The phrase “it’s all about God’s timing” means trusting God has a perfect plan and timeline for every event, even if that doesn’t align with one’s expectations. It’s something that rings true for Lake Charles Mayor Marshall Simien.
“I ran for mayor in 2017 and I thought that was the right time, but sometimes God has a different path,” said Simien — who is celebrating 100 days in office this week. “I didn’t see it at the time but my father was going to transition and he was probably the most important man in my life. I was there to be with him and that would have been very, very tough if I had been in office at the time. He told me, ‘Take care of your mother, take care of your brothers and your sisters.’ ”
Simien buried his father in February of 2020. A week later, the whole world shut down.
“We had the pandemic, then the hurricanes came and my sole role was taking care of my mother because she was in a vulnerable position and looking out for my siblings because I’m now the patriarch of my family.”
Simen said five years later his family his happy and healthy and he and his wife are empty-nesters.
“Now was the right time and not just because everyone has come back bigger and better than ever and going down good paths,” he said. “I looked around and from my experiences I saw certain things that I thought would move our community forward that wasn’t being done. I had worked with the previous administration pretty well but after a certain point in time that didn’t seem to be the case anymore. I was never one to complain about things, I just decided to do it myself.”
Simien, elected May 3 with 52 percent of the vote, also happens to be the city’s first Black mayor.
“From what I understand from people — and even in the Black community — they didn’t want a Black person to be mayor, they wanted a person who was qualified to be mayor who just so happened to be Black,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of pride in that. I’m a Black man who just so happens to be the 30th mayor of the city of Lake Charles but my goal and fiduciary responsibility is to every citizen of the city of Lake Charles — Black, white, blue, green, whether they voted for me or not. I had one man tell me, ‘Hey, Marshall, now that you have the keys I’m curious to see where we’re going,’ and I told him, ‘Well, buckle up.’ “
Simien said his vision is “for everyone to start understanding each other — not from the prism of what I’m hearing on social media or what am I reading. It’s that they’re actually interacting because right now I see Lake Charles as everyone in their own little cubicle. There are certain interests that try to drive their own narratives through those cubicles and I want people to see for themselves what the vibrancy of our city is.”
An example is the recent International Culture Festival held at the Lake Charles Events Center in which about 40 countries were represented.
“A lot of the people who participated from those countries were local, which tells me we have what I call the ‘neapolitan ice cream flavor,’ “ he said with a laugh. “I want for people to understand different people, different cultures, different languages, even the values. Different cultures bring different values and I think once people start understanding that they have similar values, they go about things differently. I think that helps them build bridges.”
Linking the current Interstate 10-Calcasieu River bridge under construction to his analogy, Simien said the city is in the midst of building “two bridges” at the moment.
“We need to build the ultimate bridge to each other,” he said. “I’m hoping that my administration will be successful in building the bridges but also that everybody understands why they should cross the bridge in the first place.”
Simien, who served two terms from 2005-2013 as the councilman for District A, said he went into the office “with my eyes wide open” and is hopeful that projects the city has been contemplating for years will begin “moving out of the pipeline.”
“We have a lot of projects that we have timelines on, we have a lot of needs in the community, and I hope that we resolve in different ways some of the criminal elements that we have been experiencing by focusing energy in different places and getting bad people off the streets,” he said.
As job opportunities open in the area with LNG projects under construction or expanding, Simien said he also wants to help people with financial literacy, home ownership and getting more involved in the school systems in which their children are enrolled.
Simien said people in Lake Charles, no matter their community, want the same things — safe neighborhoods, a fun and entertaining lifestyle, a good quality of life, good schools, low crime rates, and activities for their children. His campaign vision of “One Lake Charles” embodies that message of unity.
Among his other goals is seeing the underserved communities “feel that they’re getting the attention and prosperity that they deserve.”
“This whole thing with the sports center has opened up dialogue,” he said. “Some people look at that as a bad thing, but I think of it as a dialogue. The downtown community and the Goosport community are literally adjacent to each other and they’ve never had this kind of interaction before. The Goosport community is saying we need this, we want this, we’ve got to have this and the downtown community is often saying we need something, we want too, and it’s not an either-or scenario. It’s kind of like we all need this. There’s opportunity there to let people see that the perspective is the same.”
Simien said residents have told him they feel they are being heard by his administration.
“Even the ones that have complaints, they feel they can express that and their voice is going to be heard,” he said. “But on the other side, they are disturbed by the meetings that we have had. They feel there are certain elements of the council that is disrespectful to the office of the mayor. I’m a purist in terms that I think the office of they mayor should be respected, but also the institution of the city council should be respected. Even if we choose to disagree, it should not be disagreeable. That’s something I want to work on personally over the next 100 days and throughout my administration. I want to get all of our governmental assets working together and at least move the ship in the same direction. We don’t have to always agree but I don’t think we need to be disagreeable, either.”
During the recent, LegisGator Luncheon, Simien met with U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Congressman Clay Higgins, Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Glenn Ledet.
“They wanted to know our wish list and what we’d like to have,” Simien said. “With DOTD, I talked to them about the bridge and how on the east side of I-210 it’s called the Lake Charles Bypass. I said, ‘How are you going to build a bridge and put a toll on it and you tell everybody there’s a bypass? I told them that 210 doesn’t want that kind of traffic and I want them to come to this toll plaza because this is the heart of the city. I said to take the bypass on the sign off.”
He also asked that when the I-10 bridge is deconstructed, the city be given the land below it to develop even more waterfront property.
“Depending on how they put the road that feeds it, you could almost have a village-type of setup on both sides of the road so you can have the same shop and amenities that you have alongside a beach,” he said.
He said with Johnson, they spoke of the energy corridor.
“If you think about it, in the winter time, if we weren’t here the rest of the country would freeze,” he said. “There’s also opportunity to become the biggest supplier of energy on planet Earth. If you look at the pipeline infrastructure here, we can distribute any where in the country. We can import and distribute energy anywhere in the world. You don’t put a spigot on something that’s the best in the world.”
He said McNeese State University and Sowela Technical Community College have “really stepped up” to train workers in the LNG fields.
“Not even just with the two- and four-year degrees but you can get a certificate and go out and earn a very good living and start buying a home. It’s very important to me that people start investing in themselves and the community so we can start stabilizing some of these communities that have imbalances with rentals versus home ownership. When people in the community own a home, you start seeing possibilities. They’re not just transient, they’re concerned about crime in the area, they’re concerned about upkeep and the schools perform better because the kids are actually staying in this area. And services you can perform in these areas actually start taking root.”
One initiative Simien has started that is receiving positive feedback is his “From the Mayor’s Desk” online video series.
“People like the transparency, they want to understand what government is doing instead of getting it from third-hand accounts or somebody with an agenda,” he said. “They think it takes time out of my day, but I tell them, ‘I actually work for you guys.’ It’s not a job, I consider it an honor and a privilege that I’m even able to lead the city. I feel the weight of the responsibility of that and I want to do the right thing.”
Simien said Lake Charles is an “untapped resource” that has a “certain flavor” about it.
“I want to harvest it and focus on that because I think that’s something we can build on,” he said.
