By james art BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Sid Edwards is the head football coach at Eastrum High School. He hasn’t voted in eight years and is now running to be your new mayor-president of East Baton Rouge. He said government corruption has made him apolitical and now he wants to do something about it.
“I turned off the TV during an election and just put it aside and decided that my God-given purpose was to serve these young people and I was sick of it,” Edwards said. “Now in retrospect, it didn’t help at all.”
His top priority is tackling crime by adding 100 more police officers to the street, youth mentoring programs and a new city jail.
“There are many tentacles to the crime problem, and you can’t eat the elephant in one bite,” Edwards said. “So you need to tackle this on the front end and beef up our police force.”
Another issue is homelessness, which he says goes beyond affordable housing.
“Will it help with the homeless population, yes, but the homeless population needs help beyond affordable housing,” Edwards said. “They should have options. They should get an educational part. They need help in so many ways.”
Edwards says the blight or trap houses in the city lead to human trafficking, drug dealing and more criminal activity.
“We’re going to bulldoze them down, and if you ask me, how am I going to pay for it? First thing, we’ll find that property owner and find out what your plans are. Are you going to fix it or clean it or board it or make it pretty? We will enforce those who do not comply,” Edwards said.
With the incorporation of the city of St. George, some Baton Rouge tax revenue will be lost, but Edwards said he will make sure it is fair. He was not too specific about how he would execute the transition plan.
“Right now our budget is $1.3 billion, and I can’t speak intelligently because I haven’t gone through the budget yet, that would be premature, but I think we’re fine,” Edwards said.
A Republican not elected mayor of Baton Rouge since 2000, Edwards said he’s not worried about the polls. The latter places him in third place.
“It’s been my whole life,” Edwards said. “My whole life. In kindergarten I was told I couldn’t do five pull-ups because I was the fattest kid in the class. There’s no way he can and I’m going to live my life proving them wrong and I look forward to having the opportunity to do that here.
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