There’s nothing like the first sight of that little orange envelope stuck in your windshield wipers. Everyone can expect to see more of those when the city implements its new parking meter policy. But when does it start? Who knows, really.

The city’s Web site says they will “begin issuing warning citations on Monday, March 18.” First, Monday, March 18 isn’t an actual date. Do they mean today, Monday, or the 18th, which is Thursday? And what exactly is a warning citation? Do we have to pay $20 if we get one? However, we should expect full enforcement of the policy on March 27, according to the site.

Here’s the new policy. Start figuring out your new parking spots now:

Hours
Current: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
New: Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Rates
Current (Regular Two-Hour Meters): $1.25/hour
New (Regular Two-Hour Meters): $1.50/hour
Current (Long-Term Meters: Up to 10 Hours): $0.75/hour
New (Long-Term Meters: Up to 10 Hours): $1/hour

Stewart Juneau, owner of the Baton Rouge-based development company LeTriomphe Property Group, was selected last November by Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to redevelop the Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park. At the time, the proposed professional services agreement drew controversy, due to Juneau’s relationship with Nagin (he had hosted the mayor’s much-mocked “Excellence in Recovery Award” gala back in August 2008), as well as for the fact that LeTriomphe was the sole bidder on the project. In December, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux slammed the deal, urging the New Orleans City Council not to approve it. In January, city attorney Penya Moses-Fields slammed right back, saying the IG’s recommendation was premature and that there was “no existing contract.”

This morning, Juneau announced that LeTriomphe was requesting a “temporary suspension of negotiations” on the Municipal Auditorium deal:

LeTriomphe Property Group, LLC (LTPG) announced today that it has requested a temporary suspension of negotiations on a professional services agreement for the redevelopment of the Morris X. F. [sic] Jeff, Sr. Municipal Auditorium.

LTPG remains confident that providing a landmark home for the cultural arts and creative industry in New Orleans in the damaged and unused auditorium is one of the most important projects that will be undertaken in the city in the near future.

The letter gave no reason for requesting a suspension of negotiations, but concluded on an optimistic note:

We look forward to working closely with all segments of our great community on making the mission of providing a landmark home for the cultural arts in New Orleans a reality.

…with numbers larger than any pundits predicted. Official numbers soon.

[Note to readers: The post below is my column for this week’s issue of Gambit. Immediately following is a full set of Troy Henry’s responses to the attacks, from an interview I did with him on Friday, Jan. 22. For reasons of space, I was not able to include all his comments in the Gambit column. — Clancy]

Greek lore tells us that the Siege of Troy lasted 10 years. In New Orleans politics, a week of sustained attacks can seem like a decade. Just ask mayoral candidate Troy Henry.

Henry has been under siege on several fronts in recent weeks, culminating in a barrage of criticism this past week from respected African-American figures and attack ads from one opponent. His critics say he brought it on himself. He says they’re all in cahoots with his real adversary, frontrunner Mitch Landrieu, and that he’s not letting it get to him. He’s also firing back.

The most public — and perhaps most damaging — criticism came from the family of the late Dutch Morial, New Orleans’ first black mayor. Henry’s campaign Web site recently carried a video tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. The tribute, written by Henry’s son, included a family photo of the candidate’s late grandfather, longshoremen’s union leader Clarence “Chink” Henry, with MLK and local civil rights pioneers — including Dutch Morial. Another Henry family photo depicted the candidate’s mother, who was recently named Xavier University’s alumna of the year, with Xavier President Dr. Norman Francis and Civil Sheriff Paul Valteau. More than 100 photos appeared in the tribute.

Morial’s widow, Sybil Morial, fired off a letter to Henry rebuking him for using her late husband’s photo on a political Web site without first asking permission to do so. The Morial family “has never consented to the use of my late husband’s image, voice or likeness in campaign advertising, other than for the political organization he founded, the Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors (LIFE),” she wrote. A Morial family confidant told me afterward that even Marc Morial, who served as mayor from 1994-2002, refrained from using his late father’s image in his campaigns.

In her letter to Henry, which was released to the media, Mrs. Morial concluded, “We are offended by the lack of professionalism and respect of Mr. Henry’s campaign.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded a $360,000 grant to Tulane University’s Prevention Research Center (PRC) as part of the foundation’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Initiative. The money will be used in conjunction with the PRC’s KidsWalk coalition, whose mission is to increase physical activity for kids and families by providing an environment that facilitates walking and biking.

“What we understand is changing a mindset or culture means changing the environment,” says Kathryn Parker-Karst, PRC’s assistant director. “So to do that you need a broad coalition of stakeholders such as planners and engineers along with parents.”

The coalition is made up of members from a number of local organizations including the Recovery School District, the city’s Public Works Department, the Regional Planning Commission, Louisiana Safe Routes to School Program, PRC and the University of New Orleans.

Parker-Karst says the coalition will fund a position within New Orleans Public Works Department, and this person will focus on identifying high priority areas in the city that could incorporate improved sidewalks and bike paths into ongoing urban planning. Under the federally-funded South Louisiana Submerged Roads Program as well as New Orleans streetscape projects, a number of the city’s neighborhoods and main roadways will be reconstructed and renovated.

The Louisiana Public Health Institute and the Entergy Foundation already pay for a planning engineer within the public works department, and Parker-Karst says by adding another position, it will help increase the focus on creating more pedestrian-friendly areas in the city. Parker-Karst adds that the coalition wants to hire a person with a background in urban planning, engineering background and community organizing.

RWJF selected PRC’s application from a pool of more than 500 proposals, and New Orleans is one of 41 sites chosen for the initiative. In New Orleans, approximately 20 percent of the population is under 18, and 33.5 percent of high school students are either overweight or obese.

Following his statement at a Friday night forum that “we still have a Republican as a U.S. Attorney. I voted for Barack Obama, so I’d have a new U.S. Attorney. It’s not a racial thing; it’s a Democrat thing,” Camp John Georges just sent out the following statement from the candidate clarifying his position:

“I believe that U.S. Attorney Jim Letten is doing an outstanding job. Friday night at the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee, I was speaking about Democratic politics. The mayor has no control over the appointment of a U.S. Attorney. I commend Jim Letten for a job well done in his fight against corruption. As mayor I will work closely with Jim Letten and all other components of the criminal justice system to weed out corruption.”

Eli Ackerman of the blog We Could Be Famous picked up this bit of audio from last night’s meeting of the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee, at which mayoral candidate John Georges appeared. The entire context isn’t clear from the tape, but Georges seems to be defending himself as a member of the Democratic faithful by stating his opposition to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, a Republican.

Georges, a Republican-turned-Democrat, raised money for George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000 and ran for governor in 2007 as an independent. He also financially supported Mitt Romney’s run for the White House in 2008, as well as the 2008 Congressional campaign of Republican Steve Scalise, but says he eventually voted for Barack Obama.

I’ve been supporting Democrats my entire life…. I would’ve been a Democrat, but I was asked to stay independent to help fight Bobby Jindal. I’m a team player. I’m fightin’ for New Orleans; you need to fight for me. Mitch Landrieu is a leader. But you know, I tell you, we still have a Republican as a U.S. Attorney. I voted for Barack Obama, so I’d have a new U.S. Attorney. It’s not a racial thing; it’s a Democrat thing.

Letten, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was originally nominated to his post by President George W. Bush during his first term, and has has not been renominated by the Obama White House despite public statements of confidence from Republican Sen. David Vitter and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who said last April she supported Letten continuing in the job.

By positioning himself against Letten, is Georges helping or hurting himself? Listen to the whole tape over at We Could Be Famous, and see what you think.

The Alliance for Good Government, one of the most hotly sought endorsers in the New Orleans mayoral race, held their forum tonight at Loyola University with nine candidates present: Jonah Bascle, Manny ‘Chevrolet’ Bruno, Rob Couhig, John Georges, Troy Henry, Jerry Jacobs, Mitch Landrieu, James Perry and Nadine Ramsey.

The Alliance’s mayoral endorsement went to Mitch Landrieu.

Previous endorsements by the Alliance’s in the Feb. 6 race include several City Council races, including District B (Stacy Head), District C (Kristin Gisleson Palmer), District D (Cynthia Hedge-Morrell) and District E (Austin Badon).

Calling blight “a crime breeder,” the New Orleans City Council’s Recovery Committee met this morning to discuss Mayor Nagin’s recent cut of blight hearings from the city’s 2010 budget, and how to restore them. Council President Arnie Fielkow said the Council hopes to negotiate with the mayor to put the administrative hearings back into the budget, but if that doesn’t happen, the council should pay for the hearings through its own funds.

In order to avoid the appearance of partiality — the city cites and prosecutes property owners for blight — the city attorney’s office has hired outside legal firms to conduct administrative hearings to determine whether or not a property should be declared legally blighted. Through October of last year, the firms had conducted more than 11,000 blight hearings.

“I think it’s an incredible leverage tool for the city,” said attorney Carl Butler of LeBlanc/Butler, one of the three law firms the New Orleans City Attorney’s Office hired in 2009 to conduct the hearings. Butler explained that the hearings allowed the city to encourage property owners to get their properties up to code, and levy fines against offenders.

Council Vice President Jackie Clarkson chaired the committee, and said the blight hearings was the top issue that residents want to see put back into the city budget. Nagin cut out the hearings on Dec. 11, after the council passed a budget in December, reducing funding to a number of city departments, including $1 million from the city attorney’s office. Ceon Quiett, director of the mayor’s office of communication, said there wasn’t enough money left in the law department’s budget for 2010 to pay for a 12-month contract, which Quiett says the city charter requires.

“So that’s why the city attorney’s office had to make the cuts they made,” Quiett said. “They didn’t have the money in their budget for the lifetime of these services.” Quiett says the city spent $215,000 in 2009 for the administrative hearings, and, City Attorney Penya Moses Fields estimated the total cost to continue the hearings would be $250,000 in 2010.

Councilmember Stacy Head, holding up a copy of the law department’s 2010 proposed professional services and consulting contracts, said that only $80,000 was needed to continue the blight hearings, and that this was a miniscule amount compared to the city’s overall general fund budget of $455 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

State Sen. Ed Murray’s withdrawal from the mayor’s race was the latest — and biggest — surprise in a contest that already has had more than its share of unexpected twists and turns. Here’s my take on what happened, why, who benefits, what’s next, and what it means in the long run:

What Happened

Murray’s campaign team had a meeting last Wednesday (Dec. 30) to review fresh poll numbers by Silas Lee and to discuss finances and strategy. The poll had Murray in low double digits but with potential to grow among black voters, most of whom (around 55 percent) were voting for frontrunner Mitch Landrieu. The lieutenant governor’s numbers in this poll showed him ahead by a large margin, with nearly 50 percent of the vote. When you account for the fact that “undecided” respondents in a poll tend not to vote, Landrieu already has a majority of the decided vote. Of course, that could change, but that’s where things stood last week.

The feeling among some of Murray’s top advisers was that, while much of Landrieu’s black support was rooted in a genuine sense of “buyers’ remorse” after Ray Nagin’s dismal performance over the past four years, a lot of that support was “soft” and could be peeled off Landrieu. It would require, however, that Murray attack Landrieu. It also would require Murray to raise another $400,000 to $700,000 to position himself to make a March 6 runoff. Murray already had loaned his campaign several hundred thousand dollars, and the message to him was that he might have to put more of his personal funds into the effort.

After Wednesday’s meeting, several of Murray’s top campaign folks began raising money and devising a strategy to go after Landrieu. There was even some hope that Orleans DA Leon Cannizzaro might endorse Murray, and soon, which would give his campaign a boost.

Murray himself, however, was not comfortable turning the race into another contest about race. He spent the next few days doing a gut check and decided on Saturday that he wasn’t going to play a race card just to get elected. Once he made up his mind about that, he moved quickly to get out — surprising even some of his closest friends and supporters. He did not consult with his top campaign strategists before making up his mind to get out.

Read the rest of this entry »