Bogalusa, LA (4/30/20230 —Tyrin Truong’s inspiration for becoming mayor came from the 2021 documentary “Milltown.”
The movie illustrates the slow and steady decline of Bogalusa, long reliant upon its central paper mill as a source of jobs and tax revenue. The story mirrors many places in small-town America, heavily reliant on declining industries over the past 50 years.
Since the early 2010s, the International Paper mill as slowly automated its jobs, pushing more workers into the service sector, where jobs typically pay less. The facility once provided thousands of jobs but now employs just a few hundred.
As a result, Bogalusa has become a much poorer town. In 2012, 29.5% of Bogalusa residents were in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. As of 2022, the number was estimated to be 32.3%.
The city has also steadily lost population since the turn of the century, with an estimated population of 10,569 in 2021, down nearly 26% from 13,327 people in 2000.
This decline spurred Truong to act.
“I was part of that last little gap that kind of saw Bogalusa gasping for air, trying to survive,” Truong said.
Truong was born in Mandeville and raised in Bogalusa. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, having studied political science and African American studies. He said his education prepared him to interact with politicians and gave him a solid base to start his work as mayor.
Truong was elected to the post in November at age 23, by far the youngest chief executive in city history. His plan going into office was to decrease crime and corruption and bring life back to Bogalusa.
Youth behind violent crime
Pharmacist Kevin Nielsen has witnessed the city’s decline and the encroach of crime from his family-owned City Drug Store in downtown Bogalusa.
They’re shooting now just a couple blocks away (in) the middle of the day,” Nielsen said.
He attributes the increase in violence to a degradation of culture, the absence of parenting and a lack of options to give youth an alternative to crime.
“Most of the young people don’t wanna come back here, and at this particular point in time I don’t blame them. There’s not a lot for young people to do,” Nielsen said.
The increase in gun violence has the mayor’s attention. Much of it can be attributed to adolescents — “teen boys whose parents are busy working two or three jobs,” he said.
An analysis of FBI crime data shows one in every 19 Bogalusa residents has a chance of being a victim of property or violent crime, placing the city among the bottom 5% of Louisiana communities for its crime rate, according to Neighborhood Scout.
Five teens were arrested in February in connection with the shooting death of a 15-year-old, WVUE-TV reported. Two other teens were also injured in that incident.
Attacking the city’s youth crime problem has led Truong to go against the grain at City Hall. He said he intends to implement community policing strategies, including foot patrols in Bogalusa neighborhoods, starting next month.
“Before, in the last administration, officers were allowed to just sit in the office. They can’t sit in the office anymore,” he said.
Truong’s predecessor, Wendy O’Quin Perette, could not be reached for a response. Police Chief Kendall Bullen, who’s held the position since 2016, declined to comment.
“This crime that we’re experiencing is 14- to 17-year-old kids shooting each other,” Truong said. “A lot of that has to do with a lack of leadership in the home. So if the parents aren’t doing it, what are we as a city doing?”
Among Truong’s early moves as mayor was creating a city Office for Family and Children Success to focus on providing enrichment opportunities for the community, including health initiatives, food for the homeless, and round table discussions with youth. A program to deliver food directly to the homes of impoverished youth has also started.
Debra Young, director of the Office of Children and Family Success, was involved with the community and helping the homeless long before the city agency was created. She was a natural fit for the role, Truong said.
Bogalusa PD under scrutiny
Controversy awaited Truong before he was sworn into office in January, and he confronted it before actually taking his oath.
On Dec. 19, 2022, Bogalusa police responded to a single-vehicle accident and learned the driver, 28-year-old Eric Nelson, was wanted on multiple warrants. Security video shows Nelson’s head hitting the concrete as two officers pull him out of a police SUV outside Bogalusa PD headquarters.
The Nelson family has filed a federal civil lawsuit against the Bogalusa Police Department and the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office. The lawsuit says Nelson initially complied with officers at the accident scene but then tried to escape on foot, leading police to subdue him with a Taser.
Police told EMS that Nelson had collapsed while walking to the police station, according to court records. But the video clearly shows the two officers dragging Nelson’s limp body toward the building, leaving him on the ground for five minutes without aid. Nelson was struggling to breathe when paramedics arrived, according to the lawsuit, and died later at a local hospital.
Warren Montgomery, district attorney for Washington Parish, has declined to press charges against the police officers.
When asked for his reaction to the video, Bullen told reporters he hadn’t watched it.
“A guy literally died in your parking lot, and you haven’t watched the video?” said Truong, who was just weeks away from taking office when he called on the police chief to resign.
“It showed some type of callousness,” Truong said.
Bullen remains police chief and was present but noticeably silent April 1 when Truong held a press conference outside City Hall. The mayor summoned reporters to announce he had filed a police complaint against a man he accused of threatening him on Facebook. After the mayor’s comments, acting Assistant Police Chief Troy Tervalon came to the podium to confirm the department would investigate the complaint.
Jason Gavin, 51, was arrested six days later and charged with cyberstalking.
Closing the free water spigot
Water fees provide the one of the largest sources of revenue for the city, yet hundreds of customers aren’t being billed for what they use. Truong said than about $200,000 worth of water is given away each year to what he called “theft” in a city news release.
Before he took office, roughly 350 addresses in Bogalusa received water from the city and weren’t charged for it because they don’t have meters, according to the mayor. There were about a dozen that still did have meters as of mid-April, and the city is in the process of adding them, said Cleveland Gage, the city’s public information officer.
“We could technically go after them… if they didn’t pay,” he said. “I’m not interested in going after people. Let’s just put the meters in the ground and moving forward. They have to do the right thing.”
Installing water meters will restore the lost city revenue and help Truong pursue his other priorities, such as decreasing crime.
Source: Louisiana Illuminator, Author: Brandon Poulter
