Carl Redman for Oct. 18, 2009

• By CARL REDMAN
• The Advocate executive editor
• Published: Oct 18, 2009

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A little more than a year ago, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden was basking in the glow of a primary re-election victory. Last October, Holden easily returned to office with 71 percent of the vote.

But, Holden’s enormous popularity was not enough to win voter approval of his “economic development” and infrastructure tax/bond package a few weeks later.

Holden came up 3,071 votes short last November with a proposed 9.9 mill property tax/half-cent sales tax package to fund an package of local construction projects and a new entertainment/education complex on the riverfront.

Holden now finds himself in much the same position he was in a year ago. He has put forward a very similar $901 million tax package to fund a slightly scaled-back array of city-parish needs as well as a more fleshed-out version of the Alive education/entertainment complex.

A year ago, the tax package was an election afterthought. It shared the ballot with the presidential election, a U.S. Senate race, a U.S. House race and other items.

This year, the tax/bond package is the only major item on the Nov. 14 ballot, so it is getting plenty of attention.

The two issues that have attracted the most attention revolve around who controls the batture land near the State Capitol to be used for the Alive attraction and who will pay for the work needed to prepare the site for the project.

The Illinois Central Railroad, a subsidiary of Canadian National, has a line along the river and says it holds rights to a portion of  the site.

Control of the site was sufficiently important that it derailed plans by the state under former Gov. Mike Foster to develop a park on the land.

At a late-September briefing, Holden’s special adviser, Walter Monsour, downplayed the control issue.

He said the matter can be settled, and he brought in former state Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen, who said he thought he had resolved the issue near the end of the Foster administration.

But former Gov. Kathleen Blanco has said settlement was anything but a done deal when she inherited it.

(Monsour apparently thought the issue important enough last December to e-mail members of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration urging them to help  resolve the issue.)