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St. George issue likely appearing on October ballot
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BATON ROUGE – An election to create the proposed city of St. George will effectively end up on a ballot this fall because the governor’s office was not able to set a vote for May by the deadline to do so – Monday.
Friday, the governor’s office said it had not secured all the necessary documents associated with the petition to verify and set the election.
Monday, the governor's office said an election is more likely going to happen in October.
"The governor is not calling the election for incorporating the city of St. George [Monday] for May. When our office determines that the statutory requirements have been met, the governor will call the election for October," a spokesperson said.
Louisiana already has scheduled elections in October and November.
The delay will likely be celebrated by opponents of St. George who have hoped for a later election. The mayor of Baton Rouge wrote a letter to the governor last week, asking that an election be set for the fall and that it not appear on the May ballot.
While the mayor said her request was to give the St. George organizers more time to have community meetings, opponents of the proposal have said more voters would likely be available to deny a decision on creating the new city in October or November, which will feature more popular ballot items, than an election in May.
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