ST. GEORGE — Louisiana's highest court affirmed St. George as one of the state's largest cities Thursday, again rejecting claims, by the narrowest of margins, that the new municipality's organizers didn't fully explain how it would govern 100,000 people in the southeastern corner of East Baton Rouge Parish.

The new city moved immediately to raise money; it scheduled a meeting for Thursday night to set a tax election for Dec. 7. The measure passed unanimously.

Thursday's decision from the Louisiana Supreme Court was likely the final word on Metro Councilman Lamont Cole's claim that St. George's creation would harm the rest of the parish. While Cole has the right to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the nation's highest court seldom addresses such local-level issues.

Challengers say there are still questions about how St. George's boundaries are defined, and when incorporation will formally take effect, and who is responsible for pension obligations, but for now St. George is rolling along. Its leaders scheduled a meeting for Thursday night to approve a public vote on how to fund its operations.

Prior to April, two lower courts had rejected St. George's creation, saying its backers didn't sufficiently lay out how the new city would operate. Rather than simply reversing previous judgments and sending the case back to the 19th Judicial District for more work, as is typical, the justices directly intervened and voted 4-3 to let the incorporation go through.

The vote broke on the same lines Thursday — 4-3 for incorporation.

"The City of St. George cannot be overturned, and its citizens now turn their attention and focus on moving forward
in building their city. The City of St. George has been moving forward despite ongoing litigation and now the final hurdle has been cleared for Louisiana’s newest city," representatives from St. George said in a statement.

Gov. Jeff Landry has appointed St. George's mayor, police chief and council. The council is scheduled to meet Thursday night and hopes to set a Dec. 7 election to tap into a 2 percent sales tax currently dedicated to the parish.

At the time of the October 2019 vote to incorporate, the tax raised about $48.3 million annually. The figure has likely changed — Baton Rouge has annexed a portion of the region currently in St. George, and the population in the area has ballooned from 86,000 to likely over 100,000.

St. George replaces Lake Charles as Louisiana's fifth-largest city, behind New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette.

Cole, citing a dissent from Chief Justice John Weimer in the case decided in April, said the court had used a "procedural ruse" to skip key elements of arguments against St. George. In particular, he said justices ignored $1 billion in pension obligations St. George would face from the start.

East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said Thursday that her administration would attempt to avoid further division and future litigation, and that she had already reached out to St. George interim Mayor Dustin Yates. 

"However, there is no effective incorporation date of the City of St. George nor is there a legal boundary to the city. Those issues must be resolved by a District Court per Louisiana law," Broome said in a statement. As the chief executive of the parish, she said, she would work to "find a correct balance that is fair to everyone in our parish, ensures that services to citizens are not interrupted and that tax dollars are not wasted."

She also said that St. George was yet to reach out for any financial information from the parish or to meet with her about ho to provide services in the new city.

Among those who turned out for the October 2019 election, 54 percent of voters in the southeastern corner of East Baton Rouge voted for the new city. 

Cole and others claimed St. George wouldn't be able to adequately provide services and that the new municipality would begin operations with a significant deficit of about $3 million. As a neighboring city, Baton Rouge had the right to claim that St. George's creation could harm it financially.

After a special judge rejected St. George's incorporation, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the ruling. It determined the incorporation petition didn't lay out how St. George would provide services.

St. George's incorporation plan involved it forming from unincorporated areas of southeastern East Baton Rouge Parish and did not involve anyone "leaving" Baton Rouge. Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, who was an initial plaintiff, is the top administrative officer of the parish, regardless of St. George's status.