BusinessReport.com

Metro Councilman Mickey Skyring says he’s not running for re-election. Assuming he stands by that statement, his term will end in December. But that’s not soon enough for Alex St. Amant.

“He can do more damage while he’s still there,” St. Amant says. “The shorter time [in office], the better.”

St. Amant, an attorney who lives on Hyacinth Avenue, is leading an effort to recall Skyring. The effort officially began when he filed the necessary paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office on Oct. 29, when the debate over the planned Rouzan development was raging.

St. Amant and his supporters have 180 days from that date to collect signatures from one-third of District 12’s 22,631 registered voters. If the registrar of voters certifies the signatures, the governor would call for a new election.

He won’t divulge how many signatures he’s collected, but St. Amant says between 75% and 90% of the people he’s spoken with say they support the effort. Some of those people, including some who do business with city-parish government, are afraid to sign on, he says. Still, the momentum is building, and he thinks there’s a chance to succeed.

St. Amant, a board member of the Southside Civic Association, has been a leading opponent of Rouzan and also represents a pair of Ford property landowners who argue the zoning change was illegal. He and other recall supporters say Skyring promised to support keeping the former Ford property between Pollard Estates and Southdowns zoned A1 residential, then backed out on that promise by voting to change the zoning to “traditional neighborhood development.” The new zoning allows for commercial elements and much higher residential density.

Skyring’s opponents also say he refused to return their phone calls and is generally not responsive enough to his constituents. A flyer St. Amant sent to the district’s voters is headlined “Remember Rouzan” and urges the reader to “Show Mickey and our next councilman that actions have consequences!”

“The main purpose of the recall is to make a statement,” says Katherine Surek, a recall supporter who lives in Woodchase. “[The Rouzan vote] is a blatant example of Mickey doing what he thinks would be nice, not what his constituents think and want.”

Surek doesn’t oppose development of the Ford property and expects developer Tommy Spinosa will “do a good job.” But she echoes many of her neighbors’ fears that a dense TND will create additional traffic and drainage problems in an area already struggling with those issues.

Surek, who voted for Skyring, is well aware of the councilman’s plan to retire. But she wants to set a precedent for whoever comes next that an elected official should follow the wishes of his constituents, regardless of his or her own views. And the majority of his constituents, she believes, wanted him to vote “no” on the rezoning.

Not every recall supporter is primarily motivated by the Rouzan issue. Patty Herke, who lives in Magnolia Woods, is upset over Skyring’s support for the Green Light Plan project that would widen Staring Lane, causing a number of elderly residents to lose their homes, she says. Herke says Skyring never met with the constituents who would be most affected by the project.

Recall supporter and University Hills resident Bob Benedict says he’s inclined to agree with people who are concerned about Rouzan. But his main complaint is that the A1 zoning code is often not adhered to in his area, saying the last straw was seeing two houses near his home being used as rental properties.

“When Mickey was up for election, he promised he’d be our advocate,” Benedict says. “That was about the last time we’ve seen him. We elect a councilman to represent us and do a job, not what he wants to do.”

When asked about the Ford property by Business Report in 2004, before his election, Skyring said he’d like to see it become a park, but allowed that was highly unlikely. The brief story presents keeping the residential zoning as his second choice, but does not indicate an explicit promise to always support A1 zoning.

Skyring recently said his personal preference would have been to keep it a farm, saying the sheep always put a smile on his face. But he was convinced Spinosa, who also developed CitiPlace on Corporate Boulevard and Perkins Rowe at Bluebonnet Boulevard and Perkins Road, could build “a better mouse trap” than an A1 development of cookie-cutter homes that might otherwise be built on the site.

“I’m as proud of that vote [for Rouzan] as I can be,” he says.

Skyring is convinced that Rouzan will eventually be embraced by the public, much like the once-controversial Baton Rouge Beach off Stanford Avenue.

He readily admits that he’s bad about returning phone calls, and says when the Rouzan debate was at its height, the steady stream of often-irate phone calls was simply too much to deal with. But he acknowledged answering all of the e-mails he received on the subject.

“I’m somewhat surprised,” Skyring says of the recall effort, which continues even though his time in office is nearly over. “They have every right to do that.”