On Thursday the Caddo Commission is poised to approve a $60 million general obligation bond proposal for the November ballot.
On Monday of this week the Commission’s Public Safety Committee heard pleas from rural public safety entities along with the Shreveport Police Department for Commission funding of needed equipment including vehicles. These requests exceeded $3 million.
The Committee promised to consider all requests at its next meeting on a date to be decided. Whether the long-winded supportive talk of funding public safety will translate into actual money remains an open question.
Earlier this year the Parish held a ribbon cutting on the $20 million plus renovation of the Walter B. Jacobs Nature Center. At the same time the Parish implemented a visitor entrance fee.
In September of last year, the Commission approved a $10 million pickleball complex. As of Monday the Commission did not have a ground lease, much less a management agreement for the complex.
The Commission annually doles out approximately $500 thousand to local nonprofit organizations and funds major Shreveport events.
The Commission took a month off from meetings because five of its members traveled to Hawaii for conferences, four of those traveled on the taxpayer dime. Several commissioners also attended Washington Mardi Gras on junkets earlier this year.
The Commission annually provides a 2% pay raise to its employees.
It’s a practice for its committee meetings to be held just before or after the lunch hour so commissioners can chow down on catered food such as the Magnolia Pit on Monday.
How soon the Public Safety Committee meets on the funding requests and what recommendations, if any, it makes to the full Commission will be a barometer for how serious this committee and the entire Commission members are about public safety in the parish.
In the meantime, the hoopla over how the sports complex will reverse the parish population decline and bring gold bars to the parish treasury will continue and most likely increase in magnitude.
Seemingly more people in the parish at the sports complex translates into a bigger need for public safety, but that may be too logical of a presumption.
John came to Shreveport in January of 1977 when he was transferred to Barksdale AFB.
He’s been active in Shreveport politics since deciding to make Shreveport his home.
John practiced law for 40 years and he now monitors local politics. He regularly attends Shreveport City Council and Caddo Parish Commission meetings.
John is published weekly in The Inquisitor, bi-monthly in The Forum News, and frequently in the Shreveport Times.
He enjoys addressing civic groups on local government issues and elections.