BATON ROUGE — A set of proposals aims to restructure BREC, but mayors in East Baton Rouge Parish say the changes wouldn't work. Others say the city-parish can't manage the parks department.

Baker Mayor Darnell Waites says taking over the program is not the best way to manage dysfunction.

"What you do is change things within the organization and have the people who pay into the organization give advice and suggestions on how they want to run it," Waites said. "You don't just take it over."

Another measure would put the five mayors of East Baton Rouge Parish on the BREC board instead of the nine members currently appointed.

Central Mayor, Wade Evans says he's not confident the current nine-person board is effectively serving taxpayers.

"Those board members, while they have great qualifications, where's the track record of their success?" Evans said. "I would argue from the shape and condition of the parks in Central that it doesn't mean a lot."

Waites says he doesn't want to serve on another board, but he does want better representation on the current one for the city of Baker.

"Do you think if you set five mayors on there that it's going to be better and control the budget for an organization?" Waites said "That's not going to make it better. It's going to create more chaos."

But both mayors agree on one point — that the parish is not equipped to take over BREC.

"Its about representation for the taxation, and at this point I do not have any representation on the BREC board, but I pay taxes into that system," Waites said.

BREC's operating budget for 2025 is nearly $116 million.