JOHN PERKINS
Contributing Columnist
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” – Will Rogers
Thanks, I enjoyed reading your thoughts on news that folks in the Ellerbe Road area are again considering de-annexing from Shreveport. Many there feel the burden of high taxes. Don’t we all? They are frustrated with slow police response times.
What if we built, or bought, buildings for police substations around the city? That came up during a crime wave -- murder wave really -- in the 1990s. But then it was decided that police cars are something like mobile police stations. They can be moved to where they are needed.
Today, we are a city that owns too much real estate. We can’t afford to keep up the buildings that we already own. Can’t keep the grass mowed on public property. So, if we can’t keep up our convention center and lose money every year on it, why do we need new property to maintain?
Our population is smaller this latest census count, yet our land area is bigger than Cincinnati, bigger than Boston, cities with populations way bigger than Shreveport. Our taxes are high.
How can we afford more property and more police officers with higher pay and retirement obligations if we are almost as big around as Detroit but less than one-third the population of Detroit?
If I live at the farthest edge of the city, how many miles of pipe underground bring me water? That pipe costs 10 times what the road above costs and should be replaced every 70 years. Aren’t we in a financial bind because previous administrations didn’t replace pipes when they should have?
When you wash your dishes, how many lift stations are between your home and one of our two wastewater treatment plants? How many lift stations move the wastewater to the treatment plants?
We had to build the T. L. Amiss Plant in southeast Shreveport when new neighborhoods were being developed in that area. Now we have two treatment facilities. How many miles do the trucks that haul solid waste travel each week to pick up your refuse and take it to the dump? Those trucks are expensive, and there is a lot of wear and tear on all city vehicles.
The new roads that bring you to work and back every day cost about a million dollars a lane mile and need to be replaced every 30 to 40 years. Could you afford to replace the road in front of your house today? What about the water and sewer pipes under that road that cost 10 times what the street costs?
The first thing Shreveport can do to address this problem is to stop annexing. Declare a moratorium on annexations while we study this problem and look for a solution. We need to change our thinking about growth. We can’t attract 400,000 people to live, work and play here this year. That is what it would take to pay for everything we have promised ourselves. Let me know what you think: PerkWrites@gmail.com