Arceneaux laps challenger field in mayoral forums

If viewers learned anything from a Shreveport mayoral forum doubleheader broadcast earlier this week on different television stations sponsored by the Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, it’s that the huge fundraising lead that Republican incumbent Tom Arceneaux has extends also to his knowledge of city affairs and to his program going forward in comparison to his opponents.

The pair of events started with one concentrating on economic development and then moving on the next night to the other’s focus on infrastructure. It quickly became clear that his challengers had particular mantras to which they would stick adding little else, no matter how vacuous or even fact-impaired these might be. The participants chosen likely are the only ones that have a chance to break into double-digit percentages of the vote.

The simplest candidate of all was Democrat Caddo Parish Commissioner Stormy Gage-Watts. Navigating through her word salad proved challenging. Over and over again she asserted that hiring a city planner and creating an online “dashboard” – which as Arceneaux pointed out the city had already, at least for capital projects – to track city spending were the big answers to what ails the city. She charged that certain neighborhoods were neglected compared to others, such as in street lighting, and that all seven Council districts needed equal treatment – interesting statements considering she apparently lives outside the city, not at the domicile inside the city accepted in her qualification.

Bossier Parish budget stays on unsustainable path

The 2027 budget for Bossier Parish looks better than the 2026 version in some ways, but similar warning signals still flash.

Entering the year, the Parish seemed set on some deficit spending. Operating budgets for the five major government funds – General, Highway, Library, Corrections, and Capital Improvement – then predicted combined $15 million more would be spent than came in, while the rest of the lesser funds was foreseen going $6.5 million in the red.

However, for 2027 the General, Library, and Corrections Funds are predicted to eat into reserves only slightly, and treading water when discounting transfers. The deficit of the other governmental funds came down a bit – some of that is structural for financing the 26^th Judicial District courts and the district attorney’s office – although expenses jumped almost 25 percent for the district attorney, which at the end of 2026 was forecast to have almost no reserves but as of the end of September actually was in the red nearly $300,000 and is expected to balloon to over a million dollars even with a million-dollar transfer into it.

LA must resume distasteful but necessary task

As unpleasant as it might be, the show must go on, in Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana, in order to save lives.

Controversy has surrounded carrying out capital punishment as of late. In Tennessee, an execution by lethal injection went wrong, leaving the murderess alive but barely surviving. In Texas, a jihadist sentenced to death for killing over a dozen people at an army base in 2009 will face a firing squad in December that at present the federal government will live stream over the Internet.

 

The former incident has reinvigorated anti-death penalty advocates, whose strategy involves a public relations campaign to make it logistically more difficult to carry out executions so that these either don’t occur or become so convoluted in difficulty in being done correctly that this escalates to the point enough fail that then the judiciary backs the idea that all methods violate the Eighth Amendments stricture against cruel punishment.

LA congressional donation record no surprise

If anything, had Louisiana congressional candidates not pulled in record dollars of campaign donations that would have been unexpected.

In sum, this election cycle has produced the highest total ever given to candidacies, in aggregate $74 million. Yet this should surprise no one, because of several factors.

 First, start with this election cycle offering up two competitive House of Representatives races, a competitive Senate contest, and not having a presidential contest to siphon money from congressional contests. Races believed to be close suck in more money. The last time this many hotly-contested cropped up was in 2014, and inflation plus changes in some donation ceilings would encourage more giving. It also helps that two candidates, one in each of the hotly-contested House races, are willing to put considerable own-resources into their campaigns, as did one Senate contestant.

More trends argue for eliminating film tax credit

It’s time for Louisiana to stop swimming against the tide and use money thrown away on making movies for more important needs – especially as larger economic trends threaten to wither away the program.

Recently, New Orleans’ film office director and city councilors griped about how film production statewide but in the city particularly had taken a tumble. Years ago, a billion dollars a year was coming into the state in production costs, but now that has dropped to $185 million. This matters according to advocates of using government as a direct jobs creator as fewer jobs result from a dive in production value. Thus, they call for increasing the generosity of the state’s tax credit regime, which already is quite lucrative: 25 percent tax credit for all production costs and 10 percent more if an in-state screenplay and 5 percent more if outside the New Orleans area, and then 15 percent more on compensation for all Louisiana residents used plus 5 percent on special effects past $1 million. The maximum base is 40 percent.

Further, the credit is almost entirely refundable, meaning investors outside the state without Louisiana state income tax liability can reap all of these benefits, at the 88 percent level, meaning taxpayers pick up the tab. In a recent ranking of states, the state winds up sixth-best in generosity, and doesn’t have a higher showing only because it caps the amount of credits issued and paid per year at $125 million, something advocates for more largesse wish would revert back to the previous uncapped that also would speed up claims paid out.

Democrats use playbook on PSC candidate Atkins

Democrats’ national playbook surfaced in the candidate forum between Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John Atkins and Democrat City Councilor James Green.

They contest the Public Service Commission District 5 seat, which stretches across north Louisiana. Incumbent Democrat Foster Campbell faces the three-term (18 years) limit at year’s end, although he served an additional one after being grandfathered in.

Atkins works in asset management, principally in energy. He has served the three-term limit on the Commission and is due to leave office at the end of 2027. His latest campaign financial disclosure, which doesn’t include anything from regulated utilities since he eschewed publicly donations from them, isn’t hurting with nearly half a million bucks bankrolled through late last month.

NO housing issues exemplify leftist misdiagnoses

The cognitive dissonance, or perhaps strategic planning to sustain its mission, of the political left truly can amaze at times, as continuing housing provision struggles in New Orleans and conflicting government housing policy demonstrate.

Last month, the Louisiana Housing Corporation took another step in reorienting the state’s housing policy away from the failed housing first model to a treatment first paradigm. The former insists on finding or building permanent spaces for the homeless regardless of whether behavioral problems hold back persons from engaging with the world in a way that permits them to use own resources in housing provision, while the latter emphasizes temporary housing for them while they participate in procedures and programs designed to produce positive behavioral change that facilitate their abilities to obtain housing using own resources.

One vocal critic was the nonprofit organization HousingNOLA, which advocates for greater government involvement in encouraging or building “affordable” housing in New Orleans, i.e. housing designed for residence by lower-income individuals. But only days later the Republican Gov. Jeff Landry Administration’s shift in approach found vindication when a report critical of the city’s housing efforts came out, with almost simultaneously the city changing policy of a few years that tried to strongarm developers into building more low-income units.

Huge money advantage boosts Arceneaux chances

If winning the Shreveport mayor’s race were only a matter of money, Republicans would control that office for another four years. As it is, that only may determine which Republican advances to a runoff.

After months of campaigning in 2026, submission of campaign finance reports through Sep. 24 were released yesterday. Incumbent GOP Mayor Tom Arceneaux lapped the field with resources remaining of about a third of a million dollars, after having spent almost that much, although raising only around $78,000 in this period. His donors this year to date comprised a number of long-time party activists (he sat on the City Council four decades ago) as well as a few from the near the city, and his spending reflected a broad spectrum of campaign communications.

Technically, challenger Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John-Paul Young outraised him by a $100,000, with the bulk of his contributors being from his Highland area neighborhood. But his biggest contributor by far was himself, plunking down $130,000 of his own dough on himself that meant others’ donations were fewer than $50,000 that left him with just over $50,000. He spent disproportionately on electronic media and billboard advertising.

LA needs comprehensive wind power regulation

With recent help from the federal government, Louisiana can ensure wind power advocates don’t take advantage of the state.

A recent article in leftist media lamented how Republican Pres. Donald Trump short-circuited efforts to spread windmills from sea to shining sea. Trump appears to have a visceral dislike of wind power and early in his second term basically brought offshore wind power to a halt by declaring no permits would go to new projects and by discouraging, even in a sense through bribing, existing projects from moving forward.

But states control wind power regulation on land except for that owned by the federal government, and that has steadily marched on. However, Trump did address an unfair advantage that wind power had, federal tax credits, by eliminating with the help of Congress those for projects not started by the middle of this year or if not completed by the end of next year. There was no defensible intellectual reason to give preference to this source of intermittent energy production when none existed specifically for other fossil fuel-based reliable power-generating activities.

Best for Caddo voters to reject ballot requests

Caddo Parish voters will face one boondoggle and a subset additionally will deliberate about a search for relevance in their making decisions next month about two tax propositions.

On the ballot Nov. 3 will appear a measure that authorizes the Caddo Parish Commission to blow $70 million on a sports complex. As previously noted, it’s a bad idea that’s not even totally funded – the issue would be only up to $60 million, with $10 million more to be found elsewhere preferably by donations – which rests on pie-in-the-sky hopes of attracting tournaments (which will have the effect of crowding out less-affluent families from having children participate in sports) in an area with plenty of all of government, nonprofit, and for-profit venues. It would waste a lot of money with little return even on the account of amorphous “quality of life” and doesn’t even guarantee that property taxes won’t rise to find it as it only disallows raising the rate for the first year of issuance.

Shreveport voters will have a crack at another one, an item that on the surface begs to renew. The city’s quasi-independent Downtown Development Authority has 9.04 mills – 1.05 mills higher than the expiring levy, due to a decline in the value of downtown properties in aggregate – ready to ramp up in 2028 for 25 years. That funds the agency that many may think doesn’t cost them anything, as the tax is levied only on commercial properties in the district for administration, operational expenses, acquiring property, project expenses and/or the retirement of bonds or other evidences of indebtedness.