While polls show Sen. David Vitter with a comfortable lead over Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, Vitter’s campaign remains in attack mode. This month, Vitter’s team released a TV ad claiming Melancon voted to award “actual welfare checks” to illegal immigrants. The political advertisement depicts “illegals” pouring through a border fence in celebratory fashion […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Marigny grocery’s state money diverted to new iron factory
A New Orleans food cooperative building a grocery store on St. Claude Avenue is among the many projects statewide that stand to lose money as the state shifts funds to a North Carolina steelmaker’s new St. James Parish operation.
The New Orleans Food Cooperative got $375,000 in the capital outlay budget signed by Gov. Jindal in July. But now the Jindal administration wants to steer $30 million in state outlay funds to Nucor because the company says the subsidy is needed for it to build a new iron factory in St. James Parish – and the grocery store is one of dozens of projects getting axed as state officials juggle the numbers.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
$2 million will let city explore demo of Claiborne overpass
New Orleans was awarded a $2 million federal grant today to study revitalizing Claiborne Avenue, including possibilities for removing a portion of the elevated Interstate 10 expressway.
Posted inCriminal Justice, Land Use
Temporary beds will expand jail population after all
Sheriff Marlin Gusman said Tuesday that his 400 new temporary jail beds will add to the total number of inmates in his custody, despite what he told The Lens and Fox8 News last month.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
HANO chief says he’ll show areas where vouchers are used
The Housing Authority of New Orleans will provide the public with information on where recipients of Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers live, HANO chief David Gilmore said today.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
HANO official: Agency not analyzing voucher locations
Despite spending millions to tear down public housing complexes and to implement a voucher program that would end the concentration of poor households, a Housing Authority of New Orleans official admitted Monday that the agency doesn’t analyze voucher use to determine whether new pockets of poverty may be forming elsewhere.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Gusman: I’ve always advocated for smaller jail
Sheriff Marlin Gusman committed to build a smaller jail complex today if data analysis by Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s new working group supports one.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Mayor wants to create office for citizen-engagement
Citizen engagement got its own line in the 2011 budget brought before the City Council today by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Among the items funded within the $126 million proposed budget for the Mayor’s Office is $483,950 for the creation of an Office of Neighborhood and Citizen Engagement. If funded, the office would be the city’s […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Initial jail plan envisioned 8,000 inmates by 2020
Despite publicly committing to a “smaller, safer jail” in recent weeks, Sheriff Marlin Gusman sent architects a plan calling for 8,000 beds in his complex by 2020.
Posted inSchools
Struggling charter high school again booted from its home
By January, Priestly School of Architecture and Construction seniors Tamara Handy and Jason Lang will have attended classes at three campuses in four years, moving with the peripatetic New Orleans charter high school.