News Roundup › Good Governance

All of the great challenges that confront the 21st-century city — from class, race and environmental issues to the continuing duel between history and modernity — are crystallized in New Orleans.

Yet the kind of visionary urban plan that could address these issues in a bold and thoughtful way has yet to materialize. Instead, some of the country’s greatest architectural minds are inventing the future in cities like Beijing, Shenzhen and Dubai, where their talents are more appreciated.

Source: The New York Times

The stakes are high as the city finds it needs much more than great restaurants and the bawdy Bourbon Street scene to wine and dine itself to economic prosperity.
But there is no master vision for rebuilding New Orleans’ economy.

Source: AP Wire

First initiated some four decades ago, the Metropolitan Leadership Forum includes among its graduates leaders in every aspect of New Orleans life, including government, education, business, faith, and the nonprofit sector. This year’s class will join more than two thousand fellow alumni in serving as a tremendous resource to the community.

“As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials,” Landrieu says, “he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.’ We weren’t going to blame anyone. We weren’t going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove.”

Source: Salon.com

So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

Source: Washington Post

State law says that initial incident reports are public records and it includes a list of details they are supposed to contain, such as the location of the crime and a description of what happened.

Source: Times-Picayune

“Small business is too important to the state’s economy for policymakers to ignore it.”

Source: City Business

“It is time to get the Office of Inspector General fully staffed and operational so that it can begin to do its job,” Fielkow said. “Our city has important issues that must be addressed by the inspector general sooner rather than later, and we cannot afford to wait any longer for bureaucratic issues to be worked out.”

Source: City Business

The recent uptick in big-box projects and proposals in the Crescent City, fueled by tax subsidies and other costly giveaways, has left owners of smaller home-grown businesses in related industries gritting their teeth and bracing for hard times.

Source: Times-Picayune

“We built the opera house in two months, the botanical gardens in three months, Niemeyer’s museum in five months. We transformed the city’s main street into a pedestrian area in 72 hours. It wasn’t that we were chasing after records - it was necessity.”

Wally N’Dow, former head of the UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), has described Curitiba as “a wonderful example, because cities that follow this lead can jumpstart the economies, assist the poorest of their poor, and clean up their cities.”

Source: Guardian

Beginning on Aug. 31, 2005, and continuing for at least five days, Gretna police, Crescent City Connection bridge police and Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputies turned back hundreds of people trying to walk across the bridge to escape the misery of New Orleans, which was flooded, blacked out and in short suppy of food and drinking water.

Source: City Business

Mose Jefferson, the eldest brother and chief political strategist of embattled U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, was indicted by a federal grand jury today on charges that he repeatedly bribed Ellenese Brooks-Simms, the former president of the Orleans Parish School Board, to ensure her support for a computer-based algebra curriculum he was selling.

Source: Times-Picayune

The open-air center will include a 140,000-square-foot Lowe’s Home Center, another 200,000-square-foot anchor, two other 100,000-square-foot anchors and 650,000 square feet of other assorted retail and a movie theater… . The New Orleans-based developer is still finalizing the development’s total costs, but the TIF bonds will provide some percentage of that cost, he said. Last summer, Kailas estimated a total cost of $200 million.

Source: City Business

In the late 1960s, I argued that DC should have governing neighborhood commissions. When we were granted “advisory neighborhood commissions” in the 1970s, I argued that our first goal should be to kick the A out of ANC, replacing their token status with real governmental powers. I still believe such bodies are a greatly needed national urban reform. Among the jobs of such bodies would be to preserve the community and culture which they serve.

Source: Progressive Review

National homebuilder KB Home has scrapped 35 planned market-rate homes in River Garden, the mixed-income development that replaced the St. Thomas housing project in New Orleans … . New Orleans may not be ready for mixed-income development, said Szubinski, who has worked with a mixed-income project in Dallas.

Source: City Business

Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.

Source: Fresh Air

When city officials reorganized the Office of Recovery Management into the Office of Recovery and Development Administration, Blakely gained responsibility for the code enforcement and safety and permits departments — two catalysts for rebuilding. The departments have the power to cite negligent property owners for blight and provide permits for reconstruction, respectively.

Source: City Business

The New Orleans Recovery Authority (NORA) will receive millions of dollars for various programs, including eradicating blight, supporting homeownership, repairing property, voluntary housing swaps and expedited permitting.

Source: City Business

“It became abundantly clear that defendant Thomas had relevant information, was adamantly refusing to provide it, and understood this was in violation of his agreement to do so,” the filing said.

Source: Forbes.com

Herschel Abbott, NORA board chairman, said disposition of properties will be in line with market demand. “We don’t want to flood the market with properties and precipitate a decline in property values,” Abbott said.

Source: City Business

What was once a dysfunctional, centralized department riddled with everything from favoritism to corruption, is now a highly regarded professional law enforcement agency. In the past four years, Providence’s murder rate has been cut in half.

Source: Business Innovation Factory

The study also features “Where did the Katrina money go?” — an in-depth analysis of federal Katrina spending since 2005. The Institute reveals that, out of the $116 billion in Katrina funds allocated, less than 30% has gone towards long-term rebuilding—and less than half of that 30% has been spent, much less reached those most in need.

Source: The Institute for Southern Studies

After the IDB voted for a bond issue to benefit developers of the old St. Thomas housing project site in 2003, for instance, it came to light that they had handed Thorns a contract on the side for $15,000.

Source: The Times-Picayune

Thomas, whose guilty plea represents the most significant development to date in a sprawling federal probe of government corruption overseen by U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, admitted to accepting nearly $20,000 in bribes in 2002 from restaurateur Stan “Pampy” Barre, a confidant of former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial.

Source: Times-Picayune

“The most surprising finding in this study is that, for the first time in 20 years, something rivals crime as the biggest problem facing New Orleans,” researchers wrote in the “Keeping People” 2007 Quality of Life Survey in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.

These pockets of productivity are notable in that people succeeded with little if any involvement from the central government. To my colleague Peter Gordon of the University of Southern California and me, this sends an important message: Rather than try to fix a doomed political process, neighborhoods should be allowed to secede from the city.

Source: Mercatus Center

Although there had been uncertainty over whether the city’s charter allowed the IG to have subpoena powers, the ordinance provides such authority. Without subpoena powers, some officials have said, the IG cannot be truly effective.

Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.

Source: JusticeForNewOrleans.org

The story of how the Army Corps of Engineers drowned New Orleans does not pack the kind of emotional power that leaves telepathic TV personalities almost speechless. It is a story that takes place mostly in the fine print of technical studies and appropriation bills, long before the rooftop rescues. But it’s still a story that should tighten your throat.

Source: Dallas Morning News

For all our machinations to keep a Black figurehead in office, we have just ensured that the mayoral candidate with the least favorable policies towards the Black community remains at the helm of our city’s re-invention. So if we end up with less ‘chocolate’ at the end of four more years, it won’t because the White bogeyman Uptown ran us out of town. It will be because we voted ourselves right on out of New Orleans.

Source: EURweb

Gill Pratt didn’t mention her long history of showering millions in taxpayer money on the group — or her ties to its president, Mose Jefferson, with whom she has had a long personal relationship. In an interview, Gill Pratt described Mose Jefferson — the brother of embattled U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, Gill Pratt’s political mentor and former boss — as a friend.

Source: Times-Picayune

The plan has been back in the spotlight this month as Audubon’s chief critic, Internet group SaveAudubonPark.org, sent out a rash of e-mails questioning city money that is going to the golf course renovation. At its March 21 regular meeting, the City Council will decide whether to allow the mayor to enter into a “cooperative endeavor agreement” with Audubon, which would allow Audubon to access $1.98 million in bond money for the golf course project.

Source: City Business