With a week to go before the City Council must approve the city’s 2011 budget, New Orleans’ chief economist has revised his revenue estimates to project $1.74 million more going to the city next year than previously thought.
The State Bond Commission voted today to issue ExxonMobil Corporation $12 million more in tax-free, low-interest bonds to finance an upgrade of the petro giant’s Baton Rouge facility.
Fifty years after New Orleans desegregated public schools, 90 percent of the city’s public school students are black, and nearly a quarter of public schools have student populations that are 100 percent black, analysis shows.
A Lower 9th Ward park touted in August as one of Mayor Mitch Landrieu definite 100 recovery projects is being funded at one-third the level initially promised, a top Landrieu appointee said at a City Council budget hearing Wednesday.
Despite the demolition of public housing developments, New Orleans has more subsidized housing for its poorest residents now than it had five years ago.
Five months after The Lens first reported on nearly $17 million missing from the city’s largest economic-development fund, Mayor Mitch Landrieu still can’t account for the missing taxpayer dollars.
City Council leaders gave a cool reception Wednesday to Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s plan to finance an economic development office within City Hall as well as the new Nola Business Alliance, a separate nonprofit entity funded with a mix of public and private dollars to generate jobs and investment in New Orleans.
Seated on the elevated dais at City Council chambers today, Councilwoman Stacy Head rubbed her hands together and mouthed “money.”
