Along with grocery stores, functional roads, and less blight, the people of New Orleans’ hardest-hit neighborhoods want a full accounting of recovery spending. This was the clearest takeaway of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s two public budget meetings this week, with spending priorities taking a back seat to more overarching concerns about transparency and the way budget decisions [...]
Call it the off-target plan. Mayor Mitch Landrieu is moving away from predecessor Ray Nagin’s recovery strategy of pushing projects in 17 “target zones” across the city. “Frankly, it was a previous administration’s plan,” mayoral spokesman Ryan Berni said. Berni acknowledged today that Landrieu has yet to finish his own recovery plan. His administration is [...]
Though Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration initially was vague on whether it would continue to have an Office of Environmental Affairs during the nation’s largest oil disaster, the position has now been filled. Charles Allen, formerly at Tulane University in the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, started running the office two weeks ago. Allen is a [...]
On the first day of New Orleans’ first white mayor in 32 years, City Hall felt remarkably free of the racial tension that for the past five years has become as much of a fixture in the building as the faux tiles on the walls spelling out the city’s street names. Far from the race [...]
It probably didn’t shock Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu Thursday night when the residents of New Orleans told him and his transition task force on the NOPD that they want a police superintendent who has such rare qualities as “integrity,” “a background in diversity,” and “a successful track record.” It was likewise probably not too surprising when [...]