New Orleans officials again are taking bids to oversee and manage a long-awaited grant program for grocers serving low-income communities. Known as the Fresh Food Retail Initiative, the $7 million federally funded program was stalled last month when U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials, who are providing the money, balked at the city’s bidding process. […]
Author Archives: Ariella Cohen
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Let’s hope the second time is a charm
New Orleans officials again are taking bids to oversee and manage a long-awaited grant program for grocers serving low-income communities. Known as the Fresh Food Retail Initiative, the $7 million federally funded program was stalled last month when U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials, who are providing the money, balked at the city’s bidding process. […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
A delay in finding out about the recovery delays
No one can say the last two weeks in New Orleans have been uneventful. The Saints broke the team’s Super Bowl drought and their fans beat the NFL in a battle over who owns “Who Dat.” Watergate Junior made national headlines out of the security, or lack thereof, at Hale Boggs Federal Building and Krewe […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Nagin on Nagin
Undoubtedly, Mayor Ray Nagin will go down in New Orleans history as a leader who speaks his mind. Exhibit A, of course, is his 2006 remark that the city will be “chocolate at the end of the day.” Likewise, it’s impossible to forget the mayor’s Sept. 2, 2005, command to “get every doggone Greyhound bus […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
One voice: A man-in-the-office-building survey on the mayoral election
Mitch Landrieu wants us to vote for him. That was the message a Lens reporter got this morning from the New Orleans mayoral candidate. “He saw me there, shook my hand and said ‘Will you vote for me?’ ” the reporter told The Lens this morning, speaking from a cell phone as the reporter exited […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
City hasn't said what recovery projects are delayed by council's questions
Grandstanding is a tradition as old as politics itself. Knowing that, The Lens was not surprised to hear the city’s deputy chief administrative officer accuse inquisitive City Council members of holding up progress at Thursday’s City Council meeting. As we wrote Friday, deputy CAO Cynthia Sylvain-Lear wanted the council to roll over a list of […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Council delays $600 million spending plan
What does two weeks mean to the city’s recovery four and a half years after Katrina? A whole lot – if you ask the Nagin administration. Or at least that was the argument made by Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Cynthia Sylvain-Lear at a City Council meeting Thursday. Sylvain-Lear was attempting (unsuccessfully) to convince the council […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Investigations, Schools
Nagin administration moving millions in recovery money without public input
CLICK TO EXPAND staff graphic By Ariella Cohen, staff writer — In the months after Hurricane Katrina, traumatized New Orleanians turned out in droves to discuss the fate of their neighborhoods. They gave hours of their time with the understanding that their input would guide the rebuilding of their city – and help secure the […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Building trust and keeping track
In recent months, it’s become apparent that the only thing not in contention about the New Orleans budget process is the fact that no one trusts it. As Eli Ackerman and others have pointed out in no uncertain terms, the City Council feels like it lacks proper oversight of the city’s spending of taxpayer dollars. […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Hey, who turned the lights off?
When New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin explained in mid-December the administration’s decision to close most city buildings on Friday, he described it as a last-resort attempt to save the city money on utility costs and janitorial services. Budget document released by his office show a projected $100,000 savings on janitorial service in Municipal Traffic […]