The New Orleans City Council has failed to accommodate a request by an open governance group to turn the city’s budget over a few days early so the public can scrutinize last-minute changes.
Despite a painfully embarrassing incident at an airport scanner checkpoint, I’m still not totally on board with the sudden backlash against the new security procedures, which strikes me as oddly timed and perhaps disingenuous.
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.
Despite an apparent agreement last week to drastically reduce the size of the city’s jail complex, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman on Monday bristled at any decision now that he be required to demolish jail cells in the future.
No public agency’s budget is a bigger source of intrigue in New Orleans than Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s.
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.
Despite having a Monday deadline, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s Criminal Justice Working Group may well extend its efforts, Chief Administrative Officer Andy Kopplin said today at the first of the two final scheduled meetings.
The final day of more than three weeks of budget hearings ended today with a final request: that the council pass on the extra time they had to review the budget on to the public.
Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux is about to release a hotel tax audit covering 26 hotels for 2009.
State Rep. Walker Hines seemed like he was in a hurry this morning as he grabbed a quick beverage at a coffee shop in Broadmoor and drove away in a black Cadillac Escalade. Shortly thereafter, this Times-Picayune news story broke:
