Term limits in any form have yet to be approved by Bossier City voters this spring, but the sunshine the issue attracted onto city governance already has them working as intended – if, unfortunately, tardily.
At this time in the 2021 election cycle, city government had a mayor vying for a fifth term, a councilor wanting a third term, three councilors shooting for sixth terms, one gunning for a seventh, and still another asking for an eighth. When the dust settles after these elections, at most only one of these seven will remain in office.
The last election cycle produced some tremors when Republican Tommy Chandler ended the GOP’s Lo Walker’s run as mayor, Republican Shane Cheatham decisively defeated the GOP’s District 1 Councilor Scott Irwin, and Republican Chris Smith knocked out of at-large office GOP Councilor Tim Larkin. This cycle is on the verge of registering an earthquake with graybeards Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free with Democrat Bubba Williams all passing on tries for seventh, fourth, and eighth terms, respectively.
Odds are they wouldn’t have deferred – and, with the possible exception of Montgomery’s at-large seat, not find themselves replaced by reformers who want to see less, particularly capital, spending – had not an unprecedented amount of attention become focused on their activities. It really only began in 2020, when, for me in earnest, it started with the issue of the city renewing property tax levies at similar maximum rates rather than at their rolled back rates, in order to reduce the temptation to raise property taxes in the future (hikes which now appear to be on the way).
I would like to claim, insofar as critics of the graybeard mayor and councilors that had stuck around for so long – which includes the only one this year, attempting election for a ninth term (the last seven to date consecutively) independent Jeff Darby, and Free’s predecessor Republican David Jones who served from 1997-2013, teaming with Larkin, Montgomery, Irwin, and Williams in a spending orgy – that I was Patient Zero in whipping up concern about city overspending. On radio in the mid-1990s I was calling for the city to spend more wisely its new casino bounty (to the chagrin of Jones, a frequent caller into the program).
Taking a trip down print memory lane, when I was columnist for the Shreveport Times in 1997-98, one of my very first pieces covered the 1997 election that returned Jones, brought back Darby, and introduced Williams that turned on the issues of public sector salaries and the botched sale of Bossier Medical Center. I picked it back up in 2001 (for which I would contribute for the next 16 years until it literally died) for the political newsletter Fax-Net Update in the aftermath of those elections that turned on the building and location of the white elephant (insert sponsor name here) arena.
With so much water under the bridge, today’s readers may forget (or not have known; the youngest elected official now, Smith, was in grade school then) that this 1997-2001 period is very similar in terms of electoral turmoil to the current 2021-25 cycle that, while Democrat Mayor George Dement cruised both times, saw all but two councilors defeated in 1997, one of those two survivors retiring in 2001, and two of the 1997 rookies picked off in 2001. Surviving both was only Democrat Councilor James Rogers, whose District 5 over the next two decades ironically would become the one with the most, and almost only one with, turnover.
I don’t recall thinking after the dust settled whether I pinned my hopes on the likes of Larkin, Montgomery, Irwin (who actually came on board about a year later in a special election) Darby, and Williams to act as reformers to make wiser spending decisions, having just the thought that the bunch they had replaced needed booting. But the worst was to come, as it was with the retirement of Dement and ascension of Walker and return of these guys (only Walker and Williams faced opposition) in 2005 that the spendaholicism truly went out of control.
I wish I could say, as bad decision after bad decision mounted (piling on to the money-losing arena was a parking garage gift to an outdoor mall that went into receivership, a high-tech office building whose juice wasn’t worth the squeeze, more money wasted getting into the alternative fuel business, a botched development deal that seemed primed to line the pockets of Montgomery and Irwin, and many smaller things), that for nearly 20 years I hammered away constantly at these follies. Maybe if I had, we wouldn’t have gotten the biggest lemon of them all: a duplicative road which manages to avoid some railroad crossings and otherwise cut a few minutes off a drive most motorists never make, the tune of $84 million and counting.
But I didn’t. Every three months or so on average I would post on my Between the Lines blog mirrored in Fax-Net (and staring in the spring of 2019 for about a year in what now is known as Focus SB, but which is behind a paywall) the latest bad decision or its consequences. As it was, in the 186 months up to mid-2020, which is about 3,940 posts, exactly 58 or 1.5 percent concerned actions within Bossier City government (and about a third of those dealt with elections). There were stretches where I might go several months without a peep about Bossier City government actions.
It was a flashlight where sunshine was needed, but finally in mid-2020 I made the decision to cover city politics much more intensely, first with cross-posted columns in BossierNow then cross-posting in Bossier Views from the time the new mayor and Council started up. Since then, which is about 1,165 BTL posts, I mirrored 155 (13.3 percent) onto BV. So, 58 in 15.5 years compared to 155 in just over 4.5 years.
That changed the dynamic. And within months I began to find myself joined by more and more and more company that altogether put the actions of city government under a microscope, driven largely by the term limits issue as the solution to the reckless spending problem (it was 2017 when I proposed that specifically in print).
And this floodlight thrown onto city government actions is what pushed the likes of Montgomery, Free, and Williams into retirement. For them for two decades and more they could have their way with taxpayer dollars with just an occasional admonishment from the likes of me, but when their service turned into a weathering of an onslaught of public criticism requiring increasing defense of increasingly indefensible actions – plus the resistance put up by new councilors Republicans Smith and Brian Hammons and, if more muted, Chandler (let’s not forget he was part of the counterwave of 1997-2001 when he ran with Montgomery and Larkin for the at-large post, finishing fourth with 17 percent of the vote) – it became no fun for them when they no longer could use the public purse to boost their egos or serve special interests (or even their own careers outside of government).
And so now they’re gone as of Jun. 30, a good two decades late, with perhaps Darby joining them in two months. I’d like to think this space had a little something to do with this century’s most positive development in Bossier City politics. But most of the credit must go to those around the parish, regardless of how they became aware of the bad trajectory of city governance and whether in city government, who made the effort by words and deeds to set the stage to change it.