EAST BATON ROUGE—After Sid Edwards won 54 percent of the Mayor-President vote on election night, leaders from surrounding cities expressed their excitement about the next mayor-president.

Edwards is the first Republican elected mayor-president since 2000, and for a lot of folks the win was a surprise. Two days after the election, surrounding cities are making plans for the next phase of East Baton Rouge government.

St. George Transition District Chairman Andrew Murrell said when early voting numbers showed Edwards in the lead, he was surprised, but excitement kicked in. Murrell says the win is a matter of unifying St. George with the rest of East Baton Rouge.

"We're going to have a new voice who wants to move this parish forward - doesn't want to mire this parish in years of litigation and expense and that can only be positive," Murrell said.

Mayor of Zachary David McDavid, says during incumbent Sharon Weston Broome’s term, a lot of improvements have been made in his city, but there’s more work to be done.

“All of us are in this together, Baker, Zachary, Central,” McDavid said. “When I took office in January 2023, I met with Mayor-President Broome, and I explained the situation we have with our roads, and we've been working on that. We've looked at Rollins Road, which is under the MoveBR plan.”

Leaders say they hope to work closely with Edwards during his transition into office.

WBRZ reached out to the mayor of Baker, but he was not able to comment by the time this report aired.