The sale of Arthur Circle School may bring a charter school for dyslexic students operated by Louisiana Key Academy.
Note: At the time of the writing of this feature, requested information from the city of Shreveport in regards to the who, what, where, etc. of the mayor’s transition team had not been received.
The Bossier City Council voted this week to reject modernity by cutting their SporTran budget nearly in half. The annual public transit budget is now only $500,000 in Bossier. SporTran CEO Dinero Washington said, “This will create changes for our thousands of Bossier City passengers, Shreveport passengers who ride the bus into Bossier City every day for work, and ADA Paratransit clients.” A step in the wrong direction for Bossier City as our young people leave the area for cities that have good transit, which includes light rail.
The Caddo Parish School Board welcomed four new members, Steve Umling, Barbara Smith-Iverson, Katie McLain and Jessica Yeates. This should be good for the system, which needs an infusion of new blood and new ideas.
Shreveport continues to have a problem with violent crime. Many areas of the nation saw a rise in crime after COVID-19 changed the way we did business. Until many deaths of the unvaccinated and a very high percentage of vaccinated individuals allowed populations to move around once again, we were hostages in our own homes and not being able to assess the mental breakdown of some of our fellow hostages.
All three jurisdictions which levy a sales and use tax ended 2022 well above the 2021 calendar year. The city of Shreveport collected a record $156,746,783 last year. It finished 6.1% more than 2021's $147,719,840. It received at least $13 million in half of the 12 months. January 2021 was the first month it had ever reached $13 million. It averaged $13,063,230 during 2022. It levies a 2.75% sales tax.
In 2022 the Shreveport City Council agreed to a plan supported by our former mayor, Adrian Perkins to hire Blue Line Solutions of Chattanooga,TN to set up photo speed tickets in school zones. It was presented as a way the city could get “free money” to spend any way it wished and solve the problem of speeding in school zones. No one considered that this program would become an economic drain our city cannot afford.
The seven members of the Shreveport City Council will be an important component as to whether these next four years will be successful for the city or not. Shreveport is at a crossroads right now, and the relationship between the new Republican mayor and the five Democrat city councilmen and women will be the key.
“If you don’t have water, you don’t have a city.” – Murray Lloyd Moments after swearing in, Mayor Tom Arceneaux took to the podium to address the new city council members and guests in the auditorium as well as those watching the livestream. He read from Ezekiel 37: 1-10: “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.” Arceneaux went on to recount that story that inspired the nearly 100-year-old spiritual, “Dem Bones.” composed by James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson. Appropriate as Shreveport’s water pipes were once again dry and in need of resurrection, to be brought back to life, as the dry bones in the Ezekiel story.
1915 Citizens Bank Drive
Bossier City, LA. 71111
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