WHERE WILL LSU GO BOWLING THIS POSTSEASON? 1C
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F r i d ay, d e c e m b e r 5, 2025
Spanish Town parade seeks funding help
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SU seeks leader with business ties, board says After parting ways with president, school wants more opportunities
BY HALEY MILLER Staff writer
for overtime, and we’re spending about $8 million, we have to make cuts in overtime.” A tentative compromise was reached at the conclusion of the three-hour hearing, with Morse, Metro Council members and the Mayor’s Office agreeing to work to ensure the 2026 parade happens as planned. East Baton Rouge Parish Chief Administrative Officer Christel Slaughter said the Mayor’s Office viewed
The week of Thanksgiving, the Southern University Board of Supervisors made clear its intention to part ways with current President Dennis Shields with a line on the second page of its upcoming meeting agenda. “Selection of Interim President for Southern University System commencing on January 1, 2026, until a permanent President is selected,” the item read. It was the first time many in the Southern University community learned the board would be seeking a new president. Some alumni Clayton had questions about why Shields, who oversaw enrollment increases across the system, was no longer seen as the best fit for the university. “I know that I serve at the pleasure of the board, and if the board wants to go in a different direction, at least the way I feel is that’s their prerogative,” Shields said in an interview. “I’m not going to object to that.” The conversations about his departure commenced in mid-October, Shields said. Leadership did not tell him the new direction they envisioned for the university, he said. But Board of Supervisors Chair Tony Clayton, who was appointed by Gov. Jeff Landry in November of last year, said he has a clear idea of who the university needs to take the helm: Someone focused on industry partnerships and fundraising, with less of an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
ä See PARADE, page 7A
ä See LEADER, page 9A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
The Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade has rolled in downtown Baton Rouge since 1981.
Security cost concerns affecting local events BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT Staff writer
Organizers for the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade are asking the Metro Council to set aside funds in the city-parish’s 2026 budget to cover security costs for the 2026 event. A seasonal fixture since 1981, the annual parade draws up to 200,000 people and is organized by the Mystic Krewe for the Preservation of Lagniappe in Louisiana. The Baton Rouge Police Department traditionally has covered event
security. But amid cuts to the cityparish budget, the Police Department enacted a new policy earlier this year that shifts most security costs for events — including parades — onto local organizers to help make up for a budget deficit. At a public hearing Wednesday on the proposed 2026 budget, Baton Rouge Police Chief Thomas Morse Jr. said the officer rate was around $50 to $55 an hour. “Really, what it comes down to is just bottom line,” he said. “When we’re looking at budgeted $4 million
Planned sale of Toledo Bend water to Texas on hold for now Dallas company wanted to pipe water from reservoir
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL Staff writer
A developing plan to ship Toledo Bend Reservoir water to Texas is “dead” for now, following months of local and legislative opposition, and won’t be back for discussion “any time soon,” state authority officials said. But the officials who considered that deal also didn’t rule out the possibility of water sales at some
WEATHER HIGH 51 LOW 45 PAGE 8B
point in the future, even as one Vernon Parish legislator promised this week to try to block them with a bill next spring. Under the now-sidelined concept, Toledo Bend Reservoir would have supplied 200,000 acre-feet per year from Louisiana’s share of water in the lake on the western edge of the state. A Dallas company had plans to pipe that water potentially hundreds of miles west to growing population centers in Texas, where state officials say 25% of the population could face municipal water shortages by 2070 due to rising demand and shrinking supplies. Two officials with the Sabine Riv-
er Authority of Louisiana, which oversees the Louisiana side of Toledo Bend, said the lack of support from their sister agency in Texas for an important engineering study, as well as opposition from key Louisiana legislators and local parishes, led to the end of talks last month with the company, Aqueduct Partners LP. “It’s just not the right time. We had a lot of pushback from a lot of legislators,” said Jimmy Foret, an SRA of Louisiana board member who led the committee investigating a water sale. Among the legislators against
STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID J. MITCHELL
ä See WATER, page 8A Toledo Bend Reservoir is located on the Louisiana-Texas border.
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101ST yEAR, NO. 158
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