District 12 candidates pledge to listen

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Oct 2, 2008 - Page: 2B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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All four candidates in the race for the Metro Council District 12 seat tried to outdo each other Wednesday in saying how far they would go in pledging to listen to constituents.

The comments came during a candidates’ forum attended by about 30 people and held in the Kenilworth Middle School gym. It was sponsored by the Central Highland Civic Association. The election is Saturday.

Several questions dealt with future commercial development in this south Baton Rouge district. The district stretches from Stanford Avenue on the west to Bluebonnet Boulevard on the east and from the Highland ridge in the south to Wards Creek on the north.

In the background Wednesday were lingering hard feelings from the council’s approval earlier this year of Tommy Spinosa’s controversial Rouzan traditional neighborhood development near Perkins Road and College Drive.

Mickey Skyring, the District 12 councilman for the past four years, supported Rouzan. He decided not to run for re-election, though he says it’s not because of the Rouzan fallout.

Jim Benham, who represented the district from 1992 to 2004, promised he’ll follow the wishes of the 40 or so civic associations in District 12.

“You haven’t had that for the past four years, but that’s the way things operated the previous 12 years, and that’s what it will be again,” Benham said.

“I will promise to listen to what you have to say and try to do whatever I can in your neighborhood to make it a better city than it is already,” said candidate Kim Watts, who worked for three years as an assistant to former Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen.

“You’re the ones that elected me; you’ll get it your way,” said R.J. “Smokie” Bourgeois, a restaurateur and bar owner, who lost the race to Benham in 2000 by just 106 votes.

“The only people whose voice needs to be heard on the Metro Council are District 12’s,” said Brett Jackson, an LSU senior majoring in finance.

Proposed development along historic, and mostly residential, Highland Road sparked similar sentiments from the candidates.

As with many questions, Watts said she’s still learning the details, but promised an open door policy. “I like Highland Road the way it is,” she said. “It’s great.”

Jackson defended “smart growth.” He said Rouzan supporters wrongly claimed that development was smart growth. But Jackson said smart growth, properly done, would raise property values in District 12 and would eliminate many problems.