JOHN PERKINS
That is what everyone running for office in Shreveport has declared as first order of business after being sworn in : Eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
Then after a couple of months in office, the newly elected get a look on their faces. That thousand-yard stare, or maybe two-thousand-yard stare. The unfocused look of one who has seen things that have sucked the life out of them.
A realtor who is highly active in downtown real estate tells me that there are half a million vacant square feet available downtown. That is out of one million square feet total.
Do we really need to build any more downtown buildings? Would moving the Louisiana State Office Building into a new building downtown take value from Highland, where the state is said to be refurbishing and preserving the historic building?
Maybe we should ask a realtor.
I know that it would take private property downtown off our tax rolls and abandon a big building in Highland.
Rearranging half a million deck chairs in downtown Shreveport will not save our ship. For instance, the Waggoner Federal Building on Travis Street was only built to serve the federal government for two decades and then abandoned for a new federal building built in 1993.
We have not found any other purpose for it in almost 30 years. All of Fannin Street needs redevelopment, but do we need a new State Building right now?
Now, for the mythical gold-pooping unicorn, that is all that is missing from Mr. English's SERTF report. Without supporting documentation, it is difficult to get behind the report promises that start with "We believe ... "
How much money should Shreveport taxpayers borrow for "we believe" projects? We talked in my last column about
We talked in my last column about sucker public/private match deals that have enriched developers while leaving taxpayers with a hole in their back pocket. We had to renew the bond proposal that subsidized the Port of Shreveport Bossier when the Port failed to stand on its own two legs.
We already have a staggering bond on our water and sewerage infrastructure. How much more debt can a shrinking city population take on to create temporary jobs? How many more jobs will we have to subsidize before we can pay our way?
It is the sprawl , stupid . We cannot keep building ; we need to shrink physically to a sustainable size that we can pay for delivery of basic services.
Build police substations, what? We settled that here two economic downturns ago. Modern technology makes every police car a mobile substation. They can go to where the crime is happening. More public buildings take private property off tax rolls.
Our city is only as strong as its weakest neighborhoods. That is the place to start. Strengthen our weakest neighborhoods, and we will all prosper together. Could we start there, please?
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE August 21 ISSUE OF FOCUS SB - THE INQUISITOR.