BATON ROUGE, LA – BREC’s new interim superintendent Janet Simmons continued her parish-wide listening tour this week by assuring residents that she’s fully committed to hearing a wide range of ideas, so long as they fall safely within the realm of mild inconvenience and minimal innovation.
“We’re looking for new, transformative ideas,” Simmons told a crowd in Central, “but not, you know, too new. Or transformative. Really more like comfortably forgettable.”
When residents suggested creative updates like community gardens, splash pads, or actual restrooms with plumbing, Simmons smiled warmly and wrote “great energy” in her notebook before swiftly pivoting to the importance of re-striping the existing parking lots.
The listening tour will continue throughout East Baton Rouge Parish, with residents encouraged to speak freely as long as their ideas don’t exceed $38, conflict with preexisting contracts, or require BREC to mow anything more than once a quarter.
Meanwhile, a leaked draft of the new BREC slogan simply reads: “We Hear You. We Won’t Act on It, But We Hear You.”
Simmons also promised to reduce the amount of stolen fuel identified by auditors, but never included in actual audits, by 35% in her first 100 days on the job.
