It’s been a rough few weeks for the vice president of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. First, Naaman Stewart was the public face of the group as it struggled to explain how and why it got an award of $800,000 in taxpayer money from the city. Now the sheriff is auctioning off his [...]

New Orleans City Council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell introduced an ordinance Thursday to pay Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club at least some of the $800,000 the mayor awarded them on Lundi Gras.
In the days following the surprise announcement, neither city officials nor Zulu leaders who submitted the application knew whether the money would be an [...]

The Lens recently visited the Rampart Street studio and office space of Spike Lee, who’s been in the city the past month filming a sequel to his HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” He’d just gotten back from Houston, where he was interviewing people displaced by the federal levee disasters, [...]

The city has paid the private company managing the bulk of New Orleans’ recovery projects more than $3 million for work actually done by city employees, according to an internal memo written by the ousted city capital projects director just weeks before he left City Hall.
Bill Chrisman wrote in the Feb. 20 memo that the [...]

You really can’t put a price on getting crunk.
Still, the Ying Yang Twins, performers of the Saints anthem “Halftime (Stand up and Get Crunk!), had to put a price on their appearance with Mayor Ray Nagin at the Super Bowl celebration parade.
Nagin recently signed a contract to pay the hip-hop stars up to $2,100 for [...]

Today, Mitch Landrieu unveiled another task force to advise his transition, this time on public education.
I feel like I’ve been reminded 1,000 times that the city of New Orleans HAS NO CONTROL over education policy. Library Chronicles reminded me of it today, as a matter of fact.
Even though I think Jeffrey was being somewhat facetious, [...]

Controversial contractor MWH Global, which serves as the project manager for most major city recovery projects, is billing the city at a higher rate than allowed for in federally subsidized projects, according to an internal city memo obtained by The Lens.
“…MWH has grossly exceed [sic] the 8% cap max fee allowable for project billing,” wrote [...]

More than two weeks after filing a public records request, The Lens has gotten its hands on the proposals that competed with Zulu for a share of the city’s Urban Development Action Grant fund.In addition to the winning $800,000 Zulu proposal, the city considered a plan for a nightclub and multimedia production center on St. [...]

In January, The Lens reported on taxpayer money collected by DKM Acquisitions and Properties for economic development.
At the time, nothing visible had been done to renovate the gutted and unkempt Lake Terrace Shopping Center at Robert E. Lee Boulevard and Paris Avenue. City officials said that the $162,500 given to the company had been used [...]

Accepting a recent $800,000 award from City Hall could further jeopardize Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s tax exempt status.
That’s because its unusual IRS status requires that it get at least 65 percent of its gross income from membership dues. Its latest tax filing, for 2007, shows that it apparently violated that provision, with [...]