Since 2017, EAP and its regional higher education partners have sponsored more than 30 pitch competitions in north Louisiana and Lafayette to encourage students to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.

On June 7, Arceneaux hosted a news conference with officials from Amtrak and the Southern Rail Commission to announce one step forward in a plan to bring passenger rail service through Shreveport and across the Interstate 20 corridor that would connect Dallas to Atlanta.

The amendment passed on a 4-2 vote in the council meeting. Would take five votes to override a veto. Council members Tabatha Taylor, James Green, Ursula Bowman and Gary Brooks voted in favor of the ordinance. Council members Grayson Boucher and Jim Taliaferro voted against it.

“We are working on strategies to prevent and dispel the kind of activity we had late night downtown over the weekend,” Arceneaux said. “We’re examining what ordinances the establishments may have violated so that we can enforce those, and then developing strategies for breaking up the kind of activity that was there.

Arceneaux traveled with Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker, Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis and Vicksburg, Miss., Mayor George Flaggs Jr. to Capitol Hill to speak with lawmakers, Amtrak officials and others about a federal grant to build terminals in those cities along the proposed route.

“Most people seem to be pleased with what we are doing,” Arceneaux said. “Some of it is just dumb luck. I receive good luck as well as anyone else. Some of the groundwork was laid before I got here, and I am grateful for that.

These were not new taxes for city residents. The oldest of these millages was enacted in 1941, the most recent in 1970. Because they were allowed to expire instead of being renewed, voters must approve them again when they are on the ballot on April 29.

“If you look at some of the other states and where their growth comes from, it doesn’t come from who’s elected or occupies any seat in the capital at any given time,” he said. “It comes from communities filled with local business leaders who demand and drive change.