On Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s 100th day in office, he held a town hall for City Council District A at Grace Episcopal Church in Mid-City. Landrieu, who is in the midst of conducting these “listening sessions” in every district, was joined on the dais by District A councilperson Susan Guidry and deputy mayors Judy Reese Morse and Andy Kopplin. In the audience were NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman, Council President Arnie Fielkow, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and dozens of city managers from almost every municipal department, all of whom took notes as members of the crowd stood and spoke about the improvements needed in their neighborhoods.

District A City Councilmember Susan Guidry and Mayor Mitch Landrieu take notes as members of the crowd speak at last night’s town hall in Mid-City.

“I think it’s fair to say we’ve put the pedal to the medal,” Landrieu said, outlining the six “priorities” of his administration, which he said were developed in the many task force meetings held by the new administration. The six, in order of importance, were: public safety; children and families; economic development; sustainable communities; open and effective government; and innovation. He warned that the city’s $67 million deficit would require some “tough decisions and bad choices,” and added that the findings from these community meetings would steer the direction of the final municipal budget.

Audience members had filled out cards with questions and comments as they entered, and moderator Vincent Sylvain handed them to Landrieu one by one. Each person had two minutes to pose a question, during which Landrieu — in loosened tie and rolled-up shirtsleeves — took copious notes on the most tangential of complaints on pages of yellow legal paper.

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(Clarification: Recycling at City Hall and the Main Library is in-house only. Recyclables will not be accepted at those locations.)

As members of City Council try to squeeze the return of citywide recycling pickup into Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s budget, Landrieu announced a compromise: At the tail end of his first 100 days as the latest Hizzoner, Landrieu opened a city-provided recycling drop-off site at 2829 Elysian Fields Ave. Beginning Saturday, Aug. 14, Orleans Parish residents and small businesses can drop off recyclable materials between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. every Saturday.

Landrieu also announced the return of recycling at City Hall and at the city’s Main Library branch (219 Loyola Ave.)

“We heard citizens loud and clear asking for recycling again, and this is a first step in the right direction as we continue to research ways to grow the program,” Landrieu said in an Aug. 10 release.

This is a first for post-Katrina New Orleans, where, under the direction of former mayor Ray Nagin’s sanitation director Veronica White, recycling has been ruled out of the question due to budget constraints — but Landrieu announced the recycling return while managing a $67 million hole in the city’s budget.

Accepted materials include paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, junk mail, aluminum cans, plastic bottles and containers, tin, steel and metal cans, and up to four tires. The program does not accept glass. Materials don’t have to be sorted, and residents must bring a driver’s license to prove residency in the parish.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu, First Deputy Mayor Judy Reese Morse, Councilman Jon Johnson and Chief Administrative Officer Andy Kopplin heard the concerns of Lower Ninth Ward residents at a community budget hearing at the Martin Luther King Elementary School on Caffin Avenue this evening.

Landrieu and Johnson listen to Kopplin set the stage tonight, overlooked by an imposing portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.

Tonight’s forum followed on from Monday night’s community budget hearing in New Orleans East, where Landrieu raised the issue of race in the context of repossessing properties in the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East.

Residents tonight were frustrated by many issues. They wanted to know what has happened to all the money allocated to the district since Katrina. They were frustrated by blight in the district, closed schools, torn-up streets, flooding, lack of street lights, lack of police and fire presence, inadequate recreation facilities, lack of facilities for senior citizens, the limited scope of Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, lack of supermarkets and amenities, by long grass, rats, rabbits, nutria, out-of-control mosquitoes, and the growth of disaster tourism.

“My mother’s house is around the corner, it sits vacant,” said Sharon Lamberson, a 59-year-old lifelong resident of the Ninth Ward. “The Road Home [program] gave her $17,000. That’s not enough to build a decent carport.”

“How come the only buses that are coming out here are looking at Brad Pitt’s houses?” asked another resident, Patrick Shannon Spears.

“There’s an equity ordinance, and somebody’s going to go to jail for failing to spend the city’s recovery dollars on the black neighborhoods,” said Vanessa Gueringer.

Jason Freeman: Angry about disaster tourism, long grass…

“I live right where the levy breach was between Prieur and Roman [streets],” said Jason Freeman. “I realize that we don’t have as many homes as the rest of the Ninth Ward, there’s only two of us on our block,” said “But the city cuts the grass once every eight weeks, on the unoccupied land the grass is taller than us.”

“There are all these people coming through the neighborhood — a lady told me she paid $35 at her hotel to come on a bus tour of the devastation in the Ninth Ward,” Freeman continued. “And none of that money comes to us.”

“When the tour buses come into the city to see Brad Pitt’s houses, the buses come past my house and they shake it. Who’s going to fix my house, now?” asked Rosa Ulmer. “And what do I do with the snakes? I had two in my yard yesterday. I have empty lots around my area, so that the snakes and the rats and the raccoons visit me on a daily basis. We have kids that want to play in the area but they can’t because of the snakes and the rats and the raccoons.”

One lady prompted laughter when said she called the police for snakes, and was told the police don’t come out for snakes. Read more — including Landrieu’s responses — after the jump.

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Residents of City Council District E can put in their 2 cents about how the city should spend its money at a community meeting in the Lower 9th Ward tonight from 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) to 8 p.m. at Martin Luther King Charter School (1617 Caffin Ave.). Mayor Mitch Landrieu and District E Councilman Jon Johnson organized the meeting, which also will include Police Chief Ronal Serpas, New Orleans Fire Department Supt. Charles Parent, city deputy mayors and department heads.

Read Matt Davis’ Aug. 3 blog post about the first District E community meeting held Aug. 2 at House of Faith in eastern New Orleans to see what concerns were voiced and how Landrieu responded.

The mayor has planned a series of community meetings in various districts during August as part of his stated commitment to seeking public input concerning how New Orleans is rebuilt and the challenges it faces with $67 million in red ink.

Ryan Berni, the mayor’s press secretary, says Landrieu plans to release a calendar of future community meetings tomorrow.

Residents in New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward expressed concerns to Mayor Mitch Landrieu and city officials about their communities’ lack of resources at a budget meeting last night.

At a standing-room only meeting at the Household of Faith church near the I-10 freeway, 50 people asked questions about the lack of a hospital, blight, lack of community resources like parks and retail, and shuttered high schools in the area.

There was plenty of emotional testimony about the problems being faced, but the most newsworthy exchange came toward the end of the two-and-a-half hour meeting, when Mayor Mitch Landrieu directly addressed his race in the context of the city repossessing blighted properties from black property owners who have failed to return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Roughly 1,000 people packed the church for the budget hearing last night.

“I want to talk about race,” said Landrieu, responding to the testimony at the end of the evening. “You start taking people’s homes, people start asking ‘why you trying to stop people coming home, Mr.Mitch, looking the way you do’ — do I need to say it?”

The crowd murmured support for Landrieu.

“The question is is this about race? Or is about the city?” Landrieu asked. “And when is the day when we start focusing on these properties? Is it now? Is it September? Is it November? Or yesterday?”

The crowd cheered when he said “yesterday.”

“I’m just asking, I just want to make sure I heard you,” said Landrieu. “Because I promise you as soon as I lay it down, somebody’s going to lay it down, and there’s going to be a march.”

“We got your back, Mitch,” shouted several people in the crowd.

The idea of repossessing vacant properties in New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward has been increasingly on council’s radar over recent months. At a meeting of the council recovery meeting on June 30, consultant Greg Rigamer told council that of 52,800 New Orleans applicants to the state’s Road Home program, 34,921 applicants have closed on their homes and are moving forward, but about 14,000 are showing no sign of progress after having received the money.

“There is a colossal compliance issue in front of us,” Rigamer said, urging the council to look into donating out-of-compliance properties to the Louisiana Land Trust.

First Deputy Mayor Judy Reese Morse addresses the crowd, watched by Councilman Jon Johnson, Chief Administrative Office Andy Kopplin, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu last night.

Mayor Landrieu demonstrated remarkable communication ability throughout the hearing last night — for example, he offered at one point to stay all night, listening to residents’ concerns, and the crowd responded by asking en masse for him to please bring the evening to a close. In the public relations playbook, this seemed to be a new twist on the so-called “Iron Man press conference,” where a politician simply responds to questions on a controversial subject until the crowd exhausts itself and goes home. Employed by Landrieu last night, it appeared sincere, as though he were eager to do the crowd a favor. Almost.

More on the testimony and the meeting after the jump.

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