Uncertainties about the relationship between charter schools and the neighborhoods in which they are located continues to dog New Orleans school officials as they work out the final details of a master plan for rebuilding and assigning public school facilities.
Author Archives: Ariella Cohen
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Woldenberg disaster spending frustrates neighborhoods
A plan to spend $4.2 million in federal disaster-recovery grants on Woldenberg Park in the French Quarter has provoked the ire of community activists who say the money should be spent in areas still suffering from Hurricane Katrina.
Posted inLand Use
Empty since Katrina, 233 HANO units to be torn down
The Housing Authority of New Orleans approved a deal today to demolish 233 empty scattered public housing units moldering since Hurricane Katrina. But while neighbors applauded progress in the battle against blight, questions remain about what HANO will do with its properties once the 99 doomed buildings are cleared.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
HANO moving forward with scattered-site demolitions
After years of debate and delay, the Housing Authority of New Orleans is poised to contract for the demolition of scattered-site public housing units that were never repaired or reopened after Hurricane Katrina.
At a HANO Board meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, the agency’s federally-appointed director, David Gilmore, is expected to authorize a $494,200 contract for the demolition of 99 buildings spread across the city but concentrated in the Ninth Ward and eastern New Orleans.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Investigations
New Orleans gets table scrap in GO Zone lending feast
As Louisiana wraps its Gulf Opportunity Zone lending program, only 3 percent of the $7.8 billion went to projects in New Orleans, a review of state records show.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Promises made for extending GO Zone tax credit deadline
A top Republican in the U.S. Senate is vowing to enhance a tax bill passed Wednesday to ensure that New Orleans housing developers don’t lose Gulf Opportunity Zone low-income housing tax credits.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
BESE member to seek revote on RSD returning schools
Hours after the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved Superintendent Paul Pastorek’s to let Recovery School District campuses consider a return to local control, one board member said that she plans to introduce a competing proposal at BESE’s next meeting.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Land Use
Big Four redevelopments rise or fall on federal tax bill
Even as President Barack Obama agrees to keep Bush-era tax cuts, a consensus is still lacking on an extension of tax credits needed to rebuild New Orleans’ Big Four housing developments, as well as other Gulf Coast complexes.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Some city workers lose access to documents and e-mails
The crash of a key city computer server is stymieing work across New Orleans’ already strained government and making it tougher for residents to get the services and information they need.
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Public gets one chance to talk about proposed tax increase
For the first time since Mayor Mitch Landrieu proposed raising property taxes to balance the city’s 2011 budget, the tax-paying public on Wednesday will have a chance to weigh in on the issue.