By james art BATON ROUGE – In Eastern Baton Rouge Metro Council meeting Wednesday afternoon, members approved the mayor-president to execute a Joint Efforts Agreement with the Baton Rouge Sponsorship Committee/Together Baton Rouge to provide $500,000 in partial financing to provide three community “beacons”.
These headlights will be covered with batteries and solar panels. They will also provide charging stations, heating and cooling, among other things. Together Baton Rouge lead organizer Edgar Cage says they will be of great help to the citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish during massive power outages.
“Your neighbor is your true first responder. Before outage, these locations will be required to go out and explore the neighborhood to find out where are the most vulnerable,” he said.
These panels will be built at St. Mark United Methodist Church, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in North Baton Rouge and IBEW Local 995.
“They are also in underserved areas. We prioritize to underserved areas. Scotlandville, Glen Oaks and the IBEW training facility,” said a guest.
Supporters stress that these places are not meant to be shelters.
“This is to improve our ability as a parish to take care of our vulnerable citizens,” said MOSHEP Director Clay Reeves.
“It’s about someone getting their oxygen tank charged and not having to go to Southern University,” Ward 5 Councilman Daryl Hurst Jr. said.
Cage says these panels will also be a way to save the city money.
“It’s not going to cost this site or the city government any more money once we get these lights up and running because they’re designed to take care of themselves,” he said.