1 week Ago
Sid Edwards receives a round of applause during his speech after being sworn in as East Baton Rouge Mayor-President at River Center Theatre on Thursday, January 2, 2025. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Two months ago, Sid Edwards was a high school football coach. But this week, he led Louisiana's most-populous parish through a weather event the likes of which Baton Rouge hasn't seen in more than 100 years.
The new East Baton Rouge mayor-president, who took office earlier this month , faced a chaotic crash course in running a government in the first few weeks of his term. "One way I'm built for it, in the line of work I was in, mainly dealing with students is a lot of chaos," Edwards said. "And when you get up and go to work as an educator, as a dean of students, for example, the role I was in, there's no blueprint for that day.
" There certainly was no blueprint for Tuesday, when Baton Rouge was blanketed by up to 9 inches of snow, closing roads, business and government offices, some for the whole week. Just as he once trusted the offensive and defensive coordinators he appointed, the mayor listened to the insight of his hires and the seasoned leaders of Baton Rouge's government departments. For example, it was veteran public works employees who found ways to convert front-loaders and road construction equipment into snowplows and salt-spreaders.
"I learned a lot in these five days," Edwards said. "The big thing, the thing I liked was the quiet confidence of the people that are in charge." 'The most vulnerable population' By Tuesday afternoon, Baton Rouge was covered with more snow than it has seen since 1895 .
The day before, Edwards closed city-parish offices, a shutdown that would extend through Friday, and urged residents to stay inside and off the roads. But Edwards said his greatest concern and primary focus was people who didn't have shelter. Sid Edwards speaks to the media as snow and freezing temperatures head to Baton Rouge on Sunday Jan.
19, 2025. The mayor took multiple visits throughout the week to the pop-up homeless shelters that opened at district community centers or offices of Metro Council members Anthony Kenney, Cleve Dunn Jr., Darryl Hurst and Carolyn Coleman.
"It's the most vulnerable population," Edwards said. "The millionaire that lives off Highland Road is important to Baton Rouge, but no more so than the barber on Plank Road in the big picture of what we're doing. One of my goals in the coming weeks is to get both sides of town to see how the other lives.
" The focus appears to have extended to Edwards' staff and other parish leadership over the past week. Administrative Chief Administrative Officer Jeff LeDuff said hundreds of beds were filled between the six shelters that operated this week. "A lot has been said about how well this group responded," LeDuff said.
"We want to thank our community partners and our council members ...
that came to our aid." According to LeDuff, Coleman helped two of the men who sought shelter at her district's community center secure job interviews Friday. A 'team effort' The snowstorm was also a test for some of Edwards top staffers — many of whom themselves are new to government.
Throughout much of the week, Edwards could be seen making the rounds joined by two of his top staffers: Chief Administrative Officer Charlie Davis and Chief of Staff Lon Vicknair . Davis, a businessman turned public servant, has held a number of roles for various companies over the past two decades, most recently as the CEO of Moxey, a financial services company for businesses. Vicknair touts a 20-year career as a Naval Officer before holding a number of leadership positions at PSC Group, a chemical logistics company, before joining the ranks at City Hall.
LeDuff is the high-ranking appointee with the most government experience — he served as Baton Rouge Police Department chief from 2004 to 2010. Baton Rouge city employee Brandon Vaughn, operating a Bobcat T750 skid steer, carefully plows a row of snow at a bridge nearby Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. City employees did not have snow plows that are commonplace in snowy states so they were forced to repurpose machinery to move the unprecedented snowfall.
As he continues to fill out his staff, the mayor said he is intentionally looked to candidates with different experiences and backgrounds. Other staffers include a former charter school administrator, a state finance coordinator and a 20-year-old LSU student who ran his campaign. "When we're building the team, the big thing I want is some diversity and some inclusion and different skill levels," Edwards said.
"I can't have 10 military guys, right? And I can't have 10 business people, right? It's the melding of those talents." Though the team is new, the mayor called it "uncanny" how well its members worked in synergy this week, both among each other and with department heads, emergency response staff and "Our partners, the Sheriff Department, the constable's office ..
. and Dr. (Tamiara) Wade out at the Juvenile Services who kept the kids safe and warm.
It was a team effort," LeDuff said. The team's test ahead With a major weather event now under their belts, Edwards and his team must now turn to the longer-term work of governing: crafting budgets, advancing an agenda through the Metro Council and other long-term efforts. That kind of work can pose a different challenge, particularly for some with limited government experience, according to Darryl Gissel, who was a businessman before serving as former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome's Chief Administrative Officer from 2017 to 2022.
The slower pace of working in government, which requires multiple layers of bureaucracy and more hoops to jump through, can often frustrate those used to working more swiftly in the private sector. "The results don't necessarily come quickly," Gissel said. Like Edwards' CAO in Davis, Gissel also had some background in business, working for a large development company before moving into politics.
He said running the government like a business made good fiscal sense. Blankets of snow still cover several lanes at the I-10/110 split on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "We tried to make certain that if somebody is getting a service, they're paying for that service in Baton Rouge," he said.
But this approach is easier in the business world, Gissel said, where an idea doesn't need Metro Council approval or an OK from the parish attorney to come to fruition. "You can do it, but you can't just wave a wand and make it happen. It's very slow," Gissel said.
Edwards said he has always seen Baton Rouge step up during times of crisis, and on Friday, the mayor said he once again saw the city come together and pass the test over a five-day period. But now that the storm has passed and the ice has melted, he says his team has a new test before them: to build that attitude in a permanent way, beyond times of crisis. "It's amazing.
It takes an act of God or Mother Nature or whomever for Baton Rouge to show the deep soul that it has. And that happened again this week," Edwards said. "Is there a world in which we can bottle that up and live that way? That's one of my goals.
".
