BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - An LSU official said the university is entertaining conversations about annexing parts of its campus into the city of Baton Rouge, amid the possibility the new city of St. George may form in East Baton Rouge Parish.
LSU’s main campus is in Baton Rouge, but Ben Hur Farm and Innovation Park are inside the proposed boundaries of St. George.
The Advocate reported (https://bit.ly/1gCqmP9) interest in LSU’s southern properties fuels speculation the city-parish is trying to annex a pathway to L’Auberge Casino - one of the three main economic generators for the new city, along with the Mall of Louisiana and Perkins Rowe.
LSU System President F. King Alexander first became aware of the issue that LSU’s campus could be split across two cities during a meeting with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and other constituents to discuss a variety of issues, according to Jason Droddy, LSU’s interim vice president of communications.
Droddy said other LSU officials are in frequent contact with city-parish officials to address football game traffic, public works concerns and other issues, which has led to other conversations about annexation.
Asked if LSU is interested in annexation, Droddy responded, “I would characterize it as a point of conversation internally.”
LSU does not have a position on the effort to incorporate St. George at this time, Droddy said.
William Daniel, chief administrative officer for Mayor-President Kip Holden, said LSU and L’Auberge Casino Hotel are just two of many businesses the city of Baton Rouge is talking to about the impacts of St. George.
He said the city’s interest in LSU is logistical, and not necessary related to obtaining L’Auberge Casino.
“LSU is a daily part of what the city deals with: with traffic issues, public safety issues, game day issues, lately we’ve been talking about plans for the Nicholson corridor,” he said.
“LSU and the city are joined at the hip on quite a few different projects and it became a topic of discussion.”
He said the city-parish is being contacted frequently with questions from other local businesses that have expressed interest in annexation.
He said St. George “is creating uncertainty about taxes” and businesses are contacting city-parish officials about what they can do.
Without annexing LSU, it would be much more difficult for the city to annex L’Auberge. The city can only annex properties adjacent to its boundaries. Annexations are generally initiated by a petition of the landowners.
St. George leaders are trying to collect 18,000 signatures on a petition to put the city proposal to a vote. The organizers have declined to disclose their signature count, however they said in January that they had about 10,000.
Critics of the proposed new city say St. George threatens to hurt the city-parish economy, by creating a $53 million budget deficit. St. George organizers say the deficit would be closer to $14 million.
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Information from: The Advocate, https://theadvocate.com
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