The Consolation Election

We’re #3!

Sorry about the lateness of this post, very little time but I wanted to put something together for the election this weekend (Yes, there is an election this weekend). Some readers of this blog are almost certainly familiar with the Consolation Game. In many single-elimination tournaments determined by brackets, the losers of the semi-final matches are pitted against each other to determine the 3rd place finisher while the winners of the semi-final round duke it out for 1st and 2nd place. As one can imagine, the only people that generally attend or participate in the Consolation Games are those that have a stake in one or the other teams involved. After all, who really cares about 3rd place?

The upcoming election this Saturday, November 19th feels like a consolation election to me. In other words, no one really cares (or at least only small, focused interest groups care) about the election. The Louisiana Secretary of State’s office is already reporting that early voting has been extremely light, which doesn’t generally point to a great turnout come election day. When large numbers of people don’t turn out for election day, it usually becomes an entertaining battle featuring small, focused groups dedicated to certain candidates and/or special interests facing off against one another. So what’s on the ballot? It all depends on where you live.

Candidate Elections
There are several runoff elections throughout the Baton Rouge area, most for State office with a small number of local election runoffs depending on your Parish of residence. I’m not going to go over the multiple candidate races, but feel free to do your own research. I try to stay out of candidate elections due to the massive amount of uncertainty about whether a candidate will actually stick with their campaign promises. People are people.

Pet Peeve: The Real Estate Transfer Tax 
In a statewide context, one reason why this is likely to be a low-turnout election is because many precincts in the State only have one item on the ballot. That item is a Constitutional Amendment creating a prohibition against the creation of any new Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) in the State. I’ll get to the amendment in a second, but I’d like to know why this amendment couldn’t have been voted on last month with the OTHER five amendments? That, my friends, is a waste of time and your tax dollars. Seriously, only looking at FOUR parishes, the Shreveport Times figured out the state could have saved over $150,000 by holding the election in October as opposed to November. No telling how much more could have been saved statewide. Let’s cut to the chase: the only reason this amendment is being voted on now rather than a month ago is because this election was anticipated to have a lower turnout. It’s a lot easier for a special interest (in this case, the Louisiana Realtor’s Association) to have a greater impact on the final vote if a small number of people show up at the polls. Once again, political maneuvering costs taxpayer money.

Turning to the merits of the amendment… why do we need this? Essentially, the amendment prohibits the State or any parish or city from levying a tax or fee on the sale or transfer of immovable property (i.e. real estate). Currently, New Orleans is the only city in Louisiana that collects a fee for this type of transaction ($325). As far as I know, no other parish or city has even considered this option, other than an aborted effort by Livingston Parish a few years ago (it ended in disaster and the LP had to refund anyone who paid it). The proponents for the amendment have indicated they see it as a preventative measure. Um, OK. Even though there has been no indication that anyone really wants to pursue a fee/tax like this (particularly considering the Livingston Parish boondoggle) and considering the current anti-tax disposition of the voting public, this amendment is needed now?

Other Unnecessary Preventative Measures

If that’s the case, I think we need to start putting up posters about what to do in the event of a zombie outbreak, since that seems more likely to happen right now than a RETT passing anywhere in Louisiana. Unless someone can come up with a better reason than “Because I don’t want to pay it” for not adding what is essentially a sales tax to a real estate transaction, I don’t see any reason to prohibit RETTs through the Louisiana Constitution. Some proponents claim RETTs are basically double taxation, but that’s a pretty lame excuse. When you buy a car, you pay sales tax based on the price of the vehicle. After that, you pay periodic fees to register the vehicle and insure it passes safety and emissions standards. This would be basically that, but in reverse, since you pay property taxes based on the value of your house periodically and a RETT (at least the New Orleans one) is a flat fee regardless of sale price. Other opponents claim that RETTs will stifle the real estate market. Seriously? The real estate market in New Orleans, the only place in Louisiana that has an active RETT, apparently survived it. Why can’t other locations in the State if a RETT ever comes up? On top of that, about 75% of the states in the US have RETTs on the book either statewide or at the local level. People are still moving, real estate folks are still making money. I don’t know who comes up with these arguments.

In the end, the proponents of the Real Estate Transfer Tax amendment have elicited two eye rolls from me. Once by pushing for the placement of the amendment on the runoff ballot, thereby requiring the entire state to participate in this election and wasting taxpayer money which could be used for other purposes. Twice by putting forward this absolutely unnecessary amendment that is addressing something that isn’t even remotely an issue. Sadly, I’d put money on this amendment passing since the amendment proponents have dumped a decent amount of money into this race and have a pretty widespread, built-in support network in the form of every single person who holds a real estate license (at least according to my Facebook page). The only organized opposition would likely be something based in government or budget watchdog groups, neither of which are well funded.

As for me, I’m voting NO. The amendment is unnecessary and I think a message needs to be sent about special interest groups engaging in electoral shenanigans to gain a favorable advantage that unnecessarily expend taxpayer dollars.

-Politivore

Proposition Election Post Mortem – October 2011 Edition

Let's get to work!

Let’s get the initial and obvious comment out of the way… barring medical emergencies, 2 out of 3 Louisiana voters suck. While the Secretary of State’s office has not yet released Parish by Parish turnout statistics, the estimate for statewide turnout is somewhere around 36%. Seriously? With around 8 days offered to vote (including early voting and excluding mail-in voting), only 1 in 3 people (plus the second guy’s foot) bothered to cast a ballot. That’s pathetic. Look, I wasn’t all that excited by most of the statewide races offered to me. In most cases, it was the cliched situation of choosing a lesser of two evils. Still, I held my nose and voted because I think it’s important. Regardless of the statewide races, there were a number of interesting local races as well as 5 Constitutional amendments that were Yes or No decisions. While I held out hope that turnout was better in East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) with local favorite Jay Dardene running in a competitive election, it looks like the race with the highest level of participation in EBRP was for the Governor, with about 32% of registered voters casting ballots (and surprisingly with hometown hero Bobby Jindal only pulling about 50% of the vote). Voting on local propositions was around 28% to 29%. On to the results…

Other analysts are welcome to pour over the local candidate elections, but the underlying rationale for some of the votes for those tend to involve an incredible amount of personal relationship minutiae, in some cases requiring one to know which candidates are being spurned by which business owners and/or pastors. I do this as a hobby, so getting up to date on all of that is not really worth it to me at this point. That’s why I’m focusing on the three parishwide propositions but forth to EBRP voters.

Pictorial Representation of Disabled Vet Homestead Exemption Vote

The proposition concerning doubling the homestead exemption for disabled vets passed in a landslide with 72% of the vote in EBRP. In fact, there were no precincts in EBRP in which it failed, although it came close in Southdowns (1-42A & 1-42B), College Town (1-69A & 1-69B), and portions of the Garden District adjacent to City Park (1-8 and 1-41A). That leaves us with the proposition elections for the Library Board of Control (LBC) and the Recreation and Parks Commission (BREC). While both propositions failed at the polls, the margin of victory was far smaller; the BREC proposition going down 48-52 and the LBC proposition failing 46-54. Because these propositions involved giving the three small cities of Baker, Zachary, and Central (BZC) in EBRP a greater voice than their populations warrant, it’s interesting to note who voted for and who voted against the propositions. Some of the results were expected, others less so.

• “Split” Tickets: Unsurprisingly, if a precinct was in favor of one proposition, they were likely in favor of the other. Only 7% of the precincts (21 precincts) featured a “split” ticket, with one of the propositions being approved and the other failing. Of those 21 precincts, 4 voted against the BREC proposition and in favor of the LBC proposition; the remaining 17 voting in favor of the BREC proposition and against the LBC proposition. In most of these “split” ticket precincts, the margins of victory for either proposition were rather thin, regardless of whether the precinct had 500 registered voters or 1,000.
• The Extremes: Somewhat surprisingly, the precinct that was most in favor (based on the margin of victory as a percentage of total ballots cast) of the BREC proposition was also most in favor of the LBC proposition. More surprisingly, on the other end of the spectrum, two districts swapped the #1 and #2 positions for being most opposed to the propositions, depending on the proposition in question. Why were these surprises? The precinct most in favor of the two propositions is not even in the BZC. It’s Precinct 1-95A, an overwhelmingly Democratic, overwhelmingly black area in incorporated Baton Rouge just north of Southern University. On the other end? The two precincts swapping places are almost polar opposites with respect to race and somewhat different with respect to party affiliation. Precinct 1-3 (#1 against the BREC proposition, #2 against the LBC proposition) is an overwhelmingly Democratic, overwhelmingly black area comprising portions of Old South Baton Rouge and Beauregard Town.  Precinct 1-8 (#1 against to the LBC proposition, #2 against the BREC proposition) is an overwhelmingly white, politically balanced area of the Garden District adjacent to City Park. It’s interesting that two precincts that are so similar with respect to demographics and political affiliation ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum (1-95A & 1-3) and at the same time see two precincts that are quite different with respect to demographics end up being so closely aligned in their opposition (1-3 & 1-8). Then again, considering this election was set-up as a north EBRP vs. south EBRP battle, perhaps not so surprising.
• BREC v. LBC Turnout: In may seem surprising that the BREC proposition generated slightly more activity than the LBC proposition (77,532 vs 76,427 ballots cast), but it’s really a matter of perspective. While the LBC has had to deal with  negative media coverage related to the River Center Library rebuild, it wasn’t an issue in any particular candidate race. BREC on the other hand, was featured as a campaign issue for several candidates seeking office in parts of the BZC, particularly with regard to breaking away from the Parish (even though I previously showed arguments concerning the northern part of EBRP not getting their fair share are pretty ridiculous). Given the “double exposure” of BREC in both candidate and proposition elections, it may be unsurprising that the proposition featured the higher turnout of the two.

So what areas voted for and against the propositions? Rather than recap every area of town, the lists below identify precincts where a 33.33% or higher margin of victory was achieved in either direction. The margin of victory percentage is determined by taking the difference between the number of votes on each side of an issue and then dividing by the number of votes cast. For instance, if 10 votes were cast in a district, with 6 being in favor and 4 being against, the margin would be determined by subtracting 6 from 4 and dividing by 10, in this case .2 or a 20% margin of victory. When areas of town are listed, they don’t necessarily represent the entire area of town, but are merely the areas in which that precinct can be found.

• FOR the BREC Proposition: Crestworth (54.74%, 1-95B),  Crestworth (44.21%, 1-95A), Scotlandville Middle (38.93%, 2-22A), Ryan Airport/Scotlandville Area (35.80%, 1-91A), Southern University (33.33%, 1-100A)

• AGAINST the BREC Proposition: Beauregard Town/Old South Baton Rouge (41.46%, 1-3), City Park/Garden District (41.01%, 1-8), Southdowns East/Pollard Estates (40.06%, 1-56B), Garden District/Mid-City (36.11%, 1-7), Tara (35.02%, 1-74B), Belfair (34.93%, 1-14A), Istrouma/Winbourne (34.63%, 1-29), Roselawn/Gus Young (33.74%, 1-32B), Old Hammond/Drusilla/Jefferson (33.33%, 3-31B), College Town (33.33%, 1-69A), Capitol/Fuqua (33.33%, 1-10A)

• FOR the LBC Proposition: Crestworth (53.85%, 1-95B),  Scotlandville Middle (44.72%, 2-22A), Crestworth (38.55%, 1-95A),  Ryan Airport/Scotlandville Area (38.64%, 1-91A)

• AGAINST the LBC Proposition:   City Park/Garden District (44.04%, 1-8), Beauregard Town/Old South Baton Rouge (42.86%, 1-3), Capitol/Fuqua (40.63%, 1-10A), Garden District/Mid-City (39.62%, 1-7), Old Hammond/Drusilla/Jefferson (38.65%, 3-31B), Belfair (38.38%, 1-14A), College Town (38.14%, 1-69A),  Garden District/Hundred Oaks (37.30%, 1-48B), Staring/Pennington (37.14%, 1-66B) Old South BR/Nicholson (37.14%, 1-5A), Southdowns East/Pollard Estates (36.91%, 1-56B), Southdowns/LSU Lakes (36.25%, 1-41A), Seigen/Perkins East (35.76%, 3-4A), Winbourne/Ardenwood (34.85%, 1-62),  Tara (33.57%, 1-74B)

The Breakdown

So what does that tell us? Generally speaking, the strongest precinct support for these two proposals came from the northern part of EBRP, but not from within the BZC itself. That seems very, very odd, to be perfectly honest. To be sure, a quick glance shows the propositions appear to have passed in every precinct comprising the BCZ (except one, 2-28, where both propositions failed. Hat tip to JR Ball), but one would think the propositions would have passed with overwhelming support in those areas, instead of simply strong support. It appears that a significantly large minority of BZC voters disagree with Councilman Scott Wilson concerning their representation on BREC and the LBC.

As to the precincts voting against the propositions: the strongest opponents represent a nice mixture of black and white neighborhoods, spanning a range of affluent to impoverished. Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I see such a diverse group of people agreeing on the same thing, I tend to see that as the correct course of action.

Thanks to the voters of EBRP for voting down these two poorly conceived propositions. Let’s let BREC and the LBC get back to doing what they do best: providing for the intellectual and recreational needs of the citizens of the entirety of EBRP.

-Politivore

Use Your Delusion

As commonly understood by folks who choose not to participate in the Parish

With Parish elections only about a week away, I decided to put in a little overtime in examining the underlying arguments of Councilman Scott Wilson and fans of the two ballot propositions to change the East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP) Plan of Government to provide the small cities of Baker, Zachary, and Central (the BZC) appointees to the Library Board of Control (LBC) and the Recreation and Parks Commission (BREC).

In my previous post, I countered, empirically, any argument for these two propositions based on population. In case you don’t want to read the entire post, the BZC represent a combined total of 12.66% of the population. Approving the propositions would grant the BZC 25% of the vote on BREC and 30% of the vote on the LBC. If passed, the propositions would create a disproportionate power sharing situation in favor of the BZC.

 

But what about the underlying argument that the BZC is not receiving its fair share? Essentially, the argument that the northern portion of the Parish is being ignored by the LBC and BREC in favor of the city of Baton Rouge and the southern portion of the Parish? Per the Advocate, here’s the essential argument:

“The bottom line is we need more representation from across the parish,” Wilson said. “Look at the Library Board. Nobody north of Florida Boulevard is serving on the Library Board.”

Since the current appointees are at-large and consider the needs of the Parish as a whole, this should not matter (not to mention that the proposition only addresses three small cities, not “across the Parish”). The argument above would be valid if there was a truly disproportionate allocation of resources by the LBC and BREC to the detriment of the northern portion of the Parish. So, is that the case? Let’s take a look…

 

The first thing we need to do is come to a reasonable understanding of what constitutes the northern part of the Parish. Since Councilmembers Wilson and Trae Welch (another advocate of these propositions) represent not only the BZC but much of the unincorporated portions of the northern portion of the Parish, we can’t only focus on the corporate limits of the BZC. With that in mind, and a native’s understanding of the geography of East Baton Rouge Parish, here is my version of the Mason-Dixon line for East Baton Rouge Parish which I’ll further reference as the Hooper-Harding Line:

Draw a line directly from the Mississippi River to the western end of Thomas Road. Thomas Road east to Plank Road. Plank Road south to Hooper Road. Hooper Road east to Mickens Road. Mickens Road southeast to Joor Road. Joor Road south to Greenwell Springs Road. Greenwell Springs Road northeast to Flannery Road. Flannery Road south to Florida Boulevard. Florida Boulevard east to the Parish line.

You can see a rough approximation of the Hooper-Harding line in the picture above. Anything along or north of the Hooper-Harding line is considered the northern portion of EBRP for comparison purposes. The Hooper-Harding line generally separates the inner-city, urban characteristics of the City of Baton Rouge from its sister cities in the BZC as well as the rural, unincorporated areas in the northern part of the Parish. This also increases the size of the population that we’re examining to 87,549*, which is 19.89% of the Parish population based on the 2010 US Census (also interesting to note that the population of the unincorporated northern portion of the Parish outnumbers any of the individual cities of the BZC). With that information established, let’s take a look at how each of the public entities is doing with respect to the northern part of the Parish.

 

Library Board of Control: This one’s pretty easy since the LBC can largely be measured by its facilities and it only has so many. The East Baton Rouge Parish Library System currently has thirteen  active branches with one branch  that is currently under construction (Fairwood) and one that is currently sort of under construction (Southdowns/Rouzan). For the sake of the argument, let’s go ahead and say that the LBC has 15 libraries. The Baker Branch, Central Branch, Greenwell Springs Road Regional Branch, Pride-Cheneyville Branch, and the Zachary Branch are all located above or along the Hooper-Harding line. 33.33% of the library branches in East Baton Rouge Parish directly serve or are easily accessible to the 19.89% of the population in the northern portion of the Parish**.  So I ask the proponents of the proposition: Is the problem that you’re being overserved?

 

Nothing to see here folks, certainly not a massive public park...

Recreation and Parks Commission: This one was not so much fun. BREC has a LOT of facilities; 189 of them built or in planning totaling 6,687.30 acres. On request, BREC graciously provided an excel list of all the parks within their system. While you could pull all of them from the BREC website, it would be a giant pain in the ass. So thanks for the help BREC! Getting down to business… of the 189 facilities BREC operates in East Baton Rouge Parish, 60 of them are located north of the Hooper-Harding line. That’s 31% of BREC assets for an area that contains 19.89% of the population. Better yet, lets talk acreage. Fully 3,502.62 of the 6,687.30 acres managed and operated by BREC are located north of the Hooper-Harding line. That’s 52.37% for 20% of the population! Again I ask, is the problem that the BZC and northern portion of the Parish being overserved?

The Bottom Line: Look, no discussion of this topic would be complete without considering the past. While the LBC has never seemed to be a high priority for the northern portion of the Parish, BREC has been a contentious issue in recent years with some of the cities threatening to pull out. Given that the BZC has already split their school systems off from the EBRP school system, I would hesitate writing off future threats of this nature. Just look at Mike Mannino’s advertisement in the October 3rd issue of the Central City News and not only because it’s hilarious. Mannino is running against Bodi White for State Senate in the upcoming election; the district they are competing for includes the City of Central and portions of the northern part of the Parish. Check out Page 7 on the right hand side. Yup, a campaign promise to break Central away from BREC. Clearly, there is some desire within the city to break away if the concept is making its way into a campaign promise. Like most campaign promises, it largely panders to a certain group without bothering much with facts. There are several facilities located or being constructed in and within close proximity to Central. The issue may be that they aren’t actually physically located within the city limits of Central. So what? I live in Baton Rouge. If I want to ride a horse or shoot a bow at a Parish-run park, I have to leave the City of Baton Rouge to do so. Seriously, is anyone arguing for an equestrian center in Baton Rouge? No, because we can drive a few miles to Farr Park. This apparently isn’t good enough for the powers-that-be in the northern portion of the Parish. The part that I really find amusing about this is that, from a tax base perspective, it seems to me that you really wouldn’t want that many land-gobbling parks in small cities since it reduces the space available for business or housing development- you know, the ones that generate tax revenue. It seems to me you would want parks just outside of the corporate limits, easily accessible but not taking away from your potential tax base. Maybe that’s just me.

 

The arguments with respect to BREC are mirrored for the LBC. The northern portion of the Parish is well represented both in terms of libraries and public parks. Don’t let someone tell you lies that it is not.

 

In summary,this is simply yet another attempted power grab by the powers that be in the BZC. What the folks up north choose not to understand is that we’re all in this Parish together. I urge you to vote against these two ballot propositions. If they fail, I’ll almost certainly soon be asking you to also vote against the subsequent attempt to further break away from the Parish.

 

 

–Politivore

 

*After an infuriatingly long search, I finally located the data I was searching for at the US Census website. For reference, the portion of EBRP north of the Hooper-Harding line is roughly comprised of census tracts 32.01, 35.01, 42.01, 42.03, 42.04, 42.05, 43.01, 43.02, 44.01, 44.02, 44.03, 45.03, 46.02, 46.03, 46.04, & 47.

 

** I could also point out, using data the anti-downtown library coalition practically fell over themselves to use, both Central and Pride-Cheneyville tend to rank low on one or both of the gate count and circulation rank order lists. I don’t find the argument persuasive, so I decided not to use it in the meat of the post but figured I would include it as a footnote. I also can’t find the stupid chart.