Community Board Meeting with John Georges

As a community board member, I recently had the opportunity to sit in on an editorial board meeting with John Georges, a Republican candidate for governor. What follows are my impressions of our meeting and his answers to a standard set of questions that will be put to all candidates, but were not available to them prior to our meeting. I am not affiliated with or have financially or otherwise supported any of the gubernatorial candidates.

Mr. Georges describes himself as an optimistic, life-long leader who: 1) prefers to make decisions and take action rather than develop policy; 2) finds and/ or develops other successful leaders and empowers them to take action; 3) believes Louisiana’s current problems directly result from a failure in leadership and that his leadership style will lead to improvements for our state. He cites his multiple, successful businesses and business turn arounds as evidence that he has the ability to make a positive impact in our state as governor. He additionally has given his own time, skills, and money to causes important to him and his local community.

In terms of specific issues Mr. Georges appears to be a strong proponent of public- private partnerships as a tool for economic development citing many development activities that UNO participated in such as the D-Day museum in N.O.. He additionally felt such partnerships would also be important and should be developed for other issues facing our state such as coastal restoration. He supports the concept of charter schools and believes expanding preschool throughout our school systems can improve education for our children. He feels that our state cannot compete if we have taxes that make it more advantageous for individuals or businesses to locate in our neighboring states. He implied that modification of our state income tax would lead to more Louisiana residents returning to Louisiana. He acknowledged health care as a major issue but did not seem to have any specific ideas as he did for many other issues discussed. He also talked a great deal about the rebuilding of New Orleans.

Overall I enjoyed meeting with Mr. Georges. As I reflect about our hour long meeting, it seemed to me that almost all of his examples were in fact related to south Louisiana and I wonder if that means anything or is just a product of answering an unknown set of questions on the spot. He was personable, optimistic, and confident that he can improve Louisiana for all of us. He is a leader in his community and successfully leads multiple business enterprises. At this point the real question seems to be if he can convince the rest of the state that he can turn our state around like he has done in business.