State Rep. Danny McCormick talks to 101.7 / 710 KEEL's Robert J Wright and Erin McCarty about the just passed legislation that would return control of the 5-mile-area outside the Shreveport city limits to the Caddo Parish Commission.

"The Metropolitan Planning Commission had authority over a five mile area outside of the Shreveport city limit," McCormick reminds KEEL listeners, "and the (just passed) legislation pushed that boundary back to the city limits of Shreveport."

McCormick gives credit to Caddo citizens themselves for standing up for their property rights. "It was a grassroots effort by a group called Caddo Alliance for Freedom," he says, explaining that the movement began "when the MPC was coming out to the rural area and began writing tickets. And the people in rural Caddo Parish inside that five mile boundary felt they were having their property rights impeded and that was the reason for the legislation.

McCormick then explains the particulars of the just basses bill. "What this does is is give the authority over this five-mile-area back to the Caddo Commission. What the Caddo Parish Commission members want to do with that authority is up to them. But now the people in that five-mile-area have people they elect - people that answer to them - instead of an appointed board - the MPC - that they don't have any control over."

And the first term rep from Vivian says he and his constituents feel this is a big step in the right direction to insure individual rights and that legislation originating at the state level was necessary because, "The local politicians, the majority of them, wouldn't listen to the people in the five-mile-area."

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