Three Reform Councilmen Have Done Great Work

Voting Records Show Washington, LoBue, Messina Have Made Real Impact on City

by Woody Jenkins, Editor

CENTRAL — When the City of Central held its first municipal elections on April 1, 2006, 12 candidates sought five at-large seats.  To the surprise of many, the leading vote-getter was Ralph Washington, a Central businessman who owned a dry cleaners.  He received nearly 70 percent of the vote — not bad for a black man in a community that was over 90 percent white.

Ralph Washington’s election disproved once and for all the false accusation that Central was a racist community.  Ralph was elected Mayor Pro-Tem, which made him the No. 2 man in city government and the president of the City Council.

But Ralph Washington was more than a token.  He was an active, hard-working member of the Council who studied the proposed ordinances and did his homework before each meeting.  Moreover, he was scrupulously honest.  As time went on and he learned the ends and outs of the job of being a City Councilman, he also became more and more independent.  He was asking a lot of questions — questions that some of the “powers that be” in city government didn’t like.

After Central became the first privatized municipality in the State of Louisiana and hired a private company, CH2MHill, to literally run the city, Ralph Washington asked more and more questions, especially about CH2MHill.  Soon he was being ostracized by the Mayor and some members of the Council and their supporters.  There were many 4-1 votes, with Ralph Washington casting the only dissenting vote.

Ralph wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with CH2MHill but he knew it was deeply troubling.

In the municipal elections in the spring of 2010, the voters of Central elected two new members of the City Council, and the Mayor was nearly defeated.  Clearly, something was up.  Soon, it was clear the two new members of the Council — Dr. Tony LoBue and Wayne Messina — thought much the way Washington did.  Like Washington, LoBue and Messina were honest, conservative-minded civic leaders with no agenda, and they were not there to help their political friends make money.

Immediately after taking office in July 2010, the three reformers began to make major changes in Central’s city government.  They questioned the City Attorney’s slavish devotion to any ridiculous thought of the Mayor and his minions.  They questioned her unbelievably high legal fees.

When CH2MHill withheld public records, they began to question what the giant company was hiding.  When they realized how excessive building permit fees had become, they demanded they come down.  When they realized CH2MHill was making a killing off the citizens of Central while providing minimal services, they demanded a change.

Today, thanks to the three reformers, Central is on a different path.

• CH2MHill has been replaced with a non-profit organization that appears non-political.

• The Baton Rouge Loop cutting through Central has been stopped.

• Term limits have been adopted

• Questionable developments such as Morgan Point and the Triple B townhouses have been killed.

• The tone and tenor of city government is much improved.

Meanwhile, the three reformers have been maligned, targeted, boycotted, and harassed.  “No good deed goes unpunished.”  But the reality is, because of them, Central is a far better place today — and has a chance for a better future.  Thank you to Ralph Washington, Tony LoBue, and Wayne Messina for a job well done!