Mayor's Race '08

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 14, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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All three candidates challenging Mayor-President Kip Holden this fall have opened fire on his proposed $989 million tax proposal, claiming it is ill-timed and too large a burden for many East Baton Rouge Parish residents.

But Holden claims that his proposal – which includes a 9.9-mill property tax and a half-cent sales tax – is desperately needed to address needs like drainage improvements and a new parish prison that have been ignored for too long.

“When you look at a city that has neglected its infrastructure for 50 years, then common sense tells that eventually that infrastructure will cave in, and the amount that we will have to pay will be astronomical,” Holden said.

Holden said part of his job as mayor is to let voters know the situation the city-parish faces, especially when it comes to issues like drainage.

“If we don’t act now, it will be cost-prohibitive later on,” he said.

Republican mayoral hopeful Dan Kyle, a former state legislative auditor, said he’s against both taxes proposed by Holden. Kyle said he’s especially concerned that the 9.9-mill property tax might have a negative impact on businesses in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Kyle noted that, while residential properties are valued at 10 percent for property tax purposes, commercial properties are valued at 15 percent.

Businesses can go to one of the surrounding parishes, he said. Livingston, for example, is rolling back its millage, allowing businesses to operate much cheaper, Kyle said.

Metro Councilman Wayne Carter, another Republican challenging Holden this fall, predicted that the tax proposal will fail by a wide margin. The primary reason, Carter said, is that the mayor refused to heed his advice to separate the types of projects that would fund the new taxes.

“Entertainment should have never been mixed with public safety,” Carter said, referring to the $247.5 million riverfront tourist attraction that Holden is proposing as part of the tax package.

Carter said voters likely would approve a new $135 million parish prison and a new $89.5 million law enforcement headquarters if it wasn’t mixed with the tourist attraction and the expansion of the River Center and its parking.

Ron Johnson, a Democrat and a former School Board member, said he’s concerned that the taxes proposed by Holden will have a staggering effect on the needy and the elderly who are barely making ends meet.

Johnson said he would like to have seen a more moderate approach that relied mostly, if not entirely, on the healthy surplus of tax revenues that the city-parish has gathered since Holden took office in 2005.