Central: 20 Years a City!

After a vigorous campaign by supporters and opponents, voters responded with a resounding 63- to-37 victory for incorporation.

Central founder Russell Starns and a core group of 30 volunteers showed that with hard work, courage, resourcefulness, and determination, anything is possible.

Twenty years later, Central resembles a “Shining City on a Hill”  envisioned in Matthew 5:14 and by President Ronald Reagan in his Farewell Address. Central is:

•A city with safe neighborhoods and great schools

•Louisiana’s first privatized city  with a population of 30,000 but only five city employees

•Perhaps the finest example of privatization in the United States

•A model of fiscal responsibility and conservative governance.

•A city that runs perpetual surpluses and has tens of millions of dollars in reserve

•A city that in its 20 years in existence has never raised taxes

•A blue collar city with the state’s

3rd highest household income

•A city with arguably the best public school system in Louisiana

•A city where life is described as “Country Living in the City.”

•Not just a place with a name over it but a community where people know one another and work together for the common good.

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Russell Starns and his volunteers who adopted the name Northeast Baton Rouge Citizens for Incorporation worked very hard for more than two years prior to the incorporation election April 23, 2005. 

It was an exciting time, mainly because everyone in Central knew  the destiny of their community was at stake, but no one was really sure which way the vote would go.

Northeast Baton Rouge Citizens for  Incorporation conducted a poll a week before the election.  It showed 53 percent of voters supported incorporation, while 11 percent opposed, 23 percent were undecided, and the rest wouldn’t say or didn’t plan to vote.

Most people who looked at the poll felt it was much closer than that and that the undecided vote would probably vote no.  However, it  seemed likely pro-incorporation voters would prevail.

Several important things happened in the days leading up to the April 23 election:

•Central attorney Bob Raborn led the opposition.  Raborn was an articulate spokesman for his cause. He raised many important issues that supporters of incorporation needed to confront and answer.

In retrospect, Raborn’s opposition was a good thing because it helped galvanize people’s thinking for and against incorporation.  It also resulted in the supporters of incorporation making a commitment that the new city would not raise taxes.  20 years later, that is a commitment that has been kept.

• Another important thing was the role of Kip Holden in the process.  It stands in contrast to the role played by Sharon Weston Broome in the incorporation of St. George.

As a state senator, Holden had co-authored the constitutional amendment to create the Zachary Community School District.  Later, he told Central leaders that he would support a school district for Central if they first incorporated as a city.  He was elected Mayor-President in 2004.  Then just days before the April 23, 2005, referendum on incorporation of Central, he appeared at a forum at the Greenwell Springs Library and said he would not oppose incorporation of Central.

For more on the incorporation battle, read the May edition of the Central City News.