Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu was awfully defensive in last week’s press conference about his search for a new police superintendent. Responding to internal criticism from four now-former members of his transition task force, Landrieu accused those who went public with their objections of being divisive. “People in this town have learned how to throw bricks rather […]
Author Archives: The Editors
Posted inEnvironment, Investigations
Lucrative stimulus contract for green jobs in New Orleans goes to group with least to offer
By Brentin Mock – staff writer – A federal program to weatherize homes of low-income families had been a fairly low-budget, low-profile affair in Louisiana. Then the stimulus program came along.
Posted inCriminal Justice
It ain’t hot potato: Landrieu must clutch chief search
Danatus King of the NAACPBaty Landis of Silence is ViolenceGina Womack of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated ChildrenNorris Henderson of VOTE These are community leaders and important stakeholders in efforts to reform our criminal justice system and repair our broken police department. They were all named to Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu’s 21-member NOPD task force. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Facebook rhetoric reveals mindset of beleaguered NOPD officers and supporters
The Police Association of New Orleans held a fund-raiser over the weekend supporting Special Operations unit veterans Capt. Jeff Winn and Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann and the police officer union’s rapidly depleting legal defense budget. Winn and Scheuermann are under federal investigation in connection with the death of Henry Glover, whose remains were found in the […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Adorable: Mitch Landrieu’s first little transparency flap
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 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 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
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 […]