Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden has tied voter approval of much-needed infrastructure improvements in Baton Rouge to approval of public funding for an amusement park downtown - the ALIVE project.
That strategy now seems to be in some trouble. The ownership for the ALIVE site is in dispute, and has been for some time. Plus, another $40 million will be needed to bring the property to the proper flood elevation before any construction can begin, an amount the State hasn't agreed to pay. Oops. The Metro Council ain't too happy upon learning about about all of this at this late date, especially after Holden pushed them to couple the two on the ballot in November. That coupling may now guarantee the entire bond issue fails at the polls.
ALIVE has been a hard sell from the beginning, and Holden, who I normally admire, has even tried to gerrymander out the most anti-tax areas of Baton Rouge in order to get it passed. (That failed.) His obsession with ALIVE is hard to fathom.
Charlie Buras is now calling this the last straw for Holden. Sadly, I think he might be right.
Side Note: In the article above, a little group your humble blogger is associated with gets a Page 1 mention.
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