[Post updated, 9/2/10]

A group of like-minded criminal justice reform advocates is soliciting donations to buy a full-page ad in the Times Picayune next week to protest Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s plan to expand the Orleans Parish jail.

Gusman is proposing a new jail that ultimately will housing about 5,800 people, says the group — up from its existing 3,552 beds. The advocates hope to start a citywide conversation about the proposal by soliciting donations of $22.39 — the daily cost the city pays the sheriff for each inmate. The group also is asking donors to consider what else the city could spend the $22.39 on.

“We’re hearing everything from mental health programs, after school programs, to better street lights and fixing the potholes in the French Quarter,” says Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, which is headquartering the effort. “I think it really highlights the fiscal tradeoff the city is making when [it decides] to focus on expanding the jail instead of other services.”

The ad will cost $12,000 and is expected to run next week, Kaplan says.

“In just a few days we have had about 250 contributions, and we’ve raised over $5,000 in grass-roots donations,” she says. “I think what we’re seeing is definitely a groundswell of support for reform of Orleans Parish Prison. This is just through email solicitation and word of mouth.

“The donations are coming from all kinds of likely and unlikely allies. We’re seeing contributions from former judges, former city council members, local musicians, average citizens.”

Some private donors have agreed to match the funds raised by the effort. You can make a donate online through  Paypal until the end of today. There’s an anonymous donation button, if you don’t want your name to appear in the ad.

“A jail comfortable for our community needs to be no more than 857 beds,” says Norris Henderson, executive director of Voice of The Ex-Offender (VOTE), which supports the effort. “We’ve been locking people up for convenience.”

According to the group: Currently 3,500 inmates are in the Orleans Parish Prison, 2,700 of whom are “city prisoners.” That represents the highest rate of detention of any urban jail in the country and is three times the national average. There have also been a series of documented civil rights issues with conditions at the jail.

If you are interested in more details, Karen Gadbois at The Lens has been chronicling the city’s efforts to convene a private advisory committee around the jail expansion process.

Sheriff Gusman responded with an emailed statement through his public relations firm, the  Ehrhardt Group. He questioned the statistics cited by  the group, saying “all of the projections from the Juvenile Justice Project and percentages relative to our population are wrong.”

The sheriff wants a smaller, more efficient jail complex, he wrote, pointing out that the pre-Katrina jail complex housed over 7,500 inmates. Although 4,200 beds is still more than the current 3,552 beds.

The statement also focused on the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, writing: “This special interest group’s willingness to allow the current inmate housing situation to continue, while pursuing its own agenda, is short-sighted and a threat to public safety.”

“Demanding an artificially small facility just to satisfy a quest for national comparisons, in other words to wish New Orleans to be safer, is unrealistic and it puts the public’s safety at risk,” Gusman continued.

The full text of the planned ad is pasted, after the jump, along with the text of Gusman’s statement.

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Think you know New Orleans? Think again. No matter how long you’ve live here, no matter how many generations back your family might go, if you haven’t sat and listened to the young trainees at Café Reconcile tell their stories, you don’t really know this city.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu, several of his top aides, Criminal Court Judge Keva Landrum-Johnson, NOPD 6th District Capt. Bob Bardy, and a handful of NOPD cops got an earful Thursday night at a round table discussion with about a dozen Reconcile students — “a listening opportunity,” Landrieu called it.

The students were asked to tell their guests what it’s really like growing up in the city’s rougher neighborhoods, and they didn’t hold back. They spoke of attending pre-Katrina schools where it was easier to get drugs and guns than take-home textbooks, of feeling so unsafe in their neighborhoods that they dared not even sit on their porches, and of not having NORD programs and playgrounds to keep their younger siblings and cousins out of trouble. Two young men said they had been shot — one of them three times — just trying to walk home.

They weren’t complaining; they were just being honest. In fact, these same young people were filled with hope, thanks to Reconcile.

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At federal court this afternoon, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder bristled when asked about allegations made by defense attorneys in the Danziger Bridge case that federal agents may have fabricated evidence to secure six more indictments of New Orleans Police Department Officers — indictments that were announced at this afternoon’s news conference.

Holder (center) with U.S. Attorney Jim Letten at the Federal Courthouse on Poydras Street this afternoon

Holder was joined by U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in announcing the indictments. Today’s charges follow six other guilty pleas in the Danziger case — the six more accused officers were all arrested this morning, and Letten intends to seek their incarceration until trial. Read the full story, with video, after the jump.

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A recent move by Republic programming director Nick Thomas to ban attire inspired by MTV’s “Jersey Shore” is gaining traction among blogs. FAIL Blog declared the rule, posted outside the club, a “Sign Win,” and other blogs such as Racked and New York Magazine’s Vulture have blogged about it. The Huffington Post stole posted this interview with Thomas from NewOrleans.com.

While waiting behind a velvet rope in anticipation of 90s kitsch and special couches (V.I.P. sections), you may have noticed the sign: “If it’s on Jersey Shore, it’s not coming through the door.” For those unsure about what “Jersey Shore” attire encompasses, the sign singles out designers Affliction, Ed Hardy and Christian Audigier. The sign, however, fails to mention if boob slings are permitted.

There are two reactions to the club’s new dress code:

1. Guidos and guidettes (as the “Jersey Shore” cast members lovingly refer to themselves): who needs `em! I am an affluent white person, and therefore find the mere sight of tattoo jeans offensive (the majority of bloggers have embraced this reaction).

2. Seriously? Not that I am in any way advocating the kind of wardrobe the Republic seeks to ban, but how can Republic deny anyone the right to spend $9 on a Jack and Coke based on the dumb trends they follow? It’s essentially one silly, consumer-based subculture — Urban Outfitters-clad PYTs — seeking to exclude another. And while a wardrobe of True Religion jeans and a metallic, skin-tight graphic tee may be considered offensive for its crimes against fashion and society, it is certainly “appropriate” attire and nothing that any club has any real reason banning.

In the NewOrleans.com interview, writer Karen Dalton Beninato asks Thomas if, hypothetically, “Jersey Shore” cast member Snooki (of getting-punched-in-the-face fame) wanted to see the upcoming Spoon show, would the Almighty Fashion High Priests abide?:

Absolutely [not] … if Snooki is wearing anything that Snooki wears, the same Jersey Shore-esque clothing she is known for and [is] rocking a pouf. If Snooki has a life changing event and starts dressing like a normal human being, by all means — come and see Spoon.

First, what if Snooki sincerely wants to fist-pump her way through the crowds to hear Britt Daniel sing “I Summon You”? What now, Nick Thomas? And second, since when is Republic an authority on how “normal human beings” dress? Not all people would agree that wearing, say, a see-through lace body suit (slightly NSFW), outfits made entirely of lamé or ironic eyeglasses is how a “normal human being” dresses.

This was probably inevitable, since Republic has expressly stated its mission to hand-pick its ideal crowds since its inception. From the Lifestyle Revolution Group Web site:

Republic is a hub of creativity and entertainment for the progressive group of people living in and visiting New Orleans intent on revolutionizing the city’s professional and artistic landscapes, providing first-class social experiences and constantly evolving entertainment through music, fashion, philanthropy, film and the arts. Republic caters to a diverse, interesting and eclectic clientele, and its guests’ experiences are paramount to everything created there.

Diversity, however, is limited to the extent to which you are not a “guido.”

A run-down facility, leaked radioactive materials and untrustworthy executives persuaded the Vermont senate to vote to close the Vermont Yankee power plant, run by New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation.

What does this mean for Louisiana? Well, Entergy fed Vermont misinformation about known faults in the plant’s piping — or, as the Alliance for Affordable Energy states, Entergy showed “at least, profound ignorance of the design of this plant.” What does that say about Entergy Louisiana’s Waterford 3 nuclear facility in St. Charles Parish, or the Entergy Gulf States River Bend facility in St. Francisville? The Louisiana Public Service Commission’s latest renewable portfolio standard strawman proposal suggests nuclear power as a “renewable” source that utilities companies include in Louisiana’s future.

The Alliance issued a statement earlier this week before the Vermont ruling:

Entergy Corporation has shown that it cannot be trusted to safely operate these facilities or to provide honest, accurate information about the risks involved.

This disaster clearly demonstrates the risks associated with nuclear generation.  Nuclear power is not clean, not safe, and not renewable, and it has no place in policies designed to encourage renewable energy generation.  Furthermore, nuclear power is expensive.  The potential for disasters such as the one at Vermont Yankee are both a risk for communities and add to the financial burdens that nuclear projects carry, including large sums for decontaminating the sites that house these facilities.  Importantly, ratepayers are those who foot the bill for these projects, which endanger their very lives.

Subsidies and other incentives for energy generation should be reserved for clean, safe, renewable energy sources that can create jobs for Louisiana residents.  We hope that the Louisiana Public Service Commission sees the risks inherent in these plants and adopts a policy that does not include nuclear power.

If unchallenged, this will be the first time in more than 20 years the public or law closed a reactor. (The last was the 1989 closure of a Sacramento plant with faulty electronics.)