Mayoral Years
In 1977, Lanier scored a political comeback, not for utilities commissioner, for that position had been abolished in the new city charter. Instead, he ran for mayor in a multi-candidate nonpartisan blanket primary. He forced controversial Mayor John K. Snyder into a runoff, called the general election in Louisiana. Eliminated in the primary were Champ Leroy Baker (1919–1985), a planning and development official active in veterans' causes; Judith Ward-Steinman Karst, the then wife of former Mayor Ed Karst, and outgoing Commissioner Arnold Jack Rosenthal. In the second balloting, Lanier topped Snyder, 8,420 (68 percent) to 3,934 ballots (32 percent). Upon taking office as mayor, Lanier removed eavesdropping devices that Snyder had installed throughout Alexandria City Hall. When Snyder refused to surrender his municipal car, Lanier had the payroll office withhold Snyder's final paycheck until the vehicle was returned to the city.
Lanier retained the outgoing Streets and Parks Commissioner Malcolm P. Hebert, a registered mechanical engineer as the head of the new Department of Public Works under the city charter.
After Hebert left the post, Lanier named as the replacement Anthony S. "Tony" D'Angelo (1917-2012), an Alexandria native, 30-year veteran of the United States Navy, and the former manager of the Rapides Parish Coliseum.
Lanier also pleased business by attempting to move the city forward economically. He hired Ray R. Allen, the secretary-treasurer since 1963 who had been dismissed by Snyder in the waning days of that administration, as the new finance director under the mayor-council government.
Mayor Lanier oversaw the construction of the downtown Alexander Fulton Minipark, named for Alexander Fulton, the founder of Alexandria. He secured federal grant money that resulted in the establishment of the Alexander Fulton Inn, which includes downtown convention facilities.
Under Lanier, the decision was made to route Interstate 49 through downtown Alexandria instead of twenty miles to the west, as many had presumed would have been the better location from an engineering standpoint. The revised Jackson Street Bridge atop the Red River proceeded under Lanier. It is named for the late U.S. Representative Gillis W. Long of Alexandria. Lanier supported the construction of the performing arts center downtown, which was not completed until the administration of later Mayor Ned Randolph.
Lanier supported the building of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center and the Bolton Community Center. He worked to pave forty-five streets in the African American community. Under Lanier, the first black firefighters and the first female bus drivers were hired.
In time, however, voters again soured on Lanier. Economic difficulties dominated local, state, and national news in 1982, and Alexandria was hard-hit by the slump. Faced with declining city revenues, utility rates crept upward again. Lanier imposed a hiring freeze on new city employees. He further ordered the 923 city employees to work only thirty-two hours per week, instead of the customary forty hours, with a one-fifth cut in gross pay. The proposed work reduction was, however, struck down as an abuse of mayoral authority by Ninth Judicial District Court Judge William Polk. Lanier particularly angered sanitation workers when he declared that their pace of work was too slow. He threatened privatization unless their overall efficiency improved.
In seeking reelection, Lanier urged constituents to be patient regarding utility rates because the city had signed an agreement with the Central Louisiana Electric Company of Pineville to purchase coal-fired power from the new Rodemacher facility. Voters, however, rallied once more behind Snyder, who unseated Lanier, much to the consternation of the Alexandria business establishment who feared Snyder's often erratic ways.
Lanier ran once more for mayor in 1986, when Snyder declined to seek a third nonconsecutive term, but he polled only 912 votes (5 percent). The position went instead to former State Senator Ned Randolph, who held the position for a record twenty years.
Read more about this topic: Carroll E. Lanier
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“In most nineteenth-century cities, both large and small, more than 50 percent—and often up to 75 percent—of the residents in any given year were no longer there ten years later. People born in the twentieth century are much more likely to live near their birthplace than were people born in the nineteenth century.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)