Shreveport City Council Votes to Put Bond Issue on April Ballot

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Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux has been on the trail for the last several weeks promoting his new bond proposal package. The mayor is hoping to raise $256 million for vital projects, including streets, police and fire, and water and sewer infrastructure needs.

Mayor Arceneaux told KEEL News on Wednesday:

It is good news, now the work starts to get the information out to the public. This is a really important time, and a needed time to reinvest in Shreveport.

What's included in the Bond Proposal

The bond proposal includes three different propositions:

Streets and Drainage- $125 million

Water and Sewer- $82 million

Police/Fire/SPAR- $49 million

SFD/Facebook

Police & Fire/SPAR

The Police and Fire portion of the 49 million is only 11 million dollars. It includes:

Police & Fire Academy renovations- $4 Million
Fire Station Revovations (Stations 5, 6, 7, and 19) - $3 Million
Replacing Fire Station #3, on E. 70th next to the hotel

The rest of the proposition will be allocated for SPAR needs, including parks, swimming pool replacements, tennis upgrades, pickleball courts, and Cargill Park improvements.

SPAR/FACEBOOK

The mayor emphasized that "none of the projects on this proposal are adding money to any other projects. These are all stand-alone projects, so we think that we can get all of the projects done that are from prior bond issues, and they will probably be underway well before we even sell these bonds."

Streets & Drainage

Mayor Arceneaux also said:

I will say this, and this is a really important point to make. There's almost $53 million dollars, out of that $125 million dollars that is neighborhood street reconstruction. These are streets that have long needed work. The committee worked very, very hard to set those priorities.

The council voted 5-2 on Tuesday in favor of putting the Bond Proposal on the April 27th ballot. If you want to vote in this election and are not registered you have until March 27th to register. The Geaux Vote Online Registration deadline is April 6th. Early voting begins April 13th and ends on April 20th.