By james art 
Baton Rouge-Mayor-President Sid Edwards threatens to release hundreds of city workers on Tuesday if the parish voters in East Baton Rouge ultimately disagree to transfer the specialized funding to the library to a common account.
“If that doesn’t happen, I reduce 600 jobs. We cut services,” Edwards said at a press conference. A spokesman said that Edwards later intentionally used hyperbole to overcome his opinion that the Parish city faced a major shortage of funding.
Edwards calls his efforts “revive EBR.” It will currently use library funds for public safety, infrastructure and reduction of Blight, among other things.
He said that the money that is currently going to the parish library in East Baton Rouge will be better used by dealing with some of the “most urgent challenges of the city-monetary”.
“This is a major moment for Baton Rouge,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery at a press conference. “Using more efficiently existing resources, we can deal with long -standing problems without putting additional weight on taxpayers.”
Edwards said that while the library system would have a reduced budget, it would remain the highest funded in the country and that no service would be reduced by the system.
Mary Stein, an assistant director of the library system, said this was not possible.
“We are shortened to this number. It cannot be business as usual. We will need to shorten to fit into this different budget form. $ 38 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sib2mxqxznq
Edwards said we need to turn to public safety because “the dead can’t read books.”
The patrons of the library were worried by the plan of the new mayor-president. This year is due to the special tax on the ownership of the library for renewal this year.
Her leaders were hoping to meet the mayor for the way forward, which could be beneficial for both the library and meet urban norms. It was unclear whether Edwards rejected the library’s details.
According to the plan of Mayor-President Revive EBR will turn to
-Daranage and infrastructure
-Community implementation, police office and violence programs
-Fluction Access to Mental Health Services
-Sephat “Community Programs”
-Daders hurts and improve public spaces.
Edwards spokesman Falon Brown has said the problem of financing a city-monk is rooted in many sources. In addition to library and park systems that have their own specialized funding streams, about $ 48 million in sales tax revenue generated annually in the southeastern parish, they are now going to St. George, not to the cash registers.
Outside of major services such as fire and police protection, most urban Irodes will see a reduction in their budgets by 14.6 percent if Edwards requires a reduction in budget throughout the board.