Mayor-President Melvin L. "Kip" Holden
"Service Above Self"

Three simple words…. with the power to change the world.

It wasn’t by accident that I chose this meeting to deliver our State of the City address.

In cities across America, the truth is, Rotary Clubs make a profound difference. They build character, strengthen communities, and foster goodwill, all by living up to the motto,  Service Above Self.

I have tried to serve these first three years of my administration as your Mayor-President by living up to your motto.

We have focused our energy on service to this great City-Parish. And the results of the achievements we have made together are roaring across America like one of our proudest attributes, a Saturday night crowd in Tiger Stadium.

When I began my term of office, we were tired of being at the top of lists of things that are bad, and at the bottom of lists of things that are good.

And I think you all will agree, we’re a city that likes to be on top in the rankings.

But as I stand before you today, we’ve made great strides as we have seen positive growth and results from our economic initiatives.

In one of the top national business rankings, Baton Rouge moved up 38 spots in just one year on the Forbes List of Best Cities for Jobs; the second largest one-year increase in America.

Inc. Magazine’s 2007 rankings of Best Cities for Business listed Baton Rouge up an amazing 219 places over the previous year, from number 278 to number 59. They even called us a “Boomtown.” Expansion Magazine ranked Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish in the top 20 areas for bringing in business; 8th in the country for medium-size markets in business recruitment and attraction.

These rankings are a direct result of the economic diversity our parish has seen in the past few years.

And as we work to diversify our economy, our focus has been on film, video and digital media. It has been on health and medical research, and it has been on investing in our airport and public safety to make Baton Rouge more attractive to national corporations.

Our Baton Rouge Film Commission is now recruiting new films for production and post production with an economic impact exceeding $70 million.

We host the Red Stick International Animation Festival, bringing companies and people from throughout the world in the forefront of technology, art and science.

Working with LSU, we have created a Digital Consortium to continue to build capacity for this growing industry; one that will help keep our best and brightest at home.

We culminated Coca Cola’s 100th year anniversary with the announcement of Coca Cola’s plans to build a new production and distribution facility in Baton Rouge by 2008. The added good news is now they are expanding the original plan for their facility to include additional product lines, all, to still be completed within the original time line.

We kicked off our first new airline service in 21 years in 2007 when Frontier Airlines opened markets to the western U.S., Canada and Mexico and gave our city its first low-cost carrier in history.

But, I know you want more options in air travel from Baton Rouge, so we’re not stopping there, we’re working to bring more available flights and more direct flights to make your business and leisure travel easier.

We have seen great benefit from a new partnership with the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership, the 501c3 affiliate of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber; from a partnership with the Black Chamber of Commerce; and one with SCORE; our great treasure of working and retired executives and business owners who donate their time as business counselors.

To help small businesses and those wanting to achieve the American dream, we’ve developed a program that offers small business loans and micro-loans to help businesses get started successfully or survive the changes life brings them.

We are growing new jobs through the attraction of national corporations, new manufacturing facilities and the expansion of several existing national companies.

A trip to Taiwan has resulted in an international partnership between East Baton Rouge Parish, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and the National Science Council of Taiwan for medical research and technology park development.

We became the first city in the nation to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in Taiwan that will allow us to explore collaborations between high-tech firms and research institutes as well as the development of biotechnology and medical industry clusters with the Taiwanese Science Parks.

What does this mean for Baton Rouge?

First, it means we are encouraging knowledge-based companies to cluster in science or technology parks in the Greater Baton Rouge area to help grow these industries.

But more importantly, it means we are gaining world class status as we reach to form partnerships that put our best assets in collaboration with the best resources in the world.

This year, the Taiwan National Science Council has invited six scientists from Pennington to work with them in research, in a collaboration to find new cures, and healthier lifestyles.

It is an investment by Taiwan in Baton Rouge that will benefit us all.

Now let me turn for a minute to an issue that concerns every single one of us every single day.

Of course, I’m speaking of traffic – a problem that was ignored in our parish for too long, then aggravated by the influx of people to our city who were fleeing their own storm ravaged parishes.

To address our traffic problems in the quickest ways possible, we took a two-pronged approach with short and long-term solutions to congestion.

First, our Green Light Program approved by voters in 2005 connects, expands and extends smaller projects to relieve bottlenecks. Cynics ask, “When are you going to turn some dirt on those Green Light projects?”

They forget that projects of this type used to take 5-6 years, while now they are taking two. We’ve gone through design, planning, engineering and have broken ground on two Green Light projects with four more to start up this year… only two years after winning approval for the program from the voters.

Last year, I stood before you at this same time to announce our second major solution to traffic mitigation in our parish – the Baton Rouge Loop.

This is not a study we’ve studied enough. And I think we all know the answer:  traffic is a problem.

The Baton Rouge Loop Implementation Plan is the first step toward actual construction of the Loop – determining the best route around the city, best river crossings for two new Mississippi River Bridges and best financing model for taking advantage of new options the state legislature passed in 2006 to allow creative new methods of paying for new roads.

We just received $4 million from the State to fund our next phase next month, we will hold our second round of public meetings to help us finalize the corridor for the Loop and just yesterday, we reported to a group of elected officials from the five parishes participating in the Loop plan that we are six months ahead of schedule.

The Baton Rouge Loop isn’t just something we talk about for the future, it’s on course to be a reality so that we can be driving on it within the next 7 or 8 years.

We’re not just building roads, East Baton Rouge Parish is bringing new solutions to traffic that are becoming models for growing cities across the country.

Take a look at the intersection at Airline Highway and South Sherwood Forest Boulevard. A local engineering firm brought this innovative solution to Baton Rouge, making us the first city in this country to use a continuous flow intersection to get traffic moving at a busy interchange.

Now other cities across the country are taking a look at Baton Rouge and this creative solution. And if you drive on Airline Highway, you know that traffic is no longer backed up at that intersection and it truly lives up to its name. But it took someone saying, we can do things differently, we can build smarter and it’s OK if it hasn’t been done anywhere else, Baton Rouge can lead the way.

The Baton Rouge Loop is the first new highway project that is a collaborative effort by five Parish Presidents, who are working together to make decisions that will move our region forward.

East Baton Rouge Parish is leading the way in regional cooperation to bring a project forward that is a first to take advantage of creative new ways to build and finance large transportation projects in Louisiana.

I know things never seem to happen quickly enough when you spend any time at all in traffic, but I can assure you we have put short and long term solutions in overdrive and while you might experience a lot of construction this year, you’ll also notice the connector projects of the Green Light Plan will begin to ease the bottlenecks and long delays you’ve experienced.

And we are proud to participate and support a multi-parish effort to widen 1-10 and 1-12 and bring new opportunities to this growing and vital economic corridor... capitalizing on technology and the industries that have already located along this very important East - West passageway.

Just as when I began my administration, public safety remains my top priority. We are now in Phase II of implementing the Security Canopy program to make our city safer, expanding the existing 58 cameras tied to critical infrastructure.

The second phase adds an additional 80 cameras and incorporates a gunshot detection system to monitor areas of high crime, while also building a wireless network for emergency responders to allow for viewing of cameras and transfer of information while protecting our citizens.

We implemented a new Emergency Notification system called Connect CTY that can notify you of an emergency by phone, mail, text message and just about any way you receive communications. Advanced technology recognizes that leaving a message on an answering machine at home doesn’t help in today’s mobile communication world.

We’ve funded pay raises for our police and firefighters totaling nearly $4.5 million to ensure our first responders are compensated fairly so we can recruit the best.

We have just allocated funding to replace the final two of five outdated fire stations our administration inherited, as well as purchase new equipment to retain our rating as the first Class 1 department in the United States-an honor for our Baton Rouge Fire Department and an insurance savings for you and me.

A community is often defined by the quality of life we provide our residents, so we are dedicated to supporting community events that will help us understand our rich heritage, and build an appreciation for the performing and visual arts as well as our cultural events.

Recognized by the White House as a Preserve America Community, we are learning to celebrate our heritage, use our historic assets for community revitalization and development, and invite others to experience and appreciate our history.

This will be the revival year for the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, and we will welcome the addition of the Debbie Allen Community Program, a residency program to identify talented youth within our community.

To join our great Shaw Center for the Arts and our Louisiana State Museum, we look forward to the design of a new Library in the Park for our East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, and the next steps toward a Children’s Museum, both of these projects in partnership with our national award winning Parks and Recreation System, BREC.

And in addition to our parks, BREC is bringing bike paths, walking trails and even dog parks to Baton Rouge to keep pace with the recreational activities we want for our families.

Our administration came forward with a plan to address the very extensive needs of our wastewater program, a plan that was negotiated with the EPA - a plan that will complete all rehab on our sewer system - a plan that will cost far less than the one previously recommended that would have resulted in the job only being half complete.

We have also implemented a phased, fair garbage fee plan that will cover the cost of garbage pick-up and recycling, and put an end to some businesses and homeowners being double charged with a fee and property tax to subsidize garbage collection.

We have improved our bond ratings every year - a move that will save on interest paid and help our taxpayers’ funds go farther. We now have the highest credit rating in the State of Louisiana.

One of the rating agencies, Fitch stated, “[T]he local economy, while characterized by some concentration in the petrochemical industry, retains a fair amount of diversity through state government, higher education, financial services and health care. Officials report that more than $5 billion in new commercial construction and expansion of existing enterprises is scheduled for the next several years in the Baton Rouge area. Unemployment rates, which had climbed considerably in the months following the hurricanes, have dropped as the economy has recovered; the most recently available monthly figure of 4.3% (September 2007) is below the state (4.4%) and national (4.7%) averages for the month.”

And our administration has championed education from our public schools to our great universities and growing Community College.

We have a collaborative program with Superintendent Placide and the East Baton Rouge Parish School System called B.R.I.D.G.E.S. (Baton Rouge Initiative to Develop the Genius in Every Student). The coalition currently has in excess of 300 members and is comprised of sub-committees who are currently developing standards for programs for the school-aged children throughout the Parish. This network includes the providers of aftercare in day care centers, schools (public, private, and parochial), faith-based centers, as well as our parish library system, recreational facilities, and health care providers.

As an administration, we volunteer in schools, we mentor children, we brought software to our schools to teach math, science and art students to dream in 3-D, so they can grow up to be architects and engineers and other great creators.

We’ve stood with you, the Rotary Club, to help address one of the greatest problems facing our country and our city, literacy.

This year, we intend to move forward on a Major Capital Improvement Program. This program will include the construction of a public safety complex, allowing the Baton Rouge Police Department, Baton Rouge Fire Department, Office of Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security; Emergency Medical Services and the Coroner’s Office to be located in one centralized area for better use of facilities, increased training areas and more efficient emergency response.

We will also replace an additional eight fire stations and expand the existing parish prison to reduce the cost of housing prisoners in other parishes.

And in the downtown area, we will complete the River Center Expansion and begin building a world class Riverfront with the first phase of our Riverfront Development Plan.

Baton Rouge stood tall, and we stood together in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I was proud to represent our community when invited to testify before Congress about our response.

We’ve seen problems since Katrina, especially in housing, and an increase in our homeless population. But we were pleased to receive the largest increase in funding to address our homeless needs in the history of the City, a step that will help stem the tide caused by so many evacuating to our city.

I want to take a minute to tell you about a program we started with our Office of Neighborhoods two years ago, a program called Operation Restore Pride.

Our goal was to go into at-risk neighborhoods with a team approach. DPW cleans up vacant lots, we tow abandoned vehicles, Chief LeDuff and his officers go door-to-door to make sure citizens know they can call them if they see illegal activities taking place in their neighborhood.

We hold a Job Fair, volunteers paint and rehab houses, we spend a week helping to restore pride in neighborhoods that are having too many problems.

Zion City was the first neighborhood we cleaned up almost two years ago. Most of you know Zion City from the news,  from the crime, from the arrests and from the shootings.

Since we spent a week in that neighborhood, the people of Zion City meet every week in one of the churches to talk about problems in their neighborhood,  they meet to have a dialogue with Police and others to make their neighborhood safer.

They have become a community that cares, and they are determined to take their neighborhood back.

Neighborhoods USA, a national organization committed to building and strengthening neighborhood associations, has nominated Zion City for a national award for the care and commitment the residents have made to building a safe neighborhood for their families.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s progress.

When I took office on January 1, 2005, I felt we needed to teach our community to dream big. I knew we had the potential to be a great American city, one that could compete on the international stage, but we had to learn to believe in ourselves.

Today, I find Baton Rouge poised for true greatness, we’re removing the obstacles to our success,  planning for the future we all want for our families,  and nothing can stop us except our own failure to believe.

I am as excited about the future as I was the day I was elected to be your Mayor-President.

And so I will offer myself for re-election this year with the hope that the good people of East Baton Rouge Parish will honor me with the opportunity to continue to serve as your Mayor-President… so we can continue together on the path of building America’s next great city.

This is a job I enjoy,  for a city I love, and a community of people I deeply respect.

I like your test for Rotary Club members to consider the things we think, say or do. You ask, “Is it the truth?” “Is it fair to all concerned?” “Will it build goodwill and better friendships?” “Will it be beneficial to all concerned?”

With the simplicity of those four questions, translated now into more than 100 languages,  we can leave here today and make the world a better place.

Service Above Self

There’s no grander sight in the world than that person - fired with a greater purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim.

There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you do not do them.

It seems to me, we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good. And we must hunger after them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very proud of how we have come through difficult times and the progress we have achieved in only three years.

By far, our greatest asset as a city is our people, your hearts,  your compassion… and your love of our community.

Visitors to Baton Rouge enjoy our way of life, they enjoy our food and music, they enjoy our attractions.

But it is always our great people who keep others coming back.

We succeed because people like you put Service Above Self.

Thank you all for your own service to our community and may God bless each and every one of you,  and our home - Baton Rouge.