Outtakes from the P.A.C.E. mayor candidate forum

Writing a narrative about a political Q-and-A isn’t always easy. The questions can vary widely, and sometimes contenders don’t give good answers – much less speak in complete sentences.



So today’s article on the P.A.C.E. mayoral forum honed in on the “Ron Webb incident,” as categorized by moderator Adam Giblin. Here are some quotations that didn’t make the article.


One topic each candidate seemed comfortable discussing was the plan to bring Louisiana College’s law school to Shreveport. Giblin said the Southern Baptist school discriminates against gays. He asked whether public money should be used to fund a private institution.

• “It shouldn’t be used because of our debt situation,” Libertarian Parker Ward said. “Government should not be involved in somebody’s personal life.”
  
  
• “If we’re not discriminating against anybody… we shouldn’t donate money to an organization that does,” independent Dana Bruhnke said, referring to the city’s personnel policy. “It would be great to have… but we have other budget issues to take care of.”
  
  
• “The city cannot do this deal,” said Caddo Commissioner David Cox, running as no party. “It should not do this deal.”
  
  
• “It’s a discussion that I’m interested in having,” said Mayor Cedric Glover, a Democrat who went public with the proposal for the city to buy the former Joe D. Waggoner Federal Building for the college. And then here are some wildcards.
  
  
  
  • “If you call my office, I will call you back.” – State Rep, Roy Burrell, a Democrat, taking a jab Glover. A common complaint from the public at City Council meetings is that Glove rand staff don’t return phone calls.
    
    
  • “We need a leader that understands coming from behind.” – Cox on how he we manage city finances.
    
    
  • “I do not think the will of the people… should simply be overturned by a judge’s ruling,” Republican Tim Goeders on recent court proceedings about Proposition 8, the California law that outlawed gay marriage.
    
    
  • “You’ve got to kind of make up your mind. Are you going to go forward or go backward?” – independent Hersy Jones on Glover’s decision to honor the city’s Confederate history.
  
  
  
  
  City Councilman Bryan Wooley, a Republic, missed the forum because he was sick, he said. He expects to be at Tuesday’s council meeting.
  
  
  Oration was not Bruhnke’s strong point. He acknowledged that with this swipe at Wooley: “I’m just going to work on my public speaking. One that’s not here – he’s very polished.”

It's budget time in Shreveport

We're still more than a month away from public meetings on the budget, but Shreveport department heads have been fast at work since July, according to Mayor Cedric Glover's office.

Discussions started then between them and mayoral and City Council staff. Department heads get to propose changes from last year. Whether their numbers go up and down will depend largely, of course, on projected sales tax revenue, among other factors.

The next major step will be to schedule budget review sessions. Council members will go department-by-department listening to director pitches. That generally happens in October.

Public hearings on the full document happen on or before Nov. 15.  The charter requires the council to approve a budget by Dec. 15.

Check out Caddo Commission clerk candidate resumes

The anonysphere of web comments suggested good-ole-boyism played a role in the Caddo Commission choosing Fleet Services manager Todd Hopkins as its new clerk.

And Commissioner Stephanie Lynch quickly noted that a black, male commissioner joined the board's six white men with a yes vote.

So I figured I would let you readers weigh in yourselves. Here are resumes for each of the four finalists:

• Todd Hopkins

• Veta Samuels, Caddo Commission's deputy clerk

• Deborah Sewell, recording secretary for the Ouachita Police Jury

• Mark Terry, former director of Horizon Bay senior retirement center in Bossier City

More on Shreveport swim lesson plans

Fire Chief Brian Crawford got me some more information today that wasn't discussed during Thursday's press conference about Shreveport's new plan to teach children to swim.

Public officials and civic leaders, as you read, introduced the Stewart-Warner Project Swim, named for the six youth who drowned last week in Red River. They could not swim.

Here are notes from Crawford:

• Shreveport already offered free swim lessons to children in city programs if caregivers couldn't afford to pay. Project Swim fundraising simply will help offset costs to the city and organizations, such as YMCA and Red Cross, that help provide instruction.

• SPAR already provides swimming instruction to more than 1,000 children each summer.

• “The bottom line is the child can learn for free - wherever they learn and no more tax dollars are being expended that were before with the programs that were already in place.”

I'm back, and Shreveport is newsy!

Hi, folks. Sorry for the absence. But after a week of vacation and another working with some great college journalists (see our work here), I am glad to be back on the city beat. And it's already been busy.

While I wasn't here to check in on our local leaders, at least other folks at the paper were. If you missed it, here is a Times editorial about Mayor Cedric Glover's handling of Government Plaza roof repairs. If you recall, water has oozed through the eighth-floor ceiling onto people, walls and cabinets since at least mid-2008.

Caddo administrators are getting dripped on, and the parish offered the city a loan early this year on its $1.3 million portion. The parish should bay about $500,000.

And here is Glover's response. (Seriously, folks. How many other places can you really go that will allow you to directly criticize analysis with so little censorship? Show some newspaper love here.)

Of course some of the biggest news of this week is plans to draw Louisiana College's law school to Shreveport. I'll offer more on that in the next few days.

Here's a little noise, and a break

If you missed this story from Thursday, Caddo and Bossier residents can sound off on noise in early August at a joint meeting between the two parishes' governments.

The Commission and Police Jury will consider ordinances aimed at setting allowable levels of loudness.

"Excessive noise can mean one thing to you and another thing to me," Caddo Parish Attorney Charles Grubb said. "What this proposal does is it puts some objectivity into what is excessive."

Read the prop for yourself here.

And on another note, dear readers, I'll be taking a blogging break for a short while. I've got vacation next week followed by the Asian American Journalists Association convention. There I'll be an editor/mentor for college students producing a multimedia project that includes a newspaper, website and Internet video broadcasts. Follow me on Twitter if you'd like to see more about that.


Watch the City Council and Commission for me while I'm out. You never know when they might try to pull a fast one.

Full list of Shreveport's fall election qualifiers

A reader pointed out it was hard to find this list on our site. So here is a recap of all the candidates who qualified for Shreveport offices in the Oct. 2 election.

Shreveport mayor

• Dana Bruhnke, no party
• Roy Burrell, D
• David Cox, other
• Cedric Glover, D
• Tim Goeders, R
• Hersy Jones Jr., other
• Debra Lindsey, other
• Parker Ward
• Bryan Wooley

Shreveport City Council

District A:
• Rose Wilson McCulloch, D
• C. O. Simpkins, D
• Lillian Thomas Wade, no party
• Michael D. Williams, D

District B:
• Deborah Allen, no party
• "Jeff" Everson, D
• Craig B. Lee, other
• Sheva Sims, D

District C:
• Oliver Jenkins, R
• Jacob "Jake" Toloso, no party

District D:
• Deanna Candler, R
• Michael D. Corbin, R
• Phillip A. Templeton, other

District E:
• "Ron" Webb, R

District F:
• Joe Shyne, D

District G:
• Samuel L. "Sam" Jenkins Jr., D
• Jerry L. White, D