If you aren’t in Baton Rouge, and possibly even if you are, you might not know that on Saturday night three tax measures being pushed by Mayor-President Sid Edwards went down to defeat by the voters.

Turnout was ridiculously low – just 19 percent.

All three proposals – which were to rededicate property taxes from the library system, mosquito and rodent control board, and the Council on Aging into the city-parish general fund so as to head off budget cuts – went down on a relatively close vote.

And on Monday the layoffs began.

Mayor-President Sid Edwards said government layoffs due to the city-parish budget crisis started in his office on Monday.

Edwards said four of his employees were laid off, “unfortunately, the first of many who will be affected, not only in my office but across our government.”

Edwards’ proposed 2026 budget included a workforce reduction of 420 positions across the city-parish. He said the cuts were necessary due to the rejection of his Thrive EBR plan to rededicate money from the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, Council on Aging and Mosquito Abatement to the city-parish’s general fund.

Edwards says cuts to other departments will begin Jan. 1 and continue through the first quarter of 2026.

The vote on the three Thrive proposals was interesting. They got absolutely killed in the mostly-black precincts. They did fairly well in the mostly-white precincts, but not enough to offset the black vote.

And it was strange, because most of the Republicans I talked to had a similar reaction to mine. I voted for the proposals but it didn’t bother me that they didn’t pass.

Because the city-parish government is utterly, ridiculously bloated and gives taxpayers an atrocious return on our investment, which is why Edwards got elected in the first place. It’s also why the city of St. George was created in the southern end of the parish.

Those layoffs, unpleasant as they’ll be, should have happened years ago. And city-parish government has needed to be put on a diet for a very long time.

The Thrive proposals would have been an exercise in reducing bloat at the library system, Council on Aging and mosquito control board, and that’s why they were worth passing. But it’s sort of a strategic six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-the-other proposition – had they passed, Edwards would have been able to claim credit for reducing bloat in those three areas of city-parish government only to preserve it everywhere else, at least for now.

With the current round of layoffs across the bureaucracy, what he’s going to end up proving is the city-parish government will be perfectly fine with a lot smaller payroll. And that’s going to put pressure on the pest control board and Council on Aging to ask for a smaller millage when their tax comes up for renewal – or else risk getting popped by the taxpayers on a future Election Night.

And in the case of the library board, the Thrive proposal that failed 53-47 was their renewal. It’s a good thing the library system has a $100 million fund balance, because that’s what it’s going to run on next year before it can bring a new millage before the voters again.

You had a whole bunch of Democrats who didn’t want to vote for a smaller millage to support the library system. And you had a bunch of Republicans who don’t understand why East Baton Rouge needs 14 library branches in an age when you can download virtually any book every written basically for free with a Kindle Unlimited account. It was an interesting coalition that came together to defeat that proposal.

In other words, what happened Saturday might have been a political defeat for Edwards, at least momentarily, but it wasn’t a defeat for smaller government. To the contrary.

That isn’t a criticism of Edwards. He tried to give the Democrats a soft landing, and that was a very civil, nice thing to do.

They didn’t want to play ball, so now it’s a crash landing.

Sort of. Half the personnel savings are going to come from eliminating positions which are funded but not filled, and then there will be 200 or so layoffs in city-government, not to include cops and firemen who’ll be spared.

But the unfilled positions are the ones that Edwards would have been able to use to put Republicans into the city-parish bureaucracy. Not filling them is a problem, because that means it’ll be harder for him to make policy. What happens nationally, where President Trump has to fight the entrenched leftist bureaucrats who won’t implement his orders, also happens locally. The way you fix that problem is to hire your own people and they find a way to get the work done when the other bureaucrats try to sabotage the implementation of the orders.

Edwards is giving up on that effort by not filling those positions, which is a big concession.

So it’s a lousy thing to do, but Edwards’ people need to single out as many activist Democrats as possible for the future layoffs. When he started the layoffs within his own office and sent four people packing, he did all the virtue-signaling that he’s required to do. From here on in, you run the place the way the Democrats run their cities – protect your own and stick it to the other guy.

Especially after last month, when Edwards became embroiled in a stupid mini-controversy over the idea that ICE would set up shot in Baton Rouge and begin deporting illegals. Text messages between Edwards and a political consultant surfaced in which the mayor was strategizing over trying to hold off on the ICE arrivals until after the election, and that was seen as a problem for him.

Well, it’s not a problem anymore. Nothing stops those ICE officers rolling in and scrubbing Baton Rouge of illegals. If that means a dearth of roofers and housecleaners for a little while, so be it.

Edwards is also free to endorse having the National Guard deploying in Baton Rouge to help with the city’s crime problem – which isn’t particularly improving, at least not at a rate anybody should be happy with.

There is nothing wrong with a new mayor spending his first year in an attempt to be ecumenical and bipartisan in his approach to government. You extend the olive branch, because if the opposition takes it you might be able to craft some sort of Era of Good Feelings in Baton Rouge. Kip Holden managed something like that, at least in his first term.

But when they don’t accept the olive branch, and they haven’t, then it’s time to reward your friends and punish your enemies, and Edwards now has the budget deficit to use for just that purpose.

So those layoffs should be strategic to the purpose of gutting Edwards’ perceived political enemies, and particularly those in a position to threaten his re-election.

And if they don’t like it, he can shrug and point to Saturday’s results, and tell them “Hey, this is what you asked for.”