Carroll E. Lanier

Carroll Edwin Lanier (born November 8, 1926) is a former Democratic mayor of Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish and the largest city in central Louisiana. Lanier served a special 5.5-year term from June 1977 to December 1982. He was the first mayor under the current mayor-council form of municipal government, which in 1977 replaced the former three-member commission system. The initial term under the new charter was extended by a year-and-a-half to coincide with the regular 1982 elections.

Lanier is an Alexandria native and a graduate of Bolton High School. He is also a former Alexandria finance and utilities commissioner, having been elected in 1969, when he unseated the long-term incumbent, fellow Democrat Leroy Wilson (1905–1978). In 1973, however, as consumer electric bills cllimbed, voters replaced Lanier with businessman and attorney Arnold Jack Rosenthal (1923–2010), a Democrat who had vowed to bring down the utility rates. Alexandria is one of some fourteen Louisiana cities in which the municipal government owns and operates the utility systems. The citiies derive a portion of their operations funds from profit in the sale of utilities. Rosenthal was unable to enact major reductions because of steady increases in the fuel adjustment rate brought about by hikes in natural gas prices. The gas is used to produce electricity.

In 1977, Lanier scored a political comeback, not for utilities commissioner, for that position had been abolished. Instead, he ran for mayor in a multi-candidate jungle 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 and a favorite of military veterans; Judith Ward-Steinman Karst, Ph.D., then wife of former Mayor C. Edward Karst, and outgoing Commissioner Rosenthal. In the second balloting, Lanier topped Snyder, 8,420 (68 percent) to 3,934 ballots (32 percent).

As mayor, Lanier retained the outgoing Streets and Parks Commissioner Malcolm P. Hebert as the head of the new Department of Public Works. Hebert, a registered mechanical engineer, was considered particularly skillful in that particular area of municipal operations. It had also been Hebert who in 1974 hired Alexandria's award-winning zookeeper, Les Whitt. 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.^[1]

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 Judge William Polk. Lanier particularly angered sanitation workers when he declared that they were working at too slow of a pace. He threated them with privatization unless their overall efficiency improved. He also declared that a long-anticipated downtown hotel and civic center deal was dead in the water.

Still, Lanier, in seeking reelection, urged constituents to be patient regarding utility rates because the city had signed an agreement with the Central Louisiana Electric Company to purchase coal-fired power from the new Rodemacher power facility. Voters, however, rallied once more behind Snyder, who unseated Lanier, much to the consternation of the Alexandria business establishment who feared the former mayor's 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 Edward Gordon "Ned" Randolph, Jr., who held it for a record twenty years.

Lanier is a retired electrical contractor. He and his wife, Winifred C. Lanier (born February 26, 1930), reside at 1303 Charlton Street in Alexandria. They have a daughter, Theresa Louise Lanier (born 1961). Their son was killed in an accident in the middle 1970s.

References

Alexandria Daily Town Talk, February 7, March 3, 4, April 3, May 4, 8, and July 20, 1982