Will Walker provide leadership for Bossier City's political maturation?

Lo Walker has lead Bossier City as mayor for a month and the initial returns look good.

He has promised a more hands-on approach to running the city, a change largely for the better from the 16 years of previous mayor George Dement. While Dement did some politicking from behind the scenes, he was more what political scientists who study local politics would call a “ceremonial” type of mayor – good at pep talks, great at ribbon-cuttings, but not a real policy leader.

Walker, by contrast, has the potential to provide leadership that in the past decade largely gravitated to the City Council. This does not necessarily have to be a bad thing, but a majority of the council over that time period has suffered from a parochialism that has spawned a suboptimal set of attitudes in governance.


For one, the Council often found itself dazzled by flashy baubles on which to spend money, fueled by the coming of casino gambling and white flight from Shreveport that boosted population numbers. For example, the 1996-2000 council found out about this the hard way when incumbents got ejected because of their decision to build and where to build the CenturyTel Center, as well by their handling of the fire sale at the old Bossier Medical Center, when the voting public tired of the Council’s imperious ways. Strong mayoral leadership could have smoothed hostilities, if the city became determined to build the arena.

This attitude partly comes from hostility to things Shreveport. Among some long-time Bossier residents, one often gets the impression that they feel they get disrespect from Shreveport (not without some justification for that perception), almost a kind of inferiority complex. While this may serve as a motivation tool at the same time it warps judgments; one gets the sense the main reason for the arena construction was for Bossier to show Shreveport it could one-up it in the category of arenas when area citizens complained about the Shreveport-located Hirsch Memorial Coliseum.

Finally, the chip-on-the-shoulder policy-making impulse in Bossier stems from the fact that so much policy-making power originates from people of one of two backgrounds, either residents whose families were around before the population boom began in the 1960s, or whose families were connected to the Air Force. Feeling particularly excluded is the city’s growing black population, now around 20 percent of the population. This attitude leads to an insularity that creates a myopic policy-making vision.

Walker, however, has great potential as mayor to reverse these attitudes. A Shreveport native who spent a good portion of his adult life in Air Force service, he has greater capability to see past the small-town mentality that too often infects the Council, and is willing to provide the leadership to keep this in check. One early indicator is his common-sense decision to broaden notification of city job openings.

Even if Walker is no spring chicken, this old dog hopefully can teach some new tricks by providing crucial leadership to assist Bossier City in its political maturation.