EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the first in a two-part opinion series about the Jindal administration and northwest Louisiana.

It hasn’t been too many years ago that we could compare the communication/cooperation distance between our little corner of northwest Louisiana and state government in Baton Rouge along, say, the light years from Earth to Pluto. 

And we could have been living on Pluto when it came to capital outlay funding and visits from past governors’ administrations.  

But this circumstance appears to have changed rather dramatically for Bossier City and Bossier Parish as fairly recently state funding widened Highway 511 at the Jimmie Davis Bridge, and is helping to create the safety ramps off the bridge.  Cyber Innovation Center is a cooperative endeavor between city, parish, and state.  A Bossier Parish sewer district will become a reality with the help of low interest loans from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.  Two compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling stations are under construction.

According to local officials, there’s a reason the communication/cooperation distance between Bossier Parish and Baton Rouge has been reduced from light years to a couple of hours – or even a phone call:  successful efforts of cooperative local government has attracted the favorable attention of Governor Bobby Jindal and his administration.  As that success story is best told by those involved, here follow are the observations of a few of those involved.

Rep. Jane Smith recalls:  “In my 10 years that I’ve been in the Legislature, every person I’ve talked to that’s been involved in trying to move Bossier City and Bossier Parish forward has always talked about the fact that we rapidly outgrew our infrastructure.  The biggest problem that was going to face Bossier City and Bossier Parish was the wonderful growth we were having.

“But the challenges we would have would be infrastructure – and infrastructure is not always a real fun thing to talk about and not real pretty – but it’s necessary if you are going to build houses and build schools and people are going to come and live in your area and businesses are going to thrive … The good news about us is that we’ve always said ‘what is good for Bossier Parish is good for Bossier City, and what is good for Bossier City is good for Bossier Parish’ – and therein lies why we’ve been able to do some of the things we’ve done.”

Smith went on to describe the process used in Bossier Parish of setting top priorities annually for the city/parish from which to seek state assistance, whether that’s in the form of grants, loans, or capital outlay funding.  

“We’ve always said we’ve got to do something about the (parish) sewer district or we’re going to have trouble with environmental protection, people are not going to build any more homes, there’s going to be no more expansions throughout the Parish …” Last year, the Parish qualified for significant funding in low interest loans to get the sewer district off the ground.

But it didn’t stop there, said Smith.  “A couple of nights before the (just finished) session, I got a call from Timmy Teeple, who was the Governor’s chief of staff at the time.  He basically said “Jane, we realize the impact that Bossier City and Bossier Parish have on northwest Louisiana, and y’all have been a great friend to us … what are y’all looking at as your top priority.’  And I said, ‘without a doubt, the consolidation of the (parish) sewer district.”
Smith recalled that local officials hoped for three or four million dollars – instead the number was $13 million.  Smith was able to secure $420,000 for the Flat River Stabilization Project.

To Be Continued

Marty Carlson is a columnist for the Bossier Press-Tribune and has been covering local issues for more than 10 years. She may be reached via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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