St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis is considering asking voters to allow him to run for another term and to allow the parish to construct a high-end casino on the water in Slidell – a pair of measures sure to be controversial.

St. Tammany Parish

Parish President Kevin Davis

A little more than a year into his third term, Davis is floating the idea of asking voters to allow him to run for a fourth term, something currently not permitted due to term limits.

Davis said the idea is simple – he enjoys being parish president and he doesn’t think he can finish implementing all of his plans by the time his current term runs out.

“I love my job,” he said in a recent interview. “So to tell you, okay, you're out of here. Is there an opportunity to ask people to stay maybe one more term? We'll see."

Eyewitness News Political Analyst Clancy DuBos said relaxing term limits is a hard thing to do. He cites attempts by former New Orleans mayors Dutch Morial and Marc Morial to extend their time in office, all of which failed.

"If he's talking about changing the Parish Charter to only allow Kevin Davis to have a fourth term, and no one else, then it's all about him, which is really a dangerous thing, for any politician."

Davis’ other idea would bring a Gulf Coast style Casino Resort, what he referred to as an Entertainment District, to the Slidell area.

Davis said gaming would be just one component of the district that would look more like the large Biloxi Casinos than the casino boats in Harvey and Kenner. 

“If you can't do the gaming part with the first class hotels, and the entertainment, be it national and international, and build that facility, then we don't want it," he said.

That entertainment district would be along Lake Pontchartrain, south of Slidell.

Davis says, it could mean a thousand jobs and eight to eleven million dollars a year to St. Tammany Parish.

He said the goal is to keep some of the money heading through Louisiana to the Mississippi casinos, in St. Tammany.  Davis said that 24 percent of all patrons of the Mississippi Casinos come from Louisiana.

"I think you could make a case, economically, for the argument that building a Biloxi-style Casino/Resort in St Tammany would help Louisiana hold on to some of the dollars that are going to Mississippi," said DuBos.

But, DuBos said, with the hurricane vulnerability of putting a casino on water near Slidell, and the current unsure tourism market, he doesn't know if any publicly-traded gaming company would be willing to build in St. Tammany. 

Kevin Davis said he believes the big time gaming guys are interested.

The State Legislature would have to approve the idea, which would then it would go to the voters of St. Tammany. 

Davis says, for the record, he's waiting for results of a UNO study to decide if he'll push the plan forward.

"We're looking at it as an idea to offset property taxes."

Davis said he doesn't believe crime will go up or property values will go down around the casino.  And he said he has no problem letting voters decide.