The Lens (https://thelensnola.org/author/michaelstein/)
Michael Isaac Stein
Michael Isaac Stein covers New Orleans' cultural economy and local government for The Lens. Before joining the staff, he freelanced for The Lens as well as The Intercept, CityLab, The New Republic, and Pacific Standard. He was recently awarded a fellowship from the Heinrich Boll Foundation, which he used to report on water scarcity, division, and colonialism in Cyprus.
The two-mill tax will generate about $6.6 million its first year, but the group says the city has not identified how that money will be spent. The proposal will be on the March 30 ballot in New Orleans.
The vote on a settlement with company automatically cancels proposed resolutions to repeal the City Council's March 2018 power plant approval. Plant opponents criticized council members for taking contributions from the company.
In an ongoing lawsuit, plant opponents say a 2015 council resolution shows that the approval of a new plant may have been predetermined. But City Council utility advisers say opponents are misinterpreting the resolution.
Councilman Jay Banks was criticized at the meeting after it was revealed that he recently worked for one of the council's utility advisers, a fact that does not appear in Banks' financial disclosures.
A resolution to repeal the City Council's approval of a $210 million Entergy power plant in eastern New Orleans will be withdrawn. A new resolution will impose a $5 million fine and require cost protections, maintenance requirements.
A nearly 20-year-old agreement, resulting from a lawsuit, means that the RTA shares about half of its hotel taxes with tourism interests. Councilwoman Kristin Palmer wants all that money going to public transit.
The report says New Orleans should get at least $12 million more annually from the hotel taxes, and that all 16 hotel taxes should be reexamined by the state legislature.
A 2014 law set to take effect next month could leave only one clinic in the state. This week, lawyers seeking to overturn it tried to delay an appeals court ruling upholding it. They were denied. Now, the only place for them to go is the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawyers for groups opposed to the plant say the company botched an application for a state permit renewal. State agency should not grant it, they argue.
