Walker may challenge Holden in mayor’s race
Mayor pro-tem one of several possible candidates
“They (black voters) might desert him for another black, more popular mayor; they may throw some votes at a white Democrat, but they won’t vote for a white Republican.” Bernie pinsonat, pollster
Kip Holden captured 71 percent of the vote and became the only mayor-president to win all 314 of East Baton Rouge Parish’s precincts when he was re-elected in 2008, but his quest for a third term Nov. 6 may prove much more of a challenge.
And his toughest competitor is likely to be former ally Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker, who is pitching himself as Holden’s antithesis this election season.
While Walker hasn’t officially announced, the term-limited councilman has been meeting with groups across the parish, raising funds and dropping not-so-subtle hints about his campaign.
Holden, the city’s first black mayor-president, has lost some of his popularity and could be vulnerable to a strong competitor, say political watchers and opponents who point to three failed attempts at tax packages and a slew of arguments with other public officials.
“This is a totally different race than four years ago, and I don’t think he’s going to have a walk in the park,” said pollster Bernie Pinsonat. “But it’s going to depend on the strength of the competition.”
Lane Grigsby, a businessman and political activist, said he is actively seeking strong opponents to face off against Holden.
“I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure we change him out,” said Grigsby, who supported Holden in 2004 but only in the sense, he said, that he was for “anybody but Bobby Simpson,” the incumbent at the time.
Grigsby said he has grown disappointed in Holden but thinks that while Walker has done a fine job as councilman, the electorate might not support a “career politician.”
The relationship between Walker, a Republican, and Holden, a Democrat, has in the past year become increasingly distant and occasionally hostile, with both men taking jabs at the other at public events.
“I can beat him. We would not be seriously considering running if we did not feel like we could beat him,” Walker said. “A lot of his support has eroded and will not come back to him.”
Holden said he is confident he still has a strong base of support.
“The public has acted very favorably to my decision to run again,” he said. “What you’re hearing most from people in Baton Rouge is that they’re seeing more progress in the last seven years than they’ve seen in several decades.”
Holden touts the Green Light Plan as one of his most popular achievements. Holden proposed the sales tax-funded road improvement plan in 2005, and voters approved it. Since then, 22 of 42 Green Light road projects have been completed.
Holden also credits his administration for aggressively tackling the city-parish’s crumbling sewer system after several decades of neglect.
The mayor has been a champion of Baton Rouge’s growing movie industry and downtown redevelopment, supporting construction projects like the recently finished North Boulevard Town Square and the controversial rebuilding of the River Center Library.
“We have a lot to be thankful for,” Holden said. “But at the same time, we have to continue on — not on a spend, spend, spend policy, but one that takes care of the parish first.”
The city-parish, he said, desperately needs to address many of the critical infrastructure problems that were included in three other bond proposals that he pursued. His plans included items such as a new parish prison, a new juvenile services complex and a program to replace the parish’s aging bridges. Each of the bond issues was to be funded by a combination of sales and property taxes.
Voters, however, rejected Holden’s proposed $989 million bond issue in 2008 and $901 million bond issue in 2009.
Last year, Holden proposed a pared-down $748 million bond issue that removed a controversial riverside attraction included in his first two attempts. The Metro Council, however, refused to send the proposal to voters, claiming Holden refused to answer their questions about it.
Holden said the work proposed in his tax packages, which also included drainage and traffic signal improvements, is still needed but did not say whether he would pursue a bond issue again.
If re-elected, he said, he would focus on explaining to the public what Baton Rouge’s problems are and hope for a groundswell of support for infrastructure solutions from the local government.
“I think I’ll put the problems out front and tell them what their alternatives are,” Holden said. “I’m going to do the complete opposite of how I’ve been doing it.”
Grigsby said a good leader should be able to put together a realistic bond issue that voters are willing to support.
“It should be just meat and potatoes, not a Disney World package,” Grigsby said, referring to the downtown riverside attraction included in Holden’s first two proposals. “The only way you’ll get people to vote for one is if you promise to reduce the cost of government.”
Adam Knapp, president of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, said Holden has been one of the “strongest mayors Baton Rouge has had” in addressing issues related to economic development and growth.
“We’ve had a mayor willing to engage, willing to travel to see prospects and do a great sales job of pitching the city and the parish,” Knapp said. “He describes a vision for who we are and where we are going and tells the story of the parish in an exciting and compelling way.”
But Holden’s tenure has also been marked by public bickering between him and several public officials, including council members, Sheriff Sid Gautreaux and the former director of Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Last year, Holden became embroiled in a months-long fight with the sheriff over control of federal Homeland Security grants administered through GOHSEP.
Gautreaux said the mayor’s refusal to allow him to sign off on the grants was holding up the release of funds for law enforcement, and Holden countered that at stake was an important legal principle involving lines of authority.
GOHSEP sided with the sheriff’s office and designated Gautreaux and the Ascension Parish Office of Emergency Management as the new grant managers over two federal grants worth more than $4 million.
“He (Holden) can’t get along with the council, he can’t get along with other parish leaders like the sheriff,” Walker said. “He has become a confrontational person, and that is not the way you take the largest parish in the state in a positive direction for the future.”
Political consultant Roy Fletcher said the lost tax elections and the accompanying arguments with the Metro Council bode poorly for Holden this election season.
Fletcher said Holden was popular in 2008 not only because of his public policies but because of his friendly public persona.
“He was known as an affable kind of guy, and all of a sudden he’s gotten into some nastiness,” Fletcher said. “It makes people wonder what the heck this is all about.”
In 2008, Walker and Holden endorsed one another for re-election; Walker even forfeited an endorsement from the East Baton Rouge Republican Party because he was supporting a Democrat.
“They’re mad at me … because I’ve been friends with Kip forever, and I’m supporting him for re-election this year,” Walker said in August 2008.
But over the past year, Walker has become one of Holden’s most vocal opponents.
While Holden has been criticized by several council members as inaccessible and uncooperative, Walker boasts an open-door policy.
While Holden pushes for a vibrant downtown, Walker has become a voice for the suburbs.
Walker said his first priority if elected mayor-president would be to address the parish’s crime problem.
“It seems we just can’t get the upper hand in fighting crime,” he said. “That’s frustrating and scary to many.”
Walker, whose son is a police officer, said the city-parish should budget for a police academy and fire academy every year to ensure public safety agencies are never short staffed.
He also said he would work closely with small businesses and use the mayor-president’s position to try to improve public education through partnerships like the Truancy Center being developed by the sheriff’s office and district attorney’s office.
Walker said he would be a cooperative, inclusive mayor-president, and “a much better listener.”
Ulysses “Bones” Addison, who is in his third and last term as a councilman, said he thinks Holden lacks the ability to be a consensus-builder.
“I think Mike has shown a great deal of leadership over the last eight years,” said Addison, who has a history of butting heads with Holden.
Addison said Walker “has shown the ability to work across party lines, racial lines and gender lines.”
Councilwoman Tara Wicker said she was initially impressed with Walker’s ability to build relationships between the council and the administration, but once Walker’s relationship with the mayor soured, “he’d act like the whole council had the disagreement.”
Wicker said she also has concerns about Walker’s ability to commit to an issue.
“I have seen Mike where he’ll be for certain things, and then sometimes he’ll switch to the other side of the issue,” she said. “The perfect example for me is downtown, where historically he’s been a huge proponent for what we need to do, but then we got down to the details, the town square, the downtown library, the stage canopy, … and he was sort of flipping.”
Some lesser-known people have announced their candidacies, and others say they still haven’t made up their minds. Qualifying isn’t until August.
Gordon Mese, owner of Garden District Nursery, a plant store on Government Street his family has owned for more than 80 years, has already announced his candidacy.
Mese, who is not accepting campaign donations, is running on the single issue of revamping the city-parish’s Unified Development Code, which lays the groundwork for parish planning and development.
“This is an indirect way of addressing blight, poverty, crime, traffic issues,” Mese said. “It’s not going to solve every problem but it is the key that unlocks the door to that bright future.”
A well-enforced development code could have prevented the neglect to the sewer system and can fight the urban blight that contributes to crime, Mese said.
Jim Mayer, owner of the 26-year-old Mayer Co. Clothiers on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard, said he is “definitely considering” a candidacy and will make up his mind within the next two months.
Mayer, who is closing his store this month, said he wants to improve the quality of life in Baton Rouge.
“Why don’t we have an amphitheater with parking that lets different bands put on music on the green? Why don’t we have a second level on the interstate rather than hundreds of miles of roadway? Why doesn’t Southwest (Airlines) fly here?” Mayer said.
He added that city-parish government doesn’t take an active enough role supporting the medical community or the colleges and universities in the parish.
If elected, Mayer said, he would hire a city manager. “We’d have a paid professional come in and run Baton Rouge without the political back-slapping and infighting with the city council,” he said.
Mayer said if a qualified candidate enters the race, he’ll withdraw. He said he does not support Walker.
“Mike Walker hasn’t done a thing in 10 years and now he thinks he’s the panacea to our problems,” Mayer said.
Sarah Holliday-James, the Capital City Republican Women president who ran in August for state representative and lost, said she expects to qualify to run for mayor-president but was not ready to publicly discuss her campaign.
Pinsonat, the pollster, said whoever hopes to beat Holden will need a minimum of $300,000 to finance the campaign.
Holden, who had campaign war chests of about $300,000 in 2004 and almost $400,000 in 2008, has shown an ability to raise large amounts of money in a short period of time.
Pinsonat said the challenger also must be able to capture at least 70 percent of the white vote. Pinsonat said he expects most black voters to support Holden again but thinks the mayor may have lost some support from white voters disenchanted with many of his proposed tax plans.
In 2004, Holden beat Bobby Simpson, a white Republican incumbent, 54 to 46 percent. Pinsonat said Holden was able to split the white vote while capturing the vast majority of black voters.
When Holden won re-election in 2008, he captured both black and white voters, Pinsonat said.
Historically speaking, Pinsonat said, black voters will not support a Republican “when their own black mayor is being challenged.”
He said white Republicans in Louisiana generally get between zero and 7 percent of black voters.
“They might desert him for another black, more popular mayor; they may throw some votes at a white Democrat, but they won’t vote for a white Republican,” Pinsonat said.
Pinsonat offered as an example the 2006 New Orleans mayoral election between incumbent Ray Nagin, a black Democrat, and Mitch Landrieu, a white Democrat. “Who even liked Ray Nagin? He was really unpopular, with the crime rate, the lack of progress of hurricane restoration, the ‘chocolate city’ comment,” Pinsonat said. “He was a total disaster, but he still beat Mitch.”