Baton Rouge government watchdog Leslie Davis states to WAFB (Channel 9 in Baton Rouge)’s Liam Combs on September 30, 2025 her opposition to EBRP Mayor President’s THRIVE initiative scheduled for a vote on November 15, 2025 because it includes a tax increase. Photo courtesy of WAFB (Channel 9) in Baton Rouge.
Voters began receiving a mailer in yesterday’s (Wednesday, October 29, 2025) mail which touts EBRP Mayor-President’s THRIVE vote scheduled for November 15, 2025, with early voting beginning this Saturday, November 1, 2015.
Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns attended the September 29, 2025 meeting of the Baton Rouge Press Club at which EBRP Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ representatives, Councilwoman Jen Racca and the Mayor’s Office Director, Mason Batts, outlined the plan and fielded questions on it.
Regrettably, Burns inadvertently formatted the memory card on his camera believing he had transferred all of its files onto his hard drive, only to discover that the files for that meeting had not been transferred prior to formatting.
Consequently, we are going to have to improvise and refer folk who want to watch the entire presentation to WLPB’s (public broadcasting in Baton Rouge)’s YouTube video of the meeting.
Baton Rouge government watchdogs Ernie Lewis, Pennie Landry, and Leslie Davis all grilled Batts about whether THRIVE represents a tax increase. Again, improvising, let’s present the “quick and dirty one word answer of ‘yes’” by taking an excerpt from WAFB’s Liam Combs’ coverage of the meeting. Here is the excerpt:
9/30/25: After Leslie Davis, Ernie Lewis, and Pennie Landry succeed at the meeting in obtaining an admission that the THRIVE vote does include a tax increase, Davis expresses her opposition to the plan “for that reason.”
At a subsequent meeting, October 13, 2025, the proposed new LSU arena was the topic of discussion, and we’ll be presenting that meeting with more in-depth coverage in coming weeks because we triple-checked our computer this time, and the video files pertaining to it are in fact there.
We apologize to our site visitors because we strongly prefer to present video coverage of the meetings wherein the individual posing the question at the meeting is on video as well as the guest’s answer being on video.
Unfortunately, due to a first-in-ten-year botched file transfer on our parts, we weren’t able to do that for this particular meeting. We also thank the folk at WAFB for being able to bail us out!
Early voting begins Saturday, November 1, 2025, so go let your sentiments be known whatever they may be.