Monday, Danatus King of the New Orleans NAACP resigned from Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu’s transition task force on crime citing transparency concerns. He is dissatisfied with Landrieu’s decision to keep from the public the names of all but the handful of finalists for police superintendent. My colleague Steve Beatty was thinking this could prove problematic last […]
Posted inEnvironment
State and city not making weatherization goals
The national shortcomings of the federal stimulus act’s weatherization program were detailed in a Sunday Associated Press story, and a fresh look at local numbers show an equally dismal level of success. The long-running federal weatherization assistance program, financed by the U.S. Department of Energy, pays for low-income households to get home improvements to keep […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Mysterious “recovery board” made key decision on project
For all who were wondering who made up the “recovery board” that decided to pull the plug on a contract to develop a long-awaited linear park in New Orleans, The Lens has obtained an answer. Sort of. According to Mayor Ray Nagin spokesman James Ross, the executive branch board is comprised of “staff members who […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
PANO: Just Desserts
Perhaps you read this lovely article in The Times-Picayune. Over the weekend, the union that represents the NOPD, the Police Association of New Orleans, held a fund-raiser to benefit the legal-defense funds of officers under investigation for violent crimes, conspiracies and cover-ups that occurred in the aftermath of the federal levee failure. The event was […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Police chief search leader: Open-records laws don't apply
Update: The public isn’t entitled to see all the applicants for the next police superintendent, and Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu’s transition team screening the applicants isn’t a public body or subject to public records law, its leader said today. Xavier University president Norman Francis took these positions at a press conference to address the resignation of […]
Posted inLand Use
When a greenway becomes a roller coaster
After unexpectedly throwing out a hard-won contract for the development of a grand linear park through the heart of New Orleans, the city has reopened bidding. But this time, the urban planners who won the first contract say the question is not how to win the contract with City Hall, but whether they want to. […]
Posted inLand Use
Troubled complex to be auctioned, a victim of Katrina
The Gordon Plaza Apartments located in the historically troubled Agriculture Street community are scheduled to be auctioned off after the complex’s owner failed to make mortgage payments since Katrina. The now-vacant development was owned by low-income housing nonprofit Desire Community Housing Corporation. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department-subsidized, 128-unit multifamily complex is scheduled to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Go big or go home!
On Thursday, the top civil rights prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General Tommy Perez, came to New Orleans and basically said what we all already knew: * The NOPD is a mess * The NOPD has drawn just about the most scrutiny in the country * The NOPD has shown little […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Like Zulu, nightclub developer may get loan from city
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 […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
That old-mayor odor
I saw this quote from Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s interview with CNN: We have this kind of idealism that at some point people are going to understand what we’ve been doing. It’s almost like an underground movement. We’ve been working underground to make sure that this city can fully recover with the hope that at […]