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.

Read the rest of this entry »

(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.

This afternoon at City Hall, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced plans to plug the city’s $67 million budget hole for the year — a plan that includes 11 unpaid furlough days for all city workers by the end of the year, and a 10 percent pay cut for Landrieu and members of his staff.

Landrieu was joined by members of the City Council and his administration in announcing the cuts at City Hall this afternoon.

“This is not a proud moment for the city of New Orleans, and I am particularly angry as a citizen and as now the chief executive officer of this city that now we find ourselves in a situation to make very bad choices based on bad options,” said Landrieu, adding that he had “no choice but to make very very difficult decisions today that will be painful.”

“The city of New Orleans has been living beyond her means, and the city has not even made good on delivering the services that it was budgeted to deliver,” the mayor continued.

Landrieu compared the cuts to those being made by other mayors around the country — the city of Oakland had to lay off 60 police officers this week, and Mayor Cory Booker in Newark, N.J. has closed swimming pools, stopped buying toilet paper, and stopped putting gas in city cars, said Landrieu. “Those are fairly significant austerity measures, so we are not living in isolation,” Landrieu added. “We are living in tough times, and we are living in tough times because other folks made bad decisions and we have to correct all of those things.”

The city is currently overspending its existing budget by $32 million and will cut back on overtime, and rely on reductions in the police department’s command structure announced earlier this month to fill that gap. The 11 days of furlough will save the city an estimated $6.7 million, while reductions in other contracts will save $5.6 million over the next 12 months.

The city is also using $23 million from an insurance settlement, which was due to be paid before Landrieu arrived as mayor, and which has since been paid. That money will go against the city’s structural obligations and one-time losses for 2010. The mayor’s office said the insurance settlement was related to Hurricane Katrina, but did not go into specifics this afternoon.

By the end of the year, the $67.5 million gap will be filled with $67.5 million in cost savings, if the mayor’s plan is fulfilled.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu was joined by fellow council members and community leaders this afternoon to announce a new plan to open an 80-bed hospital in New Orleans East by the fall of 2013. The mayor will also station two ambulances, at the junctions of I-10 and Read Boulevard and I-10 and Crowder Boulevard, to supply emergency services to the residents of the district in the interim — “it is shameful that more than 80,000 residents in New Orleans East, the 9th Ward and parts of Gentilly still ahve to drive up to 30 minutes to an emergency room,” he said.

Mayor Landrieu makes his announcement at City Hall this afternoon.

Landrieu plans to buy Methodist Memorial Hospital for $16.25 million, saving $23.75 million on the original price suggested by former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration. “I did not see the need to pay the price that the prior administration was going to pay,” said Landrieu.

Landrieu plans to buy just one building at the site, instead of the three planned by his predecessor. That means retaining $160,000 a year in tax revenue, and saving $270,000 a year in property maintenance costs. Full details of the deal, and video, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

In Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s State of the City speech, delivered July 8 at Xavier University, he addressed the current state of the New Orleans Recreation Department with these words:

“When I was a kid, NORD had great playgrounds and sports teams and even theater, dance and music programs. But when I came into office 67 days ago, I found a recreation department that would make you weep, one that is under-funded and under-prioritized. We found many of NORD’s facilities are in shambles — swimming pools without filtration systems, no restrooms and no shower facilities.”

For the three weeks before the mayor’s speech, Gambit had been looking into the state of NORD facilities around the city, visiting 25 of them in representative neighborhoods around New Orleans and recording the conditions there.

What reporter Matt Davis found was more than “swimming pools without filtration systems” or a lack of restrooms and showers — it was vacant lots officially listed as playgrounds, abandoned buildings and dangerous structures, concrete holes that were once swimming pools, rusty playground equipment, bulldozed lots listed as playspots, and, in one case, a open manhole just feet away from a slide, large enough for a child to fall down.

In our cover story, Davis looks at the history of NORD — from its founding in the 1940s, when Life magazine hailed it as the nation’s finest summer recreation program, to its current state of neglect … a neglect so profound that it was FEMA, not the City of New Orleans, who could provide us with the most up-to-date list of NORD’s own facilities. We talked to city councilmembers, to city officials, and to the neighbors of these blighted properties; we took photos, video, and ranked each property.

Landrieu and other city officials want to make a change to the city charter (which will be taken to the voters Oct. 2) to turn NORD over to a public-private partnership; and NORD just received its fourth director in two years — but will it make a difference this time? Is it possible to double the NORD budget when the city coffers are facing a $67 million deficit? And if NORD can’t even manage to keep the grass cut on its existing properties, what does that say about the city’s stewardship of even more money for the program?

There’s more in this week’s issue — from a first-person account of what volunteering to help oiled wildlife really entails to a fun Gambit interview with burlesque queen Dita Von Teese — but we really hope you take the time to read about the current state of the New Orleans Recreation Department.

Here’s a quick video of what we found — and please keep in mind that these aren’t abandoned or defunct playgrounds: these are active NORD facilities, this is is where the city of New Orleans expects its children to play, today … and this is only the first installment of what we expect will be an ongoing series of reports.