If bad theater is what you like, go back and look at the first hour of the Shreveport City Council work session on Monday, Feb. 13.
Council members Tabatha Taylor led the drama parade, followed by Ursula Bowman and Alan Jackson.
Taylor has a master’s degree, but, evidently, math in not her strong point.
The price of concrete per cubic yard has increased approximately 33% in the last 12 months.
Concrete is the primary material in paving of city streets. The cost of other raw materials needed to construct streets have also increased substantially.
It’s not rocket science to realize that projects estimated to cost $1 million will now cost substantially more – let’s say 33% more.
Thus, Taylor's demand that all the streets in her district that were in an 2022 budgetary ordinance still be constructed ignored basic math. They cannot all be paved for the same amount of budget funds. Duh.
Bowman followed up by basically accusing a department head of lying.
Bowman has been on the council less than two months. To say her comments were out of line, uncalled for and ugly is an understatement.
The real theatrics were provided by Blue Line Solutions founder and CEO Mark Hutchinson who tried to do an end run around Mayor Tom Arceneaux.
Arceneaux has been dealing with many problems with Blue Line's photo school zone speed camera system.
CAO Tom Dark explained the many challenges with unmarked school zones, differing school times and speed zone time intervals that are not needed. The administration directed that the speed zones be reduced from two hours to one hour -- 30 minutes before school started and 30 minutes after school started.
And in the afternoon, 30 minutes before school ended until 30 minutes after school dismissal. Hutchinson did not like the change, which will undoubtedly affect the moneys his company gets from the ticketing. So, he made a pitch to the council pushing safety, yada, yada, yada.
Jackson and Bowman bought into Hutchinson's slick sales pitch and urged that the two-hour speed zones both in the a.m. and the p.m. be maintained.
Obviously, these council members had not reviewed the Blue Line contract. The mayor -- not the council -- makes the decisions on the times for the school speed zone camera enforcement.
And the last act of this bad play concerned the major decision to disband/reorganize the city's economic development effort.
Under former Mayor Adrian Perkins, a separate economic development office was manned by three city employees and a director. It was housed in Millennium Studios.
Both of Perkins' directors left their position, and the three employees were unsupervised for the last two-plus months of 2022.
Arceneaux has moved two of the three employees to other city departments and is seeking to find a new position for the third one. He has stated he will add an economic development director as a part of his staff on the second floor of Government Plaza.
Jackson and others pushed to maintain the former four-person unit. His doctor's degree is in education, not business, so his acumen on the issue of economic development is questionable, to say the least.
In response, CAO Dark said that the administration had not been able to ascertain any real work previously accomplished by the economic development unit.
Jackson and the council members should realize and accept the fact that the mayor decides how his budget is spent and whom he hires for his staff.
The influence that Taylor and council president James Green in the Perkins administration has ended.
They, along with Jackson, endorsed Perkins in the primary, and in the runoff, Jackson endorsed Tarver.
Now while tending to their own business versus the mayor’s, the council voted at its regular meeting on Tuesday to increase the budget of the council clerk's office to hire a person who is to be a constituent liaison, or something. Obviously, the additional expenditure was not an issue to Jackson, who sponsored the action, along with Green, Taylor and Bowman, who joined in to approve the expense.