Schools
Algiers Charter School Association charges $25 fee for Saturday detention | The Lens – It’s still too early to tell if fees and counseling will reduce misbehavior because the program is in its first year.
One Year After Texas Disaster, Report Looks At Schools Located Near Chemical Facilities – “The [Center for Effective Government] report is packaged as an interactive map and also uses U.S. Census Bureau data to show the racial and economic profile of residents in the area around the chemical facilities. Users can search the map by school name, city or state.”
Land Use
Controversial developer’s Canal St. project held up by unpaid fees | WWL-TV – The developer owes hundreds of thousands in unpaid fees for high-rise construction, and is the father “of the project’s original front-man, Praveen Kailas, whose theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state’s Road Home program was first exposed by WWL-TV.”
Decades-old Lakeshore Drive weekend motorist ban lifted | wwltv.com New Orleans – The ban has been in place since the early eighties. Some worry that the scenic drive will be treated like an “expressway” and perhaps endanger bicyclists.
James Gill: Fair Grounds not what it used to be | Opinion | The New Orleans Advocate – Columnist James Gill, who has co-owned a pony or two in his time, doesn’t spare the horse track: “Chronically short fields make for dull racing, customer service is a foreign concept, purses have been slashed and signs of neglect are everywhere from the dilapidated back stretch to the big TV screen near the finish line that quit working a few years ago.”
Criminal Justice
Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Sheriff Marlin Gusman ink temporary deal on Orleans Parish Prison consent decree | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune – “New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Sheriff Marlin Gusman have signed a brokered deal to finance reforms at the Orleans Parish Prison, not the least of which will be hiring 93 new deputies by the end of the year to secure the notorious lockup.”
The Listening Post Asks: Have You Ever Called 911 In New Orleans? | WWNO – Last month over 10 percent of local 911 calls went unanswered for 40 seconds.
Louisianan Given 13-Year Prison Sentence for Possession of Two Marijuana Cigarettes | Drug Policy Alliance – “The Drug Policy Alliance filed an amicus brief … urging the Louisiana Supreme Court to review the egregious prison sentence of Bernard Noble, a 48-year old man who was sentenced to 13.3 years of hard labor in prison without the opportunity for parole for possessing the equivalent of two marijuana cigarettes.”
Government & Politics
The Culture War Goes On | The American Prospect – Contributing Editor Paul Waldman breaks down the Legislature’s vote that derailed a bill attempting to repeal an unconstitutional ban on sodomy: “Every Republican but two voted to keep the sodomy law on the books (there were also eight Democrats among the 67 votes to keep the law). How much of that was calculated politics and how much sprung from the genuine belief that people who commit sodomy should be arrested (but just the bad kind of sodomy, you know what they mean, not the awesome kind!), we’ll never know.”
Obama announces $600 million in grant programs to prepare workforce for jobs | The Washington Post – “The grant programs Obama announced fall into two categories. The first, to which $500 million is being dedicated, is a competitive process that seeks the best programs linking community colleges with businesses. The idea is to expand the programs nationally, in part by linking them with industry associations. The other is also competitive and provides $100 million in grants to expand apprentice programs across the country.” (Via Louisiana Budget Project)
Environment
Barataria Bay, 4 Years After The Deepwater Horizon Disaster | WWNO – Environmental groups checked out the critical Barataria ecosystem. They didn’t see any oil. Neither did they see any migratory birds.
The Coast Guard has scaled back its clean-up response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but that scale-back is not as extensive as BP indicated in a news release issued Tuesday, an irritated Capt. Thomas Sparks told the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority on Wednesday.
St. Tammany residents voice fears of fracking at community meeting | The New Orleans Advocate – “Kay Fallon, a real estate agent, cited several media reports of dropping property values for land near fracking sites. ‘Even Fox News says our property values will fall if they are close to these wells and using groundwater,’ she said.”