BATON ROUGE -- A $50 million appropriation to keep a chicken-processing plant open in Farmerville may help Gov. Bobby Jindal win legislative support for an $85 million Superdome overhaul at the other end of the state, some lawmakers say.
Under an agreement signed Thursday by Jindal, the state's surplus will be tapped to renovate the Superdome as part of the deal keep the Saints in New Orleans through 2025.
"Is a chicken plant going to make me like this (Saints deal) better? Probably so," said Rep. Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro. "Some of the same people in that part of the state could be saying something about (voting against) the chicken plant. . . . But this gives me a lot more reasons" to support the use of surplus state funds for the Superdome project.
