Get ready mayor-elect Tom Arceneaux and new council members-elect Gary Brooks, Jim Taliaferro and Ursula Bowman for the annual brouhaha over the Shreveport Mardi Gras parades.
The issues each year are basically the same:
1. What will be the parade routes.
2. When will be the starting times of the parades.
3. How long will traffic be diverted from the routes, and what will be impact be on businesses along the route and possible interference with emergency EMS services to residents along and near the parade routes.
4. What will be the costs to the city for Shreveport police, Shreveport EMS, SPAR and any other public agencies providing services for the parade?
5. Who pays these costs? Should the krewes bear some of the costs? Should the Shreveport Bossier Tourists & Convention Bureau that touts the economic impact of the parades share in these costs?
Maybe the five council members who strapped the city with the financial burden of the 13% across the board pay raise can help answer these questions.
But two of those will not be on the council--Levette Fuller and Jerry Bowman, Jr.
However, the vote together threesome of James Green, Tabatha Taylor and Alan Jackson do return.
Mayor-elect and council members-elect be ready for major pressures from the Mardi Gras Krewes who consider their parades to be the salvation for the city as they provide a few hours of merriment and in some instances debauchery for our citizens.
Hopefully there will be no major potholes along the parade routes that need to be filled or water line blowouts that can cause detours.