A two-year-long legal battle over the proposed incorporation of St. George in East Baton Rouge Parish may be moving closer to a resolution, with a trial expected to take place early next year.
“There will be a pretrial conference in November with the judge, and tentatively there’s a trial date in January 2022,” Mary O. Pierson, the attorney for one of the plaintiffs seeking to stop the incorporation, told the Louisiana Record.
The plaintiffs in the litigation before the 19th Judicial District Court are East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome and Councilman LaMont Cole.
St. George cityhood proponents won an election involving people who live within the proposed boundaries of the city in 2019, but the lawsuit argues that proponents’ plans to create the new city are inadequate and don’t measure up to requirements outlined in state law.
“The evidence at the trial of this matter will show that the proposed municipality and its organizers cannot ‘in all probability provide the proposed public services within a reasonable period of time’ and, therefore, the incorporation is unreasonable,” the original complaint states.
The lawsuit specifically criticizes organizers’ plans to provide police protection within the city’s proposed borders, a region that is home to about 86,000 residents.
“Their so-called ‘plan’ in this regard is completely unreasonable and actually nonexistent both as to the scope of the work and projected cost,” the lawsuit says.
The supporters’ plans lack assurance that public services could be provided by the new city in a reasonable amount of time, according to Pierson.
“We just don’t think they can do what they said they were going to do,” she said. “They don’t have enough money. They don’t have a plan. And it’s definitely going to have an adverse impact on the city of Baton Rouge.”
Supporters of the incorporation effort did not respond to requests for comment.
Those who want to see the creation of the municipality have an underlying motive of creating an independent school district, according to Pierson, who said a new school district would not be part of the incorporation drive.
“The part of the parish they want to incorporate is a significant-majority-white (area), and they want white schools,” she said. “They want to go back to segregated schools. That’s their end game.”