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During three terms as mayor beginning in 2006, Jacques Roy won so much notice as the young, dynamic leader of Alexandria that supporters envisioned him winning election to statewide office one day.
Instead, after an acrimonious third term, Roy didn’t seek reelection in 2018.
But he came out of retirement this year and crushed his successor, Jeff Hall, who had been the first African-American mayor of the majority-Black city.
Now, older, grayer and, he says, wiser at 52, Roy was inaugurated Monday to take over a city that serves as the capital of central Louisiana but has been buffeted by crime, a population decline and not having a clear sense of its identity.
Roy, who has both a retail politician’s charm and a desire to dream big, clearly relished assuming his former post again Monday.
“The change needed by Alexandria,” he told several hundred people at the Randolph Riverfront Center at his inauguration, “is about reimagining how we project Alexandria into an increasingly competitive world, where cities like ours must learn fast adaptive techniques or fail.”
Roy, who is White, called upon the racially mixed crowd to work with him to ensure that Alexandria changes for the better.
“Alexandria faces a problem with that sleepy approach we’ve always had toward change,” he said.
Alexandria, pronounced “Ellick” by locals, grew steadily for decades, helped by its location on the Red River and its role as the urban capital of mostly rural central Louisiana.
In 1940 and 1941, before the United States entered World War II, Alexandria was home to the “Louisiana Maneuvers,” which helped the war department prepare for the conflict and involved such future wartime leaders as Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley.
They stayed downtown at the Bentley, one of Louisiana’s grandest hotels.
Alexandria’s population peaked at 51,000 in 1980, according to census figures. The 2020 census put the population at 45,000, making Alexandria the state’s ninth biggest city.
“Alexandria has not recovered from the closure of England Air Force Base” in 1992, said Deborah Randolph, president of the Central Louisiana Chamber of Commerce, who is working to assist other companies to set up shop there.
Roy takes the reins after a difficult past four years during which Alexandria was hit by the worldwide pandemic, two ice storms, Hurricane Laura, a hack of the city’s Internet system and the same kind of increase in crime suffered post-COVID by Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Hall, an accountant and former state representative, paid the price at the ballot box when he ran for reelection this year.
Roy won the primary outright on Nov. 8 with nearly 51% of the vote, while Hall trailed badly with only 22%.
“We have to get the city back on track,” said Jim Villard, who was reelected to an at-large City Council seat.
Hall, in an interview on Sunday, his final full day in office, said he was dealt a difficult hand, including the hack that shut down City Hall’s Internet system this year for several months.
“We did everything we could to fulfill our responsibilities to the public,” Hall said. “We leave with no blemish. We’re leaving the city in a better place than when we entered.”
Hall is leaving Roy with a surplus that he estimates is 10% of the city’s general budget.
One of Roy’s first tasks is rebuilding Alexandria’s police force, which is supposed to have about 160 officers but is short of that goal by 40 or 45.
Addressing the problem already began under Hall and the outgoing council, which raised police salaries by 8-12% for newer officers and has 18 cadets at the police academy that begins in January, Hall said.
In the meantime, Roy is kicking off his 100-day plan to jumpstart the city. He wants to put more officers on the streets through more community policing, and he wants to better position students at LSU-Alexandria and the Central Louisiana Technical Community College for jobs in health care and education.
“People have hope because of his vision and ability to carry it out,” said Myron Lawson, a Black State Farm agent who served on the Rapides Parish Police Jury and the Alexandria City Council. Roy, in his speech Monday, signaled he has learned from past mistakes when he expressed regret that he clashed with Lawson when both were in office before, even though they mostly agreed on the issues.
Roy, a Democrat, comes from a family of lawyers and teachers with a deep interest in politics.
His father, Chris Roy Sr., was a delegate to the 1973 convention that rewrote the state constitution, and his brother Chris Roy Jr. served a term in the state House when Bobby Jindal was governor.
During Roy’s first three terms, he focused on improving Alexandria’s roads, bridges and drainage and keeping down monthly bills for the city-owned power and water utility by diversifying its energy sources. Now, as part of his 100-day plan, he wants to cure the utility of its practice of regularly sending residents incorrect bills, similar to what happens with the Sewerage and Water Board in New Orleans.
After his inaugural speech Monday, Roy went to City Hall, several blocks away in downtown. After entering the Mayor’s Office for the first time after his return, Roy was asked how he felt.
“It feels familiar,” he said, and then excused himself to meet with his new staff. They had a city to run.
Library manager Judy Jumonville contributed research for this article.
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