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EBR mayor-president wants to retool blight remediation program, redirect funding
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BATON ROUGE — Following several WBRZ Investigative Unit reports on blight in the city-parish, Mayor-President Sid Edwards sat down with WBRZ's Bess Casserleigh to talk about progress made in combating blight and his thoughts on the current blight outreach program, which costs taxpayers more than $165,000 a year.
South Baton Rouge resident Charles Jones has been vocal about blight in his neighborhood for years.
"This area here is gone undone, and nobody seems to care," Jones said.
Across town, the mayor's office pointed to results from their recent 100 Days of Transformation campaign to combat blight near Istrouma. Under the direction of Chief Service Officer Yolanda Langford, the campaign removed more than 13 tons of trash and debris.
Residents in other parts of the parish, like Jones, are left wondering when it will be their neighborhood's turn.
"They have made an attempt to do some things around here, but we got a long way to go," Jones said.
Edwards, who has picked up trash himself in South Baton Rouge, says that area is on the docket.
"It's heavy in South Baton Rouge, and we have plans to get out there as well. We are out there," Edwards said.
Resources are thin, though. According to Director of Development Rachael Lambert, only four workers are employed by the city parish to actually remove blight.
"It's a small, small crew and we need more help," Edwards said.
While only four workers remove blight, the city parish pays seven people a total of $165,000 a year to document it as part of the blight outreach program.
When asked whether the blight outreach program is a good use of taxpayer money, Edwards said, "Not at this moment, I don't. It may have served its purpose in the past in the prior administration; I don't know," Edwards said, "and we are going to re-look at it."
Edwards says he plans to address it in the next budget cycle.
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