Jefferson Parish Councilman Scott Walker appeared on the Newell Normand Show on Friday to discuss a range of topics, including his political future. Walker, a former television news anchor, is serving his first term as the Division B at-large councilperson. Earlier this week, fellow Jefferson Parish Councilman Dominick Impastato announced he will be challenging Walker next year for the at-large seat. Impastato is term limited for the 4 th District seat he currently holds. Walker told Newell that anyone is welcome to run at any time and announce their intentions as early as they like. Walker described his first three years as councilmember as “wild.”
“It’s been an interesting ride because I don’t think anybody expected a worldwide pandemic and two major hurricanes. And we dealt with all of that, and we did it without a playbook. Nobody had ever faced a situation like that before we just kind of went with it. I think we did a really good job in Jefferson Parish,” the Councilman told Newell on Friday.
Walker says while the pandemic delivered terrible loss of life and other hardships, he believes Jefferson Parish remained economically strong. The councilman said parish leaders kept a strong focus on pandemic policies and approaches that would help businesses…especially small businesses…weather the economic storm from the past two years. According to Walker, sales tax revenue in the parish is up 34% since 2020. Walker emphasized that Jefferson Parish never saw a dip in sales tax revenue during the pandemic.
“Through it all Jefferson Parish has remained strong, has remained economically viable. Where some places had restrictions that didn’t necessarily help the business community, we made it a point as a council and as a parish to make sure that we could balance public health along the way with the strength of our businesses and make sure that our business community could not only survive the pandemic but thrive,” Walker told Newell.
Walker believes the parish will continue to thrive especially after the completion of road construction along the very busy Severn Avenue corridor. Countless residents and business owners had complained about the gridlock and alternates routes that came from what seemed like never ending construction. Walker told Newell that he shared in the frustrations people felt as the work fell more than a year behind schedule.
“People were ready to lose their minds over Severn, me included. It was challenge if you went down there. The businesses had challenges, and they’ve had a lot to deal with because it was a project that was over a year over schedule and it ended up being about three years and it was from Veterans to West Esplanade a full replacement of Severn. I mean that’s everything. I think a lot of people don’t realize how in depth that project was, and everything was replaced. It doesn’t flood anymore; the drainage is great. Everything is brand new on Severn and it takes time. Like you said there were supply chain issues, there were manpower issues. It happened during a bad time, ultimately during the pandemic,” Walker told Newell on Friday.