BATON ROUGE - Mayor-President Sid Edwards issued a statement saying he "strongly [disagrees]" with the city-parish joining a lawsuit against St. George.In the statement, the mayor-president's office said the parish attorney John McLindon filed action on behalf of the city-parish to join a lawsuit r egarding St. George's property zoning. Edwards also said that he does not have authority or control of the parish attorney.The lawsuit filed by LRK LLCnbsp;says even if the city was legally incorporated, it unlawfully targeted the group's property during the creation of its zoning map. LRK argues that St. George was never lawfully incorporated because no court ever entered an order formally declaring the municipalityrsquo;s incorporation date.Edwards, in his statement, said the city-parish joining the lawsuit derailed negotiations to resolve issues surrounding St. George, saying the lawsuit "brought those negotiations to an end.""Now, rather than learning from that failure, the Parish Attorney's office has once again chosen to put the City-Parish in the middle of another legal dispute," Edwards said.Edwards ended his statement saying he has "always believed this issue could be resolved by working together," and that he still believes it can happen."We cannot allow continued litigation, political maneuvering, and old grievances to prevent us from addressing the serious challenges facing the City of Baton Rouge, our constitutional offices, and the parish as a whole," Edwards said. "There is a responsible path forward, but finding it will require cooperation and good faith amongst all parties involved."Following the release, however, Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Noel expressed concern that "someone in the administration issued [the] press release while the Mayor-President was away from the office."Noel said his colleagues at the Metro Council were "blindsided" by the press release, saying that the council was not briefed that the administration was negotiating with St. George, nor was made aware an agreement would be released.nbsp;"I cannot see how the City-Parish intervening in this lawsuit for clarity on the City of St. George incorporation date would impact a tentative agreement that is not public, nor approved by the City of St. George Council or the EBR City-Parish Metropolitan Council," Noel said.Noel continued, saying he was "not sure the Mayor-President signed off on this press release." Noel said Edwards was at Camp Istrouma when the release came out, and that Edwards and McClindon exchanged texts prior to the intervention suit being filed."I have seen these exchanges and the Parish Attorney requested that his staff not use the Mayor-Presidentrsquo;s name on the filing and the Mayor-President thanked the Parish Attorney for assisting with that," Noel said.Noel said when talking to spokesperson Mason Batts, he was told the administration did not know about the filing until the press contacted the office about it. He also said the text exchange between the Mayor-President and the parish attorney happened around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, with the intervention filing "was not until about 24 hours later, so both cannot be true.""This press release doesn't sound like the man that I know," Noel said "If someone in the administration issued this press release while the Mayor-President was away from the office, I hope that he will get to the bottom of it quickly."Permalink| Comments ...read more read less