Growing pains

This is what a housing crisis looks like to people who no longer have to worry about housing.

“I’m very aware of the growing pains of Bywater,” Ramsey said. “[But] Bywater historically is a mixed-use neighborhood. ... It hasn’t ever been a quiet sleepy suburb.”

Though she said she’s “not completely enamored with idea of a hotel there” and can “certainly understand some of the complaints,” Ramsey said the provisos would better fit the project into the Master Plan and address residents’ concerns. But the more than 40 people at the meeting who opposed the project grew frustrated with Ramsey’s description of opponents — Ramsey challenged that residents concerned about gentrification and displacement have only “recently moved in themselves” and called residents’ advocacy against the project “disinformation campaigns by people with ulterior motives.”

Nadine has spent a career in politics taking money from developers and real estate vampires but wants to tell us something about "ulterior motives." Anyway, there are several disinformation misdirects going on here. All of it comes from Nadine.

Nadine purposefully ignores the role of class in the way she defines gentrification.  She complains about the supposed hypocrisy of "recent arrivals" while completely missing the point. Recent arrivals don't forcibly displace people. Money does that.  Pointing out that there are recent arrivals on both sides of the Sun Yard fight tells us nothing.  Looking at who those recent arrivals are tells us everything.  The hotel developers are in the real estate business, except in a carefully branded small business, organic, family, whatever.. way.

Solms, 36, and Pignataro, 38, co-own a small family business focused on historic preservation, including renovating several apartment buildings in Philadelphia.

She envisions the local property as "just a small boutique hotel" — a nice place to stay, swim and relax, "nothing exclusionary, high-end, just very friendly and fun."

Solms also has spent more than a decade operating an organic agriculture business in Jamaica. Pignataro has a background in real estate.

There are recent arrivals among the opponents as well. But one of these situations is not like the other. Can you spot the difference?

My partner and I are former tenants of 3030 St. Claude and were displaced from our home to make way for this development.

We are low-income working people. Our home on St. Claude was affordable and convenient, in a wonderful community with great neighbors. When the developers refused to renew our lease, Morgan noted that this was the second time in two years that he had been displaced from the area to make way for upscale development. (The earlier eviction was from his apartment on North Rampart near Spain Street. Morgan’s landlord had decided to empty and renovate the building, then cash out for a hefty profit.)

If the housing remains available and affordable, then people can afford to live there. If it is converted to condos and hotels and STR pseudo-hotels, then they can't. This doesn't necessarily have to do with where the individuals involved come from. It is true that a lot of the money that causes displacement of poorer locals and transplants alike comes from out-of-town land speculators and the tourism industry. But that is a level of analysis Ramsey refuses to apply. In her mind, it's all just a natural process of "growing pains."  Which is an easy thing to discount when you aren't the party who is actually feeling the pain.

Ramsey also raises the specter of "NIMBYism" among the Sun Yard's opponents. I think that "growing pains" comment was actually meant to rebuff the quality-of-life type complaints from neighbors like noise and whatnot. She might have a point if that were the sole objection. Noise is a contentious issue all over town. Often we find noise complaints used as another tool of gentrification, in fact, as wealthier "recent arrivals" lobby to shut down corner bars and music venues.  But not all noise complaints serve the same purpose. As always, the relevant question is for whom, against whom, and we have a tendency to ignore that question when it suits.

I have a pretty high tolerance for noise. Which is why I don't want to live in a "quiet sleepy suburb" either. I like being around people. I live in a neighborhood where a lot of stuff happens. It gets pretty intense there during Mardi Gras. A few second lines pass by my door every year. Those are the big ones. There's also a lot of little stuff.  I'm a block off a major thoroughfare so there is lots of vehicular and foot traffic.  There are a couple of neighborhood bars in walking distance.  I'm caddy corner to a laundromat that sometimes hosts extracurricular activities. Yesterday, for example, there was a "4/20" party there featuring a few hours with a live band.  None of that stuff bothers me. It's the general noise of the neighborhood being itself.   The loud late night parties on the balcony at the short term rental across the street, though, make a more hostile sound. It carries the threat of being kicked out of my apartment one day.

I'm no "recent arrival."  I was born and raised in New Orleans. I've lived in my current location for almost 19 years.  My presence there hasn't displaced anybody.  Similarly, the recent arrival service industry workers and immigrant families who live in my building aren't displacing me.  But, as more and more of the property in the surrounding blocks is flipped from affordable housing over to condos and vacation rentals, it's that money that is threatening to displace all of us.

Nadine says this is all just growing pains, though. She has one more council meeting to go before her tenure is up. 

Following some debate after initially requesting a vote in favor of the project during the Council’s April 19 meeting, District C Councilmember Nadine Ramsey — whose district encompasses Bywater — pushed to defer voting on the plan until May 3, the last meeting of the current City Council before the administration’s inauguration on May 7. (It’ll be one of Ramsey’s last votes in office — voters elected former District C Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer to replace Ramsey in 2017 elections.)

It's entirely possible that the next council takes the same attitude that Ramsey has.  But let's worry about those recent arrivals after they've already moved in.

Stacy's hard cap went soft

This was an unusual city council debate. I would encourage everyone to watch the video when it becomes available.

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday (March 22) narrowly rejected a proposal that would cap Bourbon Street strip clubs and make them a permitted use in the street's six-block entertainment district, limiting the number to 12. The zoning changes were proposed after the council asked the City Planning Commission to study strip clubs in March 2016.

The vote on the proposal was 4-3 with council members Jason Williams, Nadine Ramsey, James Gray and Jared Brossett voting against it. Stacy Head, who authored the ordinance proposing the cap, Susan Guidry and LaToya Cantrell voted for it. After the vote, about two dozen dancers who sat through most of the six-hour meeting erupted in cheers.

I'm pretty sure this will come back up under the next council. As things are now, this vote opens the whole district up for unlimited strip club venues once an interim zoning provision expires in a few months.  The way this played out, one has to wonder why Stacy proposed this at all.  If she had just put forward the City Planning Commission's  recommended 14 venue "soft cap," it probably would have passed. This way she gets nothing.  Well, that is, she gets nothing but a slight boost in tough-on-vice political cred which she must be after for some reason.  What state legislative district does she live in?  Is she in Neil Abramson's term-limited House District? What is Stacy up to?

Some of the back and forth between Head and the public commenters was pretty dramatic. Both the T-P and Gambit accounts picked up on this one.

Dancers and club workers illustrated the impact of club closures — lost wages, increased risk of trafficking, and a trickle-down effect that extends to families and the tourism industry itself. BARE’s Lyn Archer said despite intentions and “no matter your political stance on this work, we are the people being hurt by this.”

Head asked attorney and dancer RJ Thompson why dancers aren’t fighting for workers’ comp in Baton Rouge at the state Legislature. “We don’t have time because we’re here fighting you,” Thompson said.

Head had a few other disingenuous misdirects to go along with that one. The most insulting one was her attempt to downplay what was happening by saying over and over that this is "just a land use issue." Jason Williams had to reestablish some of the context.

Head said her motion is “merely a land use matter” to reduce congestion of an “intense use” in the district; City Council President Jason Williams said despite the legitimate efforts of creating legislation “in a vacuum” over the last several years, those raids (“a complete waste of time”) are now inextricably linked to the issue of a club cap. “You didn’t do that,” he told Head. “But that is part of all of this now.”

And, of course, there is more than that to it. As the Gambit report also notes, the raids and the crackdown certainly go hand in hand with the strategy laid out in the mayor's "security plan" last year. Several commenters at the meeting also made reference to the hired gun lawyer the city brought in for the specific purpose of shuttering all of the strip clubs.  But Head was just being obtuse. I'm still not sure whether or not she even cared if this thing passed.

And that brings up another interesting aspect of all of this.  It's a rare sight to see the fate of a matter under this much public scrutiny actually decided during a live council debate. Ordinarily, everything is pretty much decided in advance of the meeting. But here we apparently had people making up their minds as they talked about it.  Nadine Ramsey said as much, in fact.  Actually, what she said was Jason Williams's comments about the raids changed her mind.  Gambit's is the only report that quotes him directly (above.) But NOLA.com gives a fuller description of what he was getting at and includes a link back to a story about the basis of his criticism.

Williams led the opposition to the motion, and criticized the New Orleans Police Department's treatment of dancers during state-led raids that uncovered illegal activity in the clubs. Williams said he was disturbed by reports of officers photographing dancers in their working attire and acting unprofessional, which he said was a poor use of manpower considering no one was arrested.

But there is more to it, which is why watching the video is helpful. Williams went on to describe police behavior during those raids as "unconstitutional" and "misogynistic" adding that they may have even endangered some of the dancers by exposing their identities in front of clients. Curiously, the Advocate summed all of this up as "perceived gaffes."

But Williams said he could not support it, given perceived gaffes by New Orleans police during the January club raids and because it would not apply to other businesses where human trafficking has been suspected, such as massage parlors. 

In any event, Nadine said Williams's objections helped change her to a No vote on the cap. The Mayor-elect, however, was unmoved.  Probably because she had no idea what they were actually voting on.

Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell supported a cap, though she initially supported the “soft cap” of 14 before Head clarified that the motion supports a 12-club cap. District A Councilmember Susan Guidry also supported the cap.

Not that this stopped her from launching into a smarmy demagogic speech about what she seems to think the raids uncovered. It was as if she hadn't heard a thing Williams had said.  Dan Faust was there to point out some of the criticisms  of and subsequent backtracking by ATC and NOPD after the raids operation although if LaToya can't even read the motion she was about to vote on, she probably hasn't paid much attention to any of that either.

Oh and James Gray was good enough to vote the right way but not before chastising everybody in the room for having the temerity to show up and criticize him... as is so often his wont.   Can't say we'll miss that when the next mayor and council take over.  When they do, if the M/O ends up being as improvisational as today apparently was, we're in for a fun ride at least. 

Aylin Maklansky's father's Airbnb clinic

They're trying to sneak this in before Maklansky's boss, Nadine Ramsey, leaves the City Council in May.

Acikalin, who has contributed $5,810 to Ramsey's campaign since 2015, is currently operating one of the properties, at 920 Frenchmen St., as a short-term rental. He's barred from having guests there more than 90 days a year under its current residential zoning. He's told neighbors he wants to open a medical clinic once the site is rezoned.

But that's raised skepticism among neighbors such as Eugene Cizek, a longtime architecture professor at Tulane University who has been involved in City Planning issues in the Marigny neighborhood since the 1970s. Cizek said he's concerned that granting Acikalin's request would return the city to the "spot zoning" problem that proliferated before a citywide master plan was adopted in 2010.

Just for the sake of context, these spot upzone maneuvers have quickly become the mode of choice for property owners looking to back door their way in to the short term rental business. Typically the owner proposes some sort of commercial use for the property that just happens to also have space for STRs available. But the goal is a commercial short term rental license.

Increasingly, homes near tourist areas are being bought specifically for the purpose of converting them to AirBnBs, and a single person might masquerade as the “occupant” of numerous homes that are rented out all the time – and some companies even hire local people to play that role, Dedecker said. Property owners are also increasingly asking for spot zoning changes on homes from residential to business zoning to fit into the third category of short-term rentals, commercial, which allows more tenants and can be rented year-round.

There are a lot of these in various stages of discussion right now.

Here's one at the former Zara's Supermarket on Prytania Street.

This one, which appears to be a no-go at this point, would have been, ostensibly, an ice cream shop.

Here is a property owned by Pat Swilling.  He asked for a commercial spot-zone without even specifying what sort of business he might like to pretend to want to open there.

Councilwoman Stacy Head asked for clarification.

“I can’t tell you I’m not going to, but I’m going to do something else as well, like a mixed use,” Swilling said.

Head pressed him further.

“So you’re going to do short-term rentals. Just tell us the truth here,” Head said. “What do you want to do? That’s the question here. You said a coffee shop. I’ve got a whole list of things that have been promised to the Council that have never come true. … I’m so tired of being lied to by developers not giving us what they promised to give us.”

Head turned her question to Cantrell, asking whether it would be a coffee shop or not. The zoning requested would allow for that, Cantrell said. Swilling added that coffee shop, ice cream shop and others were all under consideration.

“Now it’s not a coffee shop,” Head retorted, saying that Swilling had failed to give the Council his vision for the property.

“That’s very disrespectful,” Cantrell said quietly as Head concluded her questioning.

Note that in all three of the above cases, LaToya Cantrell intervenes on behalf of the would-be Airbnb owner one way or another.  Here is one LaToya supports even without a bogus front business scheme. It's just a developer who wants to do STR condos.  It does help to have councilmembers on your side.  Here is a property on Bienville Street the council voted to upzone despite the Planning Commission's denial.  There's a list of CPC denials that could still be overridden depending on the Council's disposition.

And that's the real trick with regard to Maklansky's dad's "clinic."  The plan in that case was to jam the thing through before Ramsey and the rest of the Winter Council* leave office.  The attention has probably spoiled that.  The real fun begins in May when we learn, to everyone's shock, no doubt, just how pro-Airbnb the new Council and, of course, Mayor Cantrell end up being anyway. But we've still got a few months to pretend otherwise.

*I've been calling the lame ducks the "Winter Council" but the weather hasn't cooperated much with that term for almost a month now.  They're gonna be around for a while, still. Maybe we need a new thing.

The Winter Council

The lame duck City Council is decamping to a broom closet in an abandoned bunker somewhere across the river for a few months.  This will not be a vacation. As it turns out there are still a few items on certain outgoing councilmembers' "bucket lists" that will still need attending to.  If you are a member of the public interested in providing your input on any of these items, getting yourself over  to the hidey hole where your representatives are conducting their ostensibly public proceedings is only your first obstacle.  Five of the seven councilpersons are leaving office in May so, even if you can get your pleadings through to them, it's doubtful they're going to pay much attention. So good luck.

Here are a few items that might make their way onto the agenda. The first of these probably will have to wait until after the turnover... but, also, it might not.

• A consultant recently completed a survey of city employee wages and benefits. Their recommendations are intended to look encouraging at first glance. See, they want to give everybody a raise.
  

  New Orleans city government should raise its employees' pay by 10 percent, provide for annual merit raises and allow new hires to be offered more than the minimum salary for their positions, according to a report by a consulting firm hired by the city.
  
  The report, completed last month, argues that increases in the cost of living in New Orleans and the availability of higher wages in the private sector have made city jobs less appealing and harder to fill.
  
  The last widespread boosts in salaries for city employees came in 2008, meaning most have seen at best minor raises over the past decade, according to the report.

  And there's plenty of justification for doing just that. The report cites the rising costs of housing in New Orleans as well as a 500 percent increase in health care costs for city workers over the past decade.  Of course, that's a strange thing for the consultants to bring up. A ten percent raise doesn't begin to address that problem. And they aren't arguing for more generous health benefits. In fact, they're recommending sick leave be slashed.
  

  That policy gives workers 13 days of sick leave a year during their first five years and provides those with more than six years of service 15 days of sick leave annually and those with 16 or more years of service 20 days of sick leave each year. The report recommends all those figures be capped at 12 days of sick leave per year, to meet the regional average.

  This sort of bait-and-switch strategy is used against low wage workers all the time. Offer something small but attractive up front, take something important away on the back end.  It's the same logic behind the recently passed Republican tax cut plan which all but guarantees devastating cuts to Medicaid and Social Security. We've also seen it here.
  
  
  
  
  
  In this case, what City Council is most likely to use the report for is as an argument for cutting retirement benefits.  That's what it says way down at the bottom of that Advocate article.
  

  The report also recommends changes that would make city workers' retirement system less generous, noting that other governments in the area require workers to contribute more to their own pensions. The changes recommended are similar to those the city put in place for new hires starting next year.

  Slashing pensions has been Stacy Head's highest priority in her final year on the council.  Her false claim that the retirement system is in fiscal peril echo decades-long Republican lies in agitation against Social Security. Last spring she even attempted to jump the gun on the wage survey and pass the cuts before even seeing its recommendation. Last month they finally passed a scaled back version of the cuts that only affect more recent hires.  But this is still a swipe at the retirement security of a slightly younger cohort of workers.  Head hopes "the next council" will take it further. But there's no guarantee she won't try sooner given that it's harder for people go yell at her now.
  
  
  
  
• Nadine Ramsey is trying to do a favor for a former staff member's father. 



Metairie gastroenterologist Tamer Acikalin wants a zoning change for a Frenchmen Street residential property he owns that he says could one day become an urgent care clinic. The pillared apartment house with a second-floor front porch is two blocks from Washington Square in the Marigny and just down the street from some of the city's best-known live music venues.

Under the proposed zoning change, a medical clinic is just one of 21 commercial uses that would be expanded from its current zoning designation, which only allows day care facilities and small, owner-occupied bed and breakfasts as a commercial use. One of the possible new uses is likely to rile neighbors: Short-term rentals would be allowed year-round, not subject to the 90-day cap that the New Orleans City Council adopted when new regulations took effect April 1, 2017.

We're actually seeing a rash of these "spot-zoning" requests aimed at proliferating short term rentals, lately. One thing they all have in common is a vague plan for some sort of small business on a property that is clearly meant to be used as an Airbnb hotel. Many of them have specific instances of political favoritism in common too. This is one of many but it is in the news because of how obvious it is.


Acikalin is father of Aylin Acikalin Maklansky, Councilwoman Ramsey's legislative director who recently returned to her job after an unsuccessful run for the council seat Guidry is leaving. Acikalin said his daughter has no financial interest in the property. Campaign finance records show Tamer Acikalin contributed $5,810 to Ramsey's election efforts between 2015 and 2017.

Recall that, during the campaign, both Ramsey and Maklansky were beneficiaries of pro-Airbnb lobbying groups so this is a pretty easy gotcha story.  Expect more of them to come, though.



• Most urgent on the Winter Council agenda is the surveillance ordinance. 



The plan, proposed in January as part of Mayor Mitch Landrieu's $40 million public safety initiative, includes the adoption of a city ordinance that would require bars and restaurants across the city to install cameras on the outside of their buildings pointing into public areas. The ordinance, if approved by the New Orleans City Council, would also require those establishments to store the surveillance footage on a cloud-based government server to which law enforcement would have access.

"This ordinance would put the city's surveillance apparatus on steroids, subjecting New Orleanians to near-constant monitoring of their daily lives and stifling our vibrant public space - without meaningfully reducing crime," ACLU Louisiana interim executive director Jane Johnson said.

In addition to ACLU, the camera scheme has been criticized by the Orleans Independent Police Monitor citing “potential for mismanagement, poor information security, public record law compliance challenges and user abuse,”  and by the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans who released a review this week. MaCCNO's report concludes that the ordinance would constitute an unprecedented expansion of government surveillance powers that exists in no other U.S. city. The proposal has not been criticized by Councilmember (and incoming mayor) Cantrell, however. Her stated position is that the cameras are "a step in the right direction at the right time."

There is a vote scheduled for the coming Thursday over in the bunker.  If you have a hard time getting there, though, there is also a committee hearing set for this Wednesday at the very convenient for everyone time, I am sure, of 2 PM. They'll be on the 21st floor of an office tower at 1340 Poydras St.  Good luck figuring out how to get in there.  Maybe someone will think to install some cameras.

What are they doing in France?

I mean, besides running up the ol' city credit card again har har har... But what is that specific roster of folks doing in France? Here is a thread.

The problematic sandwich shop

Y'all have probably eaten at Melba's at least once by now. It's very good. They do po-boys and plates and stuff. The gumbo is really good. The ordering system is a bit of an adventure but once you figure it out it's fine. There should probably be more places like it. But there's a lot that goes into getting even something seemingly so modest off the ground quickly.  Melba's has been open for only a couple of years but has gotten a lot of attention. This can only happen for a family business if it starts with a fair amount of financial and political capital already in the bank which these guys certainly had in spades as this 2015 profile explains.

Melba’s is the latest venture for Scott Wolfe Sr., the grocer who made Wagner’s Meat into a household name in New Orleans, even for those who never shopped at his stores, thanks to its potentially blush-inducing slogan: “You Can’t Beat Wagner’s Meat.”

Wolfe and his family also created the Chicken Box (slogans: “Tastes Like Mama’s” or, at some locations, “Tastes Like Ya Mama’s”), a related chain of takeout joints that had a short but colorful run in the years before Hurricane Katrina. This was the company that once offered to put on weddings for couples who bought its 1,000-piece chicken package to cater their receptions.

After shifting to real estate development in the years after the storm, Wolfe quietly returned to the retail game in 2012. That’s when he first opened Melba’s, turning a vacant drycleaners on Elysian Fields Avenue into a 24-hour combination po-boy shop, daiquiri shop and washateria.

More recently, the menu has expanded with a steam table selection of New Orleans comfort food, boiled seafood and, as he’s resurrected the Chicken Box brand, fried chicken (the 1,000-piece package is available, though the wedding offer is not). More is on the way, including urban gardens Wolfe plans to develop on adjacent lots, an outdoor event venue and some 500 birdhouses he wants to distribute around the city bearing a Melba’s sales pitch.

The high profile cuts both ways, though.  The Wolfes found this out after a TV crew showed up at Melba's to get some man-on-the-street takes from customers about the Great NFL Kneeling Controversy of 2017.

What brought the crisis to Melba’s, however, was a comment from the manager on duty at the time. Mike Wolfe told WWL-TV that he didn’t want to show the Saints game if players protested in that way.

The restaurant’s Facebook page lit up with angry comments, accusations of hypocrisy from a white-owned business based in a largely black neighborhood and calls to boycott Melba’s.

But Scott Wolfe, the owner of Melba’s, said his brother's comments amount to an employee of the company expressing a view that doesn't represent the business and is at odds with its character.

“What he said was not the opinion of Melba’s, it wasn’t my opinion, and it’s not how we operate here," said Wolfe. "I know it's confused a lot of people, but the people who know us know that's not what we're about."

"It wasn't my opinion." Okay sure, we'll just have to take his word for that.  Still, as long as the business isn't deliberately involving itself in the stupid boycott movement, they at least deserve credit for that.   It's pretty nice for them that they have the kind of pull that gets the Advocate to help them with their PR response, though.

I had to go to the other news"paper" to find this story.

The owner of 821 Gov. Nicholls St. is now challenging the city's enforcement of a ban on short-term rentals in the French Quarter in a lawsuit on the argument that what's being purchased is catering services -- not a short-term rental -- because the free night's stay is merely an optional bonus.

Despite the lawsuit, a city administrative hearing officer Wednesday (July 12) fined property owner 821 Gov Nicholls LLC $3,000 for six violations of the city's short-term rental ordinance. Officials showed a VRBO.com listing for "Melba's Mansion" during the hearing.

Scott Wolfe owns Melba's Po-Boys on Elysian Fields Avenue through the company K-Ville Market LLC. Wolfe said the Governor Nicholls property is owned by his family through 821 Gov Nicholls LLC.

The "Po-Boy party" farce isn't just some uh.. lone.. Wolfe.. action.  It's actually the beginning of a larger, concerted effort by the Short Term Rental lobby to further confound efforts to regulate their activities. 

Eric Bay, the director of the pro-short-term rentals group the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity, appeared in an adjudication hearing with attorney Eric Torres to answer an enforcement action against a French Quarter short-term rental. Short-term rentals are illegal in most of the French Quarter under an ordinance that the City Council that took effect on April 1.

Bay does not own the short-term rental that was cited for operating illegally, and he insisted he does not represent the owner. But his appearance before the city's adjudication panel over a clearly illegal short-term rental raises fresh questions about how committed the organization is to complying with the city's short-term rental law.

Bay and his group practically wrote the ordinance.  It was their side who showed up in force at City Council to lobby for its passage.  But now they sense a political opportunity to press even further in the direction of full legalization. In order to do this they're pouring money into the municipal elections.  Gambit reported last month on some of the campaigns who have received money from Bay's group, Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity. ANP emails to members explicitly state that candidates, "have pledged to work with us" presumably in their efforts to expand STRs during the next term.

The council candidates named in that article have had to publicly backtrack and even return donations in order to keep up appearances. Gambit doesn't say anything about the mayoral candidates [THIS IS INCORRECT SEE * BELOW]

Cantrell also got $1,100 from the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity, a local group of short-term rental property owners, and $2,500 from the Committee to Expand the Middle Class, Airbnb’s political action committee. Shachat said Cantrell has not given any assurances on what her policy on short-term rentals would be if she’s elected, other than to say that it would be “open, fair and transparent.”

As we've noted previously, Cantrell has demonstrated through her words and actions that she doesn't believe Airbnb is really all that much of a problem.  Wonder how she came to that conclusion. In any case, despite their reporting on the council races,  Gambit must not think STRs are all that much of a problem either. They've endorsed Cantrell for mayor, after all. Maybe they thought she was just talking about po-boys or something. Either way it's good to have friends in the media, whatever it is you might be trying to sell.


* This blog is a piece of trash sometimes.  Here is what Gambit actually wrote in that article.

ANP’s other campaign donations include:

- $1,000 to Ramsey on May 11 and $250 in June 2016.

- $100 to District B councilmember and mayoral candidate LaToya Cantrell on Feb. 2 and $1,000 on May 24.

- $500 to At-Large Councilmember Jason Williams in June 2016 and $250 in November 2016.

Bay also made donations to Cantrell ($250 on Feb. 2) and District A candidate Joe Giarrusso ($250 on Sept. 2). Giarrusso contacted Gambit after this story initially ran to point out he returned Bay's contribution the same day it was made

Here's a little behind the scenes look at how this crap blog gets made sometimes. I read that Gambit article weeks ago and bookmarked it in here.  Later, I noticed Melba's was in the news vis a vis the Trump bullshit, remembered Wolfe and them were running the po-boy airbnbs, and thought I could put all of that together.

So I put all the bookmarks in a post and saved it for a while. Over the following days and weeks I came back here and wrote a few lines at a time about what I thought I remembered this  post was supposed to be about.  Usually I write while two or more people are talking to me and/or the TV is on. I'm actually typing this correction right now while listening to a mayoral debate.  I have severe Trump brain. It's a wonder any of these sentences ever come to a complete.......

Anyway, by the time I "finished" this post I had forgotten enough of the Gambit story that I ended up misrepresenting it (and snarkily so, even.)  Sorry about that.  I still think they shouldn't have endorsed a candidate in this terrible race, although that is a separate matter from what they published in the Airbnb story.

It has barely rained

Earlier today, the mayor and about 19 other city officials on the podium told us we had better be off the streets by 7 or else. Councilmember Ramsey responded to questions about a supposed double standard "curfew" applied to residents but not necessarily to tourists.

Ramsey: This mandatory curfew applies to everyone, tourists, citizens, etc. @wdsu

— Travers Mackel (@TraversWDSU) October 7, 2017

Mackel followed up on that with a question to the mayor about enforcement in the event that some businesses remained open or hosted any sort of "hurricane party."  Mitch, visibly aggravated, warned that anybody out on the streets when the wind picks up "might catch a stop sign to the head."  

It's about 7:30 right now, Nate has made a "first landfall" in Plaquemines Parish. The wind is barely blowing in New Orleans and the National Weather Service has dropped the hurricane warning for Orleans Parish. WWLTV just reported from Bourbon Street where there are plenty people milling about after curfew.  Good for them. But, um, can we come out too yet?

None of the jokes are landing

This was supposed to be a very important municipal election.  It was supposed to be an opportunity for organized push back against the obscene acceleration of hyper-capitalism and exploding inequality and have been grinding New Orleanians into the dirt in the post-Katrina years. Instead it has been the most insidery business-as-usual snooze fest imaginable. Somehow even the entertainment division of the mayor's race feels like an exercise in going through the motions.

How did this happen? Where did the joy go? There should at least be some joy.  Look at all these oddball candidates.  There's a grifter in a top hat who literally wants to build monorails. There is a guy who is running pretty much because he read one pop management theory book.  There is a lady who wears sparkly boas and talks about gladiators and space aliens and the like. There's a guy who is intentionally running as a joke candidate for the fourth time and he's actually kind of the sane one. This should be, at least in some way, entertaining. It isn't, though. It's flat and tired.

If we're going enjoy the comic relief part of the program, we first have to feel invested enough in the main even that we need to be relieved.  But, for the most part, we're not invested. The election is happening in near perfect isolation from the voters who would seek to engage with it. The principal candidates are focused on the donor circuit and their own inside baseball. Their policy positions are hollow iterations of cynical condescension.  When there's no hope that any outcome in an election can benefit anyone but wealthiest elites, there's no drama that needs to be cut with comedy.   One could argue there is a Dadaist statement to be made here but so what. Absurdism is a great lens for politics but it only has value if one can imagine a rational counterpoint worth aspiring to. The joke candidates this year, then, aren't really jokes. They are insults.

The situation is so bad that our clarion call for reengagement comes to us this week via Clancy DuBos, is inspired by something Newell Normand said, and praises the work of two upper class business community organizations. There's just no hope, is there?  Certainly not if this is any indication. 

Less than six months into implementation of the city’s short-term rental (STR) ordinance, the leading local proponent of expanded STRs is raising money for some City Council candidates “who have pledged to work with us,” according to an email sent by the pro-STR Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity (ANP). In the email, ANP makes clear that the organization seeks to expand the “footprint of inclusion” for STRs and increase “both day count and occupancy permitted” in the city’s STR ordinance.

An ANP email sent last month titled "Call to Arms and Action-All Members City Wide" asked the group’s members and supporters to help raise campaign money by attending fundraisers for two council candidates in particular — District C incumbent Nadine Ramsey and District A hopeful Aylin Acikalin Maklansky, who until recently served as Ramsey’s legislative director. In addition to hosting fundraisers for Ramsey and Maklansky, ANP and its president have contributed to several other council candidates directly.

"Both are Equally important to our futures," the email said, "as their contending opposing candidates have announced anti-STR sentiment and prioritized restrictions going forward if elected. Please make every effort to contribute online and if unable to attend. Support your future by supporting those who have pledged to work with us."

There's definite political engagement happening here. It's just all on the wrong side, unfortunately. The pro-Airbnb team is pushing to expand short term rentals in New Orleans as soon as this December. With a show of strength in the fall election they should be able to get whatever they want passed. We've previously noted the odds-on favorite in the mayor's race is more or less on board with them.  I wish I had a joke to end on here but, well, it's not funny anymore.

Nadine Ramsey should try taking the ferry to work

She doesn't seem very clear on who the infrastructure she's voting to build is actually for. Maybe if she actually had to rely on it for her daily commute she would see this better.

City Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey on Thursday (March 24) made no apologies for supporting a plan to demolish the Canal Street ferry terminal, a decision some of her constituents say will make it more difficult for them to get to work. But it was clear that she was playing defense after one key opponent said neighborhood groups tried and failed to get Ramsey to oppose the plan for its lack of a pedestrian connection.

"I've heard comments that this is being built for tourists. That's crap," Ramsey said Thursday ahead of the City Council's vote on demolition. "Any conversation or any comment that includes any indication that I am not protecting my district or protecting Algiers can kindly leave because I know the work I've done for Algiers for my district and that I'll continue to do."

Maybe she should have checked with the Mayor first. 

(Kristin Gisleson) Palmer said that many of the comments about the terminal being built for tourists are rooted in concern over remarks Mayor Mitch Landrieu made during a private meeting with stakeholders on Monday. The mayor was asked why funding was weighted so heavily in favor of a $5 million terminal building with no funds included for a pedestrian bridge.

"He clearly stated that this is for the 8 million tourists that are going down there every year," Palmer said. The mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request seeking confirmation of the comment.

But the perception of a tourist-focused terminal located next to a proposed Four Seasons hotel did seem to carry weight with at least one City Council member. Councilwoman Susan Guidry said she agreed with opponents who raised the concerns about the $5 million building, saying, "it had to be a conscious decision not to have those elements for the sake of having a very beautiful building."

"That's not right," Guidry said. "I just think we need to put these things on the table. That was just not right to design it that way and that is obviously a design to suit the desires of very big companies ... and to look good for tourists. That just needs to be said."

Of course Guidry can say these things because she's retiring now and doesn't have to answer to any "very big companies" anymore. Ramsey is in a different position. 

Only seven more months until qualifying day

There's no rest for New Orleanians weary of politics in 2017. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been a quiet year. But as it happens folks will need to keep their voting arms good and warm for a full round of municipal elections happening this fall.

The scheduling change was enacted a few years back in an effort to move the elections away from the busy winter/spring social season. This is probably for the best. But, since we aren't moving inauguration day until the following cycle, we do end up with a weird little one-time quirk.

The swearing-in switch would be delayed until after June 1, 2018, a political compromise that lets Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the current council serve full, four-year terms through May 2018 regardless of the vote's outcome. But that also means the next round of city leaders, if elected in October 2017, would have to wait more than six months to take office.

The first January inauguration would take place in 2022.

So, after the November run-off, we're going to go through an awkward transition where we have a newly elected government just kind of hanging around in the background all the way into May. Ray Nagin used to complain about the "shadow government" in this city but this takes things a bit literally. Imagine a local version of the uncomfortable dual Presidency we've been enduring for the past month and a half but extended for half a year. Should be fun.

That's just about the same amount of time, by the way, between now and the July deadline for candidates to qualify for these races.  So, sure, let's start trying to figure out who is running for mayor.

We're pretty sure LaToya Cantrell is in.  She was most recently spotted delivering this demagogic over-the-top praise of the city's latest installation of surveillance cameras.

The department won’t specify where the cameras will be located, but said they would be stationed first in high-traffic areas and crime hot spots.

“Crime is out of control, shootings are up,” said Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell. “We need to be proactive in terms of catching criminals and deterring crime.”

Cantrell stresses that the readers are not for profiling or harassing people on the street, but for tracking vehicles used in crimes.

“It has nothing to do with profiling at all,” she said. “It doesn’t show you who’s in the vehicle, what they’re wearing, their skin color. It’s totally focused on that license plate as well as the make and model of the car.”

Cantrell said it will be a tool in the crime-fighting arsenal that the city so badly needs.

“My constituents are saying that crime is their number one issue. They not only want to feel safe, they want to be safe.”

Never mind the confused bit about racial profiling. That is, of course, always a concern. But it isn't the primary complaint against panoptic tracking of everyone's public movements by the police which we probably shouldn't have to point out is just inherently bad.   But it's that "My constituents not only want to feel safe, they want to be safe," comment that really floors me.  LaToya clearly doesn't recognize these cameras as the quintessential example of  ineffective, expensive security theater that they are. In fact, she seems to be describing them as precisely the opposite of that. This is worrisome.

We also know Michael Bagneris is in although nobody can figure out, exactly, why.  Back in October, Bagneris told Danae Columbus that running for mayor "is in my DNA." Medical science has not yet developed a treatment for this condition. 

J.P. Morrell might run. He was a vocal opponent of City Council's disastrous decision to legalize short term rentals last year. Affordable housing figures to be a major issue in these elections.  Morrell also recently held a high profile fundraiser at the home of wealthy trash magnate Jimmie Woods which could signal big plans.

Speaking of wealthy trash magnates.  This guy exists.

"One of the reasons I like private [solutions] is because I am looking at my bottom line," he said. "I'm not looking at what's politically correct. I'm not looking at what makes sense in how I am going to get to my next office or who's going to vote for me so I can keep my job as a politician."

Coincidentally, Landrieu's term ends in 2018, and Torres is said to be considering a run of his own. Until that decision is made official, "Trashanova" is returning to the trade that first proved profitable. With the noncompete clause from selling his waste business in 2011 expiring in June, Torres is launching a new waste-management company, IV Waste, slated to begin serving private customers in early August.


"Business leaders should get involved — not just financially involved, but get their hands dirty and find a cause to help out," he said. "I think it's important."

At first glance, Torres would appear to have at least two things working against him.  First, the local political memory still retains at least some of the lessons it learned from its last experience with putting a not-a-politician "business leader" in charge of stuff. Second, it's not clear that New Orleans voters really take Sidney all that seriously. He won "Best Potential Candidate For New Orleans Mayor" in the most recent Gambit "Best Of New Orleans" poll which most readers took to be something of a joke. Sidney took out a full page ad to thank them anyway.



At the same time, there's this annoying familiar feeling in the back of our minds here. Something about a wealthy, charismatic entrepreneur/reality TV guy who nobody took seriously until it was too late.  Can't quite place it, though. It's probably nothing.

Jason Williams is frequently mentioned as a potential candidate. This is mostly on the strength of the impressive victory by which he was elected Councilman At-Large in 2014.  In that seat, though, he's possibly dampened enthusiasm a bit. Councilman Williams often seems cautious to a fault.

When he ran, Williams was emphatic about his belief in the council's role as "a check and balance on the administration."  "It's not supposed be a rubber stamp," he said. And yet, during the STR debate, Williams proved to be among the more gullible followers of the administration's party line. Williams parroted the prevailing argument about the overwhelming imperative to "appease the platforms" insisting that we could always go back and "tweak" the permissive ordinance later.  Hilariously, at that very same time, Williams' Facebook page featured an obviously hollow statement of support for the DAPL protesters.

Right now "part of" Jason Williams is in Standing Rock asking if they can tweak the pipeline back out later maybe. pic.twitter.com/06mmu1G7KA

— skooks (@skooks) December 1, 2016

State Rep. Walt Leger has certainly sounded at times like he might be running. That shouldn't be too surprising given that things didn't go as he'd hoped in Baton Rouge last year.  He's also not the only member of our local delegation who might be fed up with the situation up there. Karen Carter-Peterson, for example, may have had quite enough of that cake already. There's also State Rep. Helena Moreno who, though her name has popped up regarding the mayor's race, is more likely to run for Stacy Head's Council At-Large seat.

Is that everybody?  Probably not. Clancy DuBos also mentioned Troy Carter and Nadine Ramsey during a recent TV blurb. We'll see about that.  There's also this guy @LarryLarmeu from Twitter who has threatened to run for various offices every few months or so for years now. Larry now says he is moving to England. We'll see about that too, I guess.

What we really need now, though, is polling data. It's never too early. This has been frustratingly difficult to come by in recent local elections.  So this year we're not waiting around for UNO or SMOR to throw out their one anti-climactic survey a week before the election. Instead we're making our own.  Poorly, of course, but so what. What is our method? Well, we just threw a bunch of names into a Twitter poll. There were... um...  problems with this.

First off, Twitter only allows you to create polls with four options.  But, as you can see from all of the above, we've identified quite a few more potential candidates than that.  So we had to put them into two separate groupings. The names appeared in these groups randomly in the order that I happened to think of them.  As it happened, the first grouping received almost 20 more total votes than did the second. Does this make the second group the "kiddie table"? Maybe. Is this in any way fair or valid? Hell no. That's not really our purpose here today or ever, really.

Suffice to say, even for a Twitter poll, the methodology here is highly suspect and pretty stupid generally.  So we're looking forward to doing more of these periodically at least until qualifying day. Anyway here are the results. You can click here to see the groupings. Or, if you like, I've tallied up the total number of votes for every candidate along with each candidate's percentage of the 126 total votes cast. And so, here is your very first, very blurry snapshot of the 2017 race for Mayor of New Orleans.

J.P. Morrell  19%  (24 votes)

LaToya Cantrell  17% (22 votes)

Larry Larmeu 15% (19 votes)

Jason Williams 14% (18 votes)

Karen Carter-Peterson 11% (14 votes)

Sidney Torres 9% (11 votes)

Walt Leger 8% (10 votes)

Michael Bagneris  6% (8 votes)

The big takeaway here, I guess, is that things are pretty tight at this early stage!  And, hey, look at all those votes that suddenly become available once Larry leaves the country.  Anybody's game, right?

Stupid or lying or... ?

One important way in which I tend to read news and politics differently from a lot of my liberal fellow travelers is I almost never assume that the "other side" is over there on the other side because of simple stupidity or ignorance.  Like the great majority of Americans, I'm kind of stupid and not especially expert in any one thing. I figure most people are pretty much just like me. It follows, then, that if I have read about or have a basic understanding something, then whoever I'm talking to probably knows it as well or better than I do. So it's not incumbent on me to educate anyone.

In public affairs, there usually isn't one "right" answer that can satisfy everyone if only the "stupid other side" would be less stupid.  Political questions are not about finding the most inherently good policy but are instead about what policy choice will benefit whom. So those people on the other side, they're not stupid. They're just full of shit.

Take this peculiar City Council vote yesterday over bail reform, for instance.  

A meeting that started with skepticism about a measure to essentially eliminate bail for nonviolent crimes at New Orleans' Municipal Court boiled over Monday into ill-tempered spats among City Council members and recriminations between advocates seeking to end the practice and judges and bail bondsmen fighting to keep the status quo.

After a Criminal Justice Committee meeting that lasted more than three hours, the measure failed to garner enough support from council members to be formally sent on to the full City Council. However, Councilwoman Susan Guidry, the sponsor of the proposed ordinance, said she planned to bring a revised version back in the future.

Here is the problem Guidry's ordinance is attempting to address.  The jail is a profit center for people whose business depends on collecting ransom for minor offenses. Inevitably this penalizes those who can't afford to pay the ransom.  A recent Vera Institute study showed fourteen percent of the jail population at the time of the survey were there simply because they couldn't afford to be out.

Out of the 451 people in jail who were assessed for risk and given a risk score, 216—or 48 percent—were found to present a low or low-moderate risk. Those 216 people represented 14 percent of the entire jail population.

These low and low-moderate risk arrestees were held in jail because a judge decided they had to pay a financial bond to get out. One-hundred and eighteen of them were held on a $25,000 bail or less, an unaffordable sum to many: New Orleans’s poverty rate is almost twice the national average. Eighty-five percent of people who go through the criminal justice system are too poor to hire a lawyer.

That isn't hard to understand. Guidry made the point again, though, just to be certain everyone heard it.

"We're talking about misdemeanor charges that are nonviolent, and the only people who get stuck in jail before their first appearance are the ones who can't come up with those few hundred dollars," Guidry said. "Are we saying poor people are by their nature more dangerous?"

Which is why, if you take the actions and statements of the councilpersons at face value, you have to conclude that all of them except for CM Guidry, are unbelievably stupid. You might think Jason Williams was so stupid he didn't know what the ordinance said.

Williams said he had concerns the plan would not provide enough scrutiny for those accused of domestic violence, although the ordinance requires they be held until a judge has time to evaluate them, and it could still allow for some kind of bond.

More broadly, he argued that if the city wants to reduce the number of people languishing in jail, it should stop arresting people, rather than changing how bail is treated.

"The real issue here is arresting people who we as a community don't believe should be arrested or detained at all," Williams said, specifically questioning whether the Police Department is abiding by council policies aimed at making sure they are not targeting black residents for arrest.

He certainly has a point about the police department although the two problems are hardly mutually exclusive. He knows this, though. He's just full of shit.

You might also think Stacy Head is so stupid she doesn't understand what a nonviolent crime like those addressed by the ordinance actually is.

Head, who usually is an ally of Guidry, seemed skeptical of the proposal, repeatedly suggesting that something is needed to keep people who are "raping and pillaging" the community in jail. But she later said Guidry's plan could work with some changes to narrow its scope.

She just wanted to say "raping and pillaging" a lot, probably.  Notice, though, that Head ended up supporting the ordinance anyway.  Why? Well we're getting to that. First, take a look at Sheriff Gusman and his pastor friends.  

The financial issue is also a key part of the thrust behind the ordinance, as Guidry and others on the council have sought for years to whittle down the jail population. Sheriff Marlin Gusman has fought against those plans, and a group of pastors who have previously backed him were among those opposing the ordinance Monday.

You might think a lot of these pastors would be sympathetic to the bail reform. It's likely the problem Guidry describes is affecting members of their own flocks in disproportionate numbers. Are they just stupid? Nah.. more likely they're more sensitive to parishioners with money to donate. 

This is from another argument between the Vera Institute and some of these pastors over a pre-trial services program with a similar aim as Guidry's bail reform. 

Stuart was followed at the microphone by the Rev. Tom Watson, the senior pastor at Watson Memorial Teaching Ministries, who complained that Vera got its role screening accused criminals for pre-trial release without competitive bidding.

“That’s unfair and unjust,” Watson said. “I call them carpetbaggers. We have a lot of people who could go to the jails (and screen the defendants) for a lot less.”

A second pastor, the Rev. Joseph Merrill, of New Kingdom Missionary Baptist Church, said it was “nonsense” to have “folks from New York come to try to solve our problem.”

Merrill was followed by bail bondsman Matt Dennis, owner of dennisbonding.com, who said the Vera program “is turning the offender into a victim.” He added, “They’re trying to drive us out of business.”

The pre-trial program represents a financial threat to the bondsmen because the defendants get released without having to post bond.

The back-and-forth comments prompted a response from only one City Council member, Susan Guidry.

Guidry, who chairs the council’s criminal justice committee, said Vera had come to New Orleans in 2007 at the council’s request and was involved in discussions for two years before this year’s program began. She said the Justice Department chose Vera, which is why the program had not been put to through competitive bidding process. “It would be a very big mistake for us to pull the people who have been with the program for two years,” Guidry said. “It’s been a success.”

The Rev. Antoine Barriere, senior pastor at Household of Faith Family Worship Church International, had earlier endorsed Vera’s work before the council, saying the project “was going in the right direction.”

Afterward, in an interview, Barriere said the opposition to Vera surprised him since the critics had just surfaced.

“Now they come in and divide everyone,” Barriere said. “Somebody is connected to somebody who is getting bail bond money.”

Simply put, there's a lot of money in the sleazy business of leveraging the criminal justice system to extract profits from the vulnerable.  Those councilmembers who voted to maintain that system aren't stupid. They're benefiting from it.  Similarly, those who voted to shut it down.. including the reluctant Head despite her "rape and pillage" crowing... aren't benefiting and are jealous of those who are.

None of these actors is stupid. They're all acting rationally.  But none of them is doing anything simply because it's the objectively moral policy choice.

None of these people is on your side

It's fun sometimes to see the inside baseball these cynics are playing.

The memo discusses efforts to get the Fraternal Order of Police and former Police Superintendent Warren Woodfork to come out in opposition to a proposal by Ramsey that would loosen restrictions on bars within restaurants in the Quarter, and it suggests that on some issues VCPORA and FQC should pin their hopes on the courts, rather than trying to defeat them at the council.

“It does appear we have more hope to get favorable support in court than before the council as our votes continue to dwindle and the Ramsey coalition gains strength,” Brylski wrote.

The “Ramsey coalition” apparently refers to Council President Jason Williams and Councilmen Jared Brossett and James Gray. Councilwomen Stacy Head and Susan Guidry have opposed several of Ramsey’s proposals.

Brylski also suggests Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell’s support might be difficult to get if she thinks she is seen as voting too often with Head and Guidry, the only white members of the seven-person council.

The memo recommends the Quarter groups continue to look for a black spokesperson. Brylski said that suggestion is aimed at combating the perception that the groups are “whites-only groups,” something she said might be hampering their effectiveness.

“It seems to be of particular concern to Nadine,” Brylski said. “She’s communicated in different ways to some of these groups that she doesn’t feel anything in common with them. Really, that’s just not true, but if that is the barrier, let’s get across it.”

Ha ha, yeah we can't have the perception actually matching the reality or anything like that.

Okay, well, to be fair "whites-only" is probably a little bit of an exaggeration.  But it's worth pointing out that VCPORA and FQC are like any neighborhood association in that they are comprised of politically active property owners.  They aren't necessarily "whites-only"  but they do tend in that direction.  More importantly, they are inherently conservative organizations.  Their membership's top concern is typically crime.. at least insofar as crime happens near their property. Their typical solution is to make it difficult for poor people to live in or visit their neighborhood.  They don't like anything they perceive as possibly encouraging that. This is why they actively seek to shut down every bar or live entertainment venue they can get their sights on.

They also aren't very fond of rental property, or affordable housing of any sort showing up within their jurisdictions. I know this is confusing since we find these groups leading the fight against the plague of short term rentals which we know to be pricing renters out of the city right now. They happen to be on right side of that issue but only for very narrow purposes. Neighborhood associations don't really care about renters.  They just don't like having tourists trashing up their lawns.

The other point this stopped clock of conservative NIMBYism happens to be correct about is that Nadine Ramsey really does appear to be in the pocket of developers and tourism lobbyists.

Putting aside the merit of the amendments, it's become painfully clear Councilperson Ramsey is catering to monied interests at all cost.  The question...what is that cost?  District C neighborhoods are by far the most volatile and threatened in "New New Orleans", it doesn't appear they have a sympathetic ear with their current councilperson who was willing to circumvent public discussion and the democratic process in order to jam power brokers' agendas, like Chris Young's, down our throats.

Sure, sure.  The more important takeaway here is that  there are "monied interests"  on various sides of these development questions. Politics in New Orleans boils down to this. Pick whatever gentrification poison you prefer at the moment.  Roughly stated, the power play is between a set of profiteers who would turn the whole city into Disneyland and a different set of plutocrats who would shut down every bar and kick out all the poors if they could.  If any of the rest of us benefit from anything any of these people do, it's only by accident.

"Putting aside the merit of the amendments..."

The above is the key phrase in this AZ post about Nadine Ramsey which raises all sorts of questions about who she does favors for as well as how obscenely dishonest she is apparently willing to be about it.

In the Robinette show at the 26:45 mark Garland presses her on who wanted the amendments pushed through, she answers that it was the Louisiana Restaurant Association. The caller on the line then asks her about the "liquor lobbyist" (Chris Young) and she responds "I'm not aware of....the person I worked with being a liquor lobbyist....I don't know who the liquor lobbyist is."

She doesn't know that Young is a liquor lobbyist? How is that even possible? It's not possible...she knows exactly who he is.

There's obfuscation and then there's just damn....^^^that.

So here it looks like we have a councilmember pretty much acting as an agent for the usually pretty despicable Louisiana Restaurant Association and ignoring the objections of neighborhood groups in the process.  That's bad. I want to be clear about that.

But in this particular case, it may not be such a tragedy since the issue at hand is those neighborhood groups and their outsized prudishness over liquor laws. 

Opponents of Ramsey's amendment – including Councilwoman Stacy Head, French Quarter Citizens, Vieux Carre Property Owners Residents and Associates, and the Preservation Resource Center, among others – said that the current language provides protection against restaurants closing their kitchens at 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and operating as bars for the rest of the night.

"It scares the hell out of us," said French Quarter resident Albin Guillot. "Even though 99 percent of our family restaurants in our neighborhoods are good there's always going to be the guy who's going to do his hamburgers and then he's going to turn into a disco every night in the middle of a family area."

The majority of the opponents to Ramsey's amendment asked for the issue to be deferred so they could work out a compromise with business owners, though Calvin Lopez was more direct. He said that "under no circumstances" should restaurants be allowed to sell alcohol without a "legitimate meal."

These guys are just going to have to get over their irrational fear of having bars in neighborhoods. Bars aren't what's causing the "quality of life" problem in New Orleans right now.  The skyrocketing rents, on the other hand are.  Hilariously, though, Stacy Head told us this week that she doesn't think the city can take decisive action against the short term rental plague exacerbating rents because that would be  "like prohibition."   Apparently Head's commitment to actual prohibition remains as steadfast as ever.

Getting back to Jason's post about Ramsey, though, it's worth taking the dynamics into account regardless of the specific issue at hand this time.

Putting aside the merit of the amendments, it's become painfully clear Councilperson Ramsey is catering to monied interests at all cost. The question...what is that cost? District C neighborhoods are by far the most volatile and threatened in "New New Orleans", it doesn't appear they have a sympathetic ear with their current councilperson who was willing to circumvent public discussion and the democratic process in order to jam power brokers' agendas, like Chris Young's, down our throats.

Not good.  

The rent and the too damn high being of the rent

We're number two.

In New Orleans, for instance, 35 percent of renters dedicate more than half of their pay to housing, the second highest share for the cities studied. Many people working in tourism and hospitality, a major industry for the area, might have low-paying jobs that make it harder for them to afford the median rent bill of $900, Boyd says.

Last week we talked a little bit about the fallacious attempt by high-end developers to blame this on "NIMBYism."   As in, the rent is too high because you won't let us build more high rent housing.  This is a preposterous lie for numerous reasons. At its heart, though, is an implication that once a piece of land becomes profitable for an investor, then the poor people living on it are obligated to move out of the way. You could call it a sort of eminent domain of capitalism.

But it's also an eminent domain of government working hand in hand with developers. This is where Dambala picks up with the first in what he's calling a "Neighborhood Journey" exploration of New Orleans neighborhoods threatened by gentrification. In this case he's talking about the Algiers waterfront where Mitch Landrieu and Nadine Ramsey seem to believe a "hot real estate market" absolutely dictates the conversion of common green space into high rise condos.

What was really fascinating, in respect to  the city budget meeting, was the Mayor's response to the batture zoning issue.

Landrieu informed the Algiers residents that New Orleans is the hottest real estate market in the country and that waterfront property in every city is considered prime real estate.  As for height restrictions he says you can either have long, skinny buildings along the river where "no one can see anything" or you can have tall buildings (I suppose suggesting that these tall, skinny building are somehow less of a hindrance to viewing the river).

He then went on to break the bad news to the Pointers (Algiers) about "what's not going to happen".  The residents of the Point were not going to be able to say "I gots mine and nobody else can have theirs"...essentially confirming their worst fears about what probably "is going to happen" regarding development plans for the batture.

Interesting he would frame it that way.  Right now the batture is green space that everyone can share. The Mayor's logic seems to be that the residents of Algiers Point are being selfish for wanting to keep sharing it that way.

Public park = "I gots mine nobody else can have theirs." So make way for tall buildings full of nice things for rich people.  They gots to have theirs and there's nothing you can do about it.

Instrument

Nadine Ramsey is reintroducing the noise ordinance.

As written, Ramsey's ordinance leaves enforcement under the New Orlean Health Department and New Orleans Police Department (rather than hand it over completely to the health department, which Palmer had proposed). Both departments would be responsible for noise monitoring, reviewing permits and handing out violations.

Ramsey's ordinance also does not remove the current law's curfew in place for street musicians, which Palmer and others called unconstitutional, as it is not equally applied to all people making noise after a certain time. Last year, City Attorney Sharonda Williams said that the city cannot and will not enforce the curfew — though it still remains on the books, along with the rest of the 60-year-old noise ordinance.

As The New Orleans Advocate's Jeff Adelson reported earlier this year, the city hired a new sound specialist following outgoing consultant David Woolworth, who wrote an extensive report with recommendations to the City Council and had suggested its rules and sound limits were too restrictive and difficult to enforce. The new consultant, Monica Hammer, has a background in noise pollution and its impacts on public health (compared to Woolworth's background in music) and is working with the city's health department to "inform residents about the health effects of noise and ways they can protect themselves" along with training and department procedures in accordance with the current laws and forthcoming noise ordinance.

The change in consultants was concerning although it doesn't have to mean anything.  And, if you read the rest of that Gambit article, you'll see that the mayor's office and MACCNO oppose the curfew and favor taking NOPD out of the enforcement picture.  So the ordinance Ramsey introduced this week will look different from whatever is eventually passed, whenever that happens. She even says as much here.

"I am introducing this instrument for the purpose of initiating a thorough public debate on this important issue in my district," Ramsey wrote in a statement to Gambit. "With a couple of important exceptions, the ordinance introduced yesterday, like the ordinance considered in April of last year by my predecessor, only affects the Vieux Carre Entertainment (VCE) and Vieux Carre Entertainment-1 (VCE-1) zoning districts. I am not necessarily committed to everything being proposed by this ordinance and intend to ensure that this issue is fully and publicly vetted by all interested parties."

The word choice is cute, though.  Did she do that on purpose? 

BTW Public schools still failing

Maybe it seems like a small thing, but you really should appreciate the occasions when the big city papers admit this.

Nearly 10 years after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans’ infrastructure, the city still faces myriad problems, including a failing school system, broken-down streets and federal consent decrees mandated for the city’s jail and Police Department. But topping the list, according to New Orleans City Council members, are two issues: an income inequality that continues to crush the city’s poorest residents and violent crime.

It's taken a while for them to notice but the school system, even after all the "reform" and privatization, is still failing. That's progress.

Here's a recent article by Kristen Buras.  She wrote a book about the charterization movement in New Orleans. (You don't need to buy it. $125, yikes!) The new system still fails to serve its students.  But, in another way, it can be considered a success.

The CEO of Future Is Now, a charter operator in New Orleans, was paid a salary of $250,000 when John McDonogh High School, seized by Future Is Now despite community resistance, posted a performance score of 9.3 on a scale of 150. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that taxpayers received their money’s worth.

In 2012, students from various historic high schools in New Orleans that had been taken over and chartered issued a list of demands to the Recovery School District.

“A lot of money has come to New Orleans for education reform,” they protested, “but none of it benefits the children.”

Buras is speaking Monday evening at Tulane if you're interested.  

Anyway, thanks again to the Advocate for noting that the system is still failing even as an aside to a story about something else. 

That something else, by the way, was a public forum on crime and inequality held by three city councilmembers.  I don't know if they invited the others or not but Jason Williams, Nadine Ramsey, and Jared Brossett are the most vocal councilors regarding inequality.  It's probably just a coincidence that they are the three shortest tenured on the council.... right?

“Affordability is a big issue in this city,” Brossett said, citing rising property taxes and rents, which worsen the burden created by low wages paid in several industries in the city. Together, these issues make the cost of living in Orleans Parish the highest of any parish in the state, he said.

“Income inequality — I don’t need to tell y’all this. It’s vast. I mean, we were compared to Zambia, as far as income inequality,” he said. “That is ridiculous, as we are part of one of the richest and strongest nations on this planet.”

The impetus behind Brossett’s proposal, added Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey,was a disparity between white and African-American workers in New Orleans that seemed to be getting worse over time.

“It’s always interesting to me to read in magazines and news articles and in press releases about all the wonderful things that are going on in our city,” Ramsey said. “But we all know that this economic boom is not being shared across the board in all of our communities.”

This is going to be an important year with regard to these sorts of issues. It will be interesting to see if anything comes out of talks like this one.

You call that living?

City Council has a lot of terrible legislation pending before it in the next few weeks.  Council members Guidry and Head are sponsoring ordinances designed to regulate (they say).. but really.. authorize and sanction Uber and Airbnb in Orleans Parish. Not to mention, also, the noise ordinance is on the way back.  The city has already signaled they may want it to be back with teeth.   More on all of that later.. but I'm convinced this is by far the most right wing city government I've seen in operation during my adult life, at least. 

The good news is, it ain't all bad.

Yesterday District D Council member Jared Brossett introduced an ordinance that would require all contractors doing business with the city to pay a minimum wage of $10.10. 

Brossett, who introduced the ordinance last week, bills it as a "living wage" proposal similar to others approved in progressive cities around the country.

"I am a firm believer that economic opportunity is one the cornerstones of a thriving city," Brossett said Monday (Jan. 26). "Sadly, too many of our citizens don't have that opportunity. A job by itself is not the type of opportunity we need. A good-paying job is what our people need. And if your company wants to do business with the city, we want them to pay you a living wage."

Nevermind that $10.10 is hardly what we could call a "living wage." If you think people can or should be able to live on that, well, as President Obama said, last week, "You try it."

Nevermind, also, that Brossett's proposal conflicts with (an admittedly egregious) 1997 state law (sponsored by our friends David Vitter and Steve Scalise, btw) which specifically prohibits municipalities from passing this kind of ordinance.  Of course such a law deserves a good challenge every now and then.  The last attempt at this was rejected by the State Supreme Court, unfortunately.  Lamar has all of the details here.

My point, though, is that Brossett's proposal, while not exactly a bad idea, is kind of a waste of time and attention because 1) the proposed wage is insufficient to meet any reasonable definition of a "living wage," and 2) it effectively accomplishes nothing baring either a reversal of a Supreme Court decision or a new constitutional amendment.  It makes for a nice headline, of course, but carries little purpose else.

So, like I said, it ain't all bad.. but it ain't all great either.

Last week's very reasonable smoking ordinance is another interesting case. I know some people are.. um... put out by it.. but the law they ended up passing is going to do a lot of good for a lot of people working in service industry jobs.  (And, yes, I'm looking forward to never again coming home smelling like smoke.) Still, it's worth paying attention to the Machivellian  process by which the smoking ban made its way through passage.

The original draft of Council Member Cantrell's ordinance was intentionally bloated with draconian overreach. The ordinance, as written, would have pushed smokers, not only out of the bar, but at least 25 feet away from the front door of the building before they could light up.  This would have caused concerns about negative effect on the surrounding neighborhoods.

The ordinance, as written, would have banned the indoor use of electronic cigarettes.  This might actually be a good idea but it was pretty difficult to justify given what we currently know abut the effects of second-hand vape.

The vaping provision was so ridiculous, in fact, that it dominated much of the public debate on the ordinance. Of course, this was always going to be a bit of a circus. Bar owners and casino managers were certain to complain the moment the ban was conceived.  Interesting, though, that throwing the oddball vapists in with their lot caused their arguments to appear more risible than they otherwise might have. Sort of a subtraction by addition.  I can't help but wonder whether this was calculated.

The ordinance, as written, also included some absurdly severe enforcement provisions which, like all of the others above, had to be amended out.

Yesterday, at-large councilman Jason Williams introduced an amendment to remove NOPD as an enforcement agency. That amendment was approved. NOPD and the still-in-progress NOLA Patrol will not carry out enforcement of the ordinance. District E Councilman James Gray also objected to a community service requirement for people unable to pay the fine. That amendment also was approved. Rather than mandate seven hours of community service to anyone unable to pay the fine, it will now be left to a judge's discretion.

Enforcement of the ordinance is largely incumbent upon businesses to remind smokers to step outside. Bar owners and managers, under the ordinance, must ask smoking patrons to put out their cigarette.

Williams said removing the NOPD from the picture "makes sure we don’t overburden or add an additional burden on the NOPD for a smoke-free New Orleans."

"It would be poor judgement to take police officers off the street for even a minute (to address smoking)," he said."

"It’s not a great thing if it becomes a tool of oppression for some people in this city," Gray added, suggesting that the ordinance could become an excuse to "stop young black men in the street" simply for smoking.

Noble sentiments from Gray and from Williams, of course.  Isn't it neat the way they got to step in and be heroes at the last minute there? Gray, Williams, and Nadine Ramsey got to make a big show of cutting all the nasty parts out of Cantrell's ordinance.  The opposition got to shout into the void. And, of course, the ordinance passed. Everybody wins!

You'd almost think the whole process was a sham and everything was planned out well in advance... you know.. if you thought that's how this stuff worked, anyway.