Tax vote divides District 12 candidates

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 19, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
• Editor’s note: This is the 11th in a series on the candidates for the Metro Council in the Oct. 4 primary. Due to coverage of Hurricane Gustav, the stories have not been published in numerical order by district

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The District 12 race for Metro Council features a motley crew of aspirants: a fitness instructor, an LSU finance major, a well-known restaurant owner, and a man who held the job for 12 years and now wants it back.

The decision by the incumbent, Mickey Skyring, not to seek re-election after just one term left an opening for Jim Benham, whom Skyring had replaced, to make a bid in the Oct. 4 primary to return to the office.

Benham faces both familiar and new competition for the seat. Familiar is R.J. “Smokie” Bourgeois, owner of George’s Restaurant. Bourgeois lost to Benham in 2000 by 106 votes. When Bourgeois ran again in 2004 — Benham had decided not to run for a fourth term — he earned  14 percent of the vote.

Benham said he didn’t run in 2004 because his son had started a software business in College Station, Texas, that was struggling and asked his dad to come to Texas and help. But that business turned a corner, freeing Benham to get back into Baton Rouge politics.

“I love Baton Rouge,” Benham said. “It’s a great place to live. I have no reason to leave Louisiana.”

Bourgeois also said his love of this town has kept him here, though he’s not shy about criticizing it.

“It’s my home, and it’s the only reason I give a damn,” Bourgeois said.

Hoping to prevent a Benham/Bourgeois runoff are candidates Kimberly Watts and Brett Jackson.

Watts said District 12 residents have too often had too little, too late input in the decisions that affect them. She cites the uproar last year of Tommy Spinoza’s Rouzin development.

“People feel that there was a lack of communication,” Watts said.

Jackson called for a larger voice on the Metro Council “for both college students and progressive people in the city. There’s too much of an old reactive view on the council.”

Jackson also trumpets his support of the Holden-supported One Baton Rouge resolution, which calls for the acceptance of people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. He views that resolution as part of a larger economic development agenda that would make Baton Rouge more arts-friendly and more attractive to recent college graduates.

“People shouldn’t look at it (the resolution) as merely symbolic,” Jackson said. “The cities that do improve, and don’t stay stagnant, are cities that embrace diversity in all forms.”