Shreveport City Councilman Will Not Seek Reelection After First Term
The announcement was made during a Broadmoor Neighborhood Association meeting Tuesday night. District C Shreveport City Councilman John Nickelson told the crowd that he would not seek reelection. Making him a one-term councilmember.
Nickelson took over District C after winning the race in 2018. That council seat had previously been held by two-term Councilman Oliver Jenkins. Nickelson would have been on the ballot for reelection this November.
Now there will be qualifying for his seat, which will be in July of this year.
This comes just on the heels of a heated debate within Shreveport Government over alleged financial improprieties, a discrimination lawsuit, and Nickelson's knee-jerk demotion from a Council Committee. Early this year, former Shreveport employee Ben Hebert filed a lawsuit against the City of Shreveport alleging that he was fired from his job for refusing to break the law on the city's behalf. He also claims discrimination in the case.
Once the details of Mr. Hebert's case became public, calls for the Louisiana State Auditor to investigate the alleged impropriates began. One of the voices requesting this investigation was Councilman Nickelson, who was the Chairman of the Shreveport City Council Audit and Finance Committee. Nickelson says less than an hour after he requested the audit, he was stripped of his position on the committee:
Since the audit fight, there have been other battles inside the City that Nickelson has been at the center of. Less than a month after requesting the state audit, Nickelson spoke out about the City's $9.5 million real estate purchase, and the fact that the Council was kept in the dark until after it was made public.