A 'WILD' SHREVEPORT ELECTION ENDS SATURDAY WHEN GREG TARVER OR TOM ARCENEAUX WILL BE MAYOR

By: Tyler Bridges
NOLA.COM

Based on recent history, Greg Tarver should be coasting to victory Saturday to be the next mayor of Shreveport, the state’s third largest city.

Like Tarver, the current mayor and his two predecessors have all been Black Democrats, and Black people constitute a slender majority of Shreveport’s registered voters.

But in a twist, those three mayors have all endorsed Tarver’s opponent, Tom Arceneaux, a White Republican lawyer, providing a strong indication that Tarver, a veteran state senator weighted down with political baggage, faces a battle to win Saturday’s runoff election.

A seasoned backroom dealmaker who has never lost any of his 12 races, Tarver was shot by his second wife, who claimed she did so in self-defense because he was beating her. He was tried and acquitted on corruption charges in the highly publicized trial two decades ago that sent former Gov. Edwin Edwards to prison.

His current wife earned $600,000 in contracting work from riverboat casinos in Shreveport that several years earlier Tarver had helped bring to the city. Though he is widely believed to live outside the city limits, Tarver has been registered to vote at his mortuary in town, where, he says, he likes to sleep in a casket.

“The election could go either way,” said LeVette Fuller, a City Council member who finished fifth in the Nov. 8 primary and is not publicly supporting either candidate.

Gov. John Bel Edwards came to Shreveport last week to endorse Tarver, a fellow Democrat, who generally but not always votes with the governor.

Also supporting Tarver is Sen. Barrow Peacock, a Republican who represents an adjoining district. Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, has appeared in a video praising Tarver, who has been running on a tough-on-crime platform.

“It’s gotten to be the wildest north Louisiana race I’ve seen in quite some time,” said Scott Wilfong, a veteran Baton Rouge-based Republican political consultant.

Wilfong has contributed to the race’s wild nature. He heads a super PAC that has produced digital videos and mailers that dredged up the divorce petitions where both of Tarver’s ex-wives claimed he attacked them.

“Greg Tarver is dangerous,” says a man in a local radio ad as he referred to his ex-wives. “One of them shot Tarver point-blank to save her life.”

But Arceneaux is also under attack for claims by his ex-wife in a 1992 divorce petition that he physically and psychologically abused her and their son.

Both Tarver and Arceneaux have called for the attack ads to be pulled from the airwaves, saying the focus should be on the issues. But the groups behind them, which are not allowed to coordinate their activities with the campaigns, have refused to do so.

“Anything is fair game when you run for office,” said Bob Ellis, a New Orleans business attorney coordinating the anti-Arceneaux campaign through his super PAC, One Hundred Percent.

Perhaps Shreveport’s most consequential landmark is the Municipal Auditorium, which opened in 1929 and where, as a marker out front notes, Elvis Presley first won widespread notice in 1954 as part of the Louisiana Hayride radio program. A statue captures Presley in mid-gyration.

But the adjoining neighborhood, just west of downtown, has been hollowed out by crime and blight.

The election takes place at a time when Shreveport has been on decline by forces that appear to be bigger than anything a mayor can control.

Gary Joiner, who chairs the history and social sciences department at LSU-Shreveport, said the city’s problems began in the mid-1980s with the decline of oil and agricultural prices.

High school graduates went off to college and, not seeing a promising future in Shreveport, settled in Dallas, Houston and elsewhere.

Over time, General Motors and AT&T plants closed, and a GE facility has been downsized.

Many White residents who wanted to remain in the area fled to Bossier Parish to the east, or DeSoto Parish to the south, which they believed offered better schools and safer streets.

“It’s been like a leaking balloon,” Joiner said, referring to Shreveport’s population loss, “although it’s been pretty fast in the past 10 years. It becomes a vicious cycle.”

Shreveport’s peak population of 207,000 in 1980 had dropped to 187,000 by 2020, according to census figures.

“I have a lot of friends who did not come back to Shreveport because they found better economic opportunities elsewhere,” said Kristina Gustavson, the CEO of the Community Foundation of North Louisiana, Shreveport’s largest. “I’m here because I want to continue to grow Shreveport and make it a stronger place.”

Tarver has been pounding the anti-crime message.

“You can’t have economic development unless you do something about crime,” Tarver said in an interview. “It’s the main issue. Then you can deal with the other situations. People are afraid to even go out at night. Elderly people call me all the time and say they can’t sit on their porch because they’re afraid of a shooting. If you don’t eliminate crime, the city can’t grow.”

But pressed to outline his plan, Tarver said only that he would gather law enforcement authorities to develop one.

“There ain’t no magic wand to cut crime overnight,” he said.

Arceneaux has focused on the need to reduce blight that scars neighborhoods.

“Blight and crime go hand in hand, in my opinion,” Arceneaux said in an interview. His solution is to have the city begin imposing expensive liens on blighted property to encourage owners to fix them up or sell.

Beyond the issues, both Tarver and Arceneaux say they will unify the disparate parts of Shreveport.

John Settle, a former lawyer who closely follows local politics as a blogger and weekly newspaper publisher, is struck by contrasts between the two candidates.

“Greg hasn’t lived in the city, while Tom has been here for years,” Settle said. “Tom knows city government, while Greg knows state government.” (Tarver said he moved to his daughter’s house in Shreveport last year.)

Tarver, 76, was arrested 14 times during the Civil Rights era for drinking out of fountains designated for White people and for refusing to sit in the “colored people only” section of local movie theaters.

He has served on the Caddo Parish Police Jury, on the Shreveport City Council and for 31 years in the Louisiana Senate.

Tarver is an unusual legislator because he rarely offers bills. His focus, he said, is on winning money for local government, schools and public hospitals.

Arceneaux, 71, served on the City Council for eight years in the 1980s and has worked for decades as a business attorney.

“I thought I had the experience and the relationships in the city to make a difference,” Arceneaux said when asked why he is running for mayor.

State Rep. Cedric Glover, who was the city’s first Black mayor from 2006-14, is supporting Arceneaux because he believes Tarver, confoundingly, has often voted in Baton Rouge against the interests of Shreveport. “From a policy standpoint, Tom is clearly a better choice,” Glover said.

Ollie Tyler, Glover’s successor, said she favors Arceneaux because he has spent decades volunteering for various causes and qualifies as “a true public servant.”

Adrian Perkins, who lost his mayoral re-election bid in November, supports Arceneaux “because I don’t have any questions about Tom’s integrity or his qualifications. I don’t feel that way about Greg.”

Peacock, in contrast, said he has crossed party lines to back Tarver because “he has been effective at every level of government. When he gives you his word, he stands by it.”

Email Tyler Bridges at 
tbridges@theadvocate.com.