.
Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to appoint an interim St. George mayor as well as a five-person council to oversee the new municipality, but a timeline for that has not been announced.
