BATON ROUGE (AP) — East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor President Kip Holden has declared the defeat of the St. George petition this weekend a win for the parish. But Holden said Monday he wants to extend an olive branch to leaders of the movement to create a new city.
Holden made his comments just two days after the Registrar of Voters Office closed out the 21-month long petition process to call an election to create the City of St. George. The registrar announced the petition was short 71 signatures of the 17,859 required to make the ballot.
Lionel Rainey, a St. George spokesman, tells The Advocate’s Rebekah Allen his group is willing to meet with Baton Rouge officials, but is not ready to concede defeat.
St. George advocates have suggested they're mounting a legal case to challenge the petition count.
