Baton Rouge residents tired of poor schools and services will likely soon have separate city, even as opponents cry racism

Thousands of Louisiana residents who voted years ago to create a separate city out of a section of Baton Rouge will likely soon have their wish now that the state supreme court gave a major ruling in their favor.

The move to create a separate school district in the St. George region of southeastern Baton Rouge began more than a decade ago and quickly evolved into a movement to create a separate City of St. George in the hopes that residents there would receive better services in exchange for their hard-earned tax dollars.

A 2015 measure to create the city fell just short. Four years later, a similar measure passed with 54% of the vote.

As often happens when disgruntled voters don't get their way, opponents of the new city quickly went to court to try to stop it from being officially established, claiming that St. George would take tens of millions in desperately needed tax resources from Baton Rouge.

For a while, the naysayers succeeded. In 2022, a district judge ruled that the proposal for the City of St. George was "unreasonable" and doubted that the city would operate under a balanced budget. Then last year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those who created the initiative to put the proposal on the ballot in 2019 failed to follow state law.

On Monday, those victories came to a screeching halt at the Louisiana Supreme Court, which ruled 4-3 that organizers had followed the proper procedures to incorporate the new city, thus overturning the lower courts' decisions.

State leaders have already taken steps to create the city. In 2020, the legislature created the St. George Transition District with the power to levy taxes for the time being. Should St. George become officially incorporated, as is expected, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry will appoint an interim mayor and five interim council members. In the future, city residents will elect leaders for themselves.

The initial proposal to create St. George established boundaries that would have given the city a population of about 68,000, but subsequent changes to the boundaries mean that the city will actually have closer to 100,000 people.

As is the case in the general U.S. population, 12% of the residents living inside the borders of St. George residents are black. However, since the black population in Baton Rouge is 47%, detractors are claiming that the creation of St. George is yet another manifestation of racism.

The St. George region is "predominantly white and affluent," the AP noted with concern. The Advocate likewise added that "the St. George movement" may be "inherently racist as it creates legal lines of segregation."

Indeed, an NAACP statement about the state supreme court's ruling similarly fretted about "potential segregation and unequal resource distribution." "Our children and community deserve a stable, equitable, and inclusive environment, and we implore decision makers to prioritize these fundamental values," it asserted.

But St. George proponents insist that they just want to see their tax dollars better spent. In fact, the campaign slogan for the measure to create the city was "Better Government, Local Control."

Chris Rials, one of the leaders of the movement to create St. George, called for healing and unity with their Baton Rouge neighbors. "We extend an open invitation to neighborhoods and businesses contiguous to the city of St. George to be a part of the coming renaissance of East Baton Rouge Parish," he said.

"We are open for growth and your business."

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