Update: City Council President Arnie Fielkow has asked New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux to investigate the missing $16.7 million from the city’s Urban Development Action Grant program, he said Thursday. After a month of investigation, City Hall officials have failed to find documentation of $16.7 million loaned by previous administrations to private businesses but [...]
More than $16 million in loans given to private businesses from the city’s largest economic development loan fund is missing, according to internal city documents. A summary of the city’s Urban Development Action Grant program shows that only $2.35 million out of $26 million from one particular round of loans has been repaid. Another $7.3 [...]
City Council President Arnie Fielkow plans to introduce an ordinance this week that would require council approval for all loans from the Urban Development Action Grant fund, increasing public oversight of a development subsidy most recently awarded to Zulu organization and the Inspire entertainment complex in the Seventh Ward. The UDAG program is a loan [...]
After doling out nearly $3 million in loans for an expansion of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club headquarters and an entertainment complex on St. Bernard Avenue, the city of New Orleans has about $9 million left in its Urban Development Action Grant fund for revitalization projects in low-income neighborhoods. “We have $12 million [...]
Update: The Thursday City Council meeting where these loans were to be considered has been postponed. The matters likely will be taken up by the council Tuesday at 10 a.m. The oversized check Mayor Ray Nagin handed Zulu on Lundi Gras may have sparked noisy debate, but a far less sensational loan from the same [...]
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 [...]
Click here to read the city’s request for applications, which resulted in Mayor Ray Nagin presenting Zulu with a giant check for $800,000 on Lundi Gras.