Here’s a news item I couldn’t help but blog about.
A man who made a board game ridiculing the government for its response to Hurricane Katrina has been charged with using money orders stolen in New Orleans the year the storm hit, according to news reports.
Here’s an excerpt:
Curtis B. Lyons, also known as Curtis Bordenave, was arrested Tuesday.
A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday. Lyons’ attorney had no comment.
Lyons is the creator of “Hurricane Katrina — The Game the Government Played.” The game gives players a government stipend and is meant to show the difficulty in navigating bureaucracy in the wake of a natural disaster.
I wonder if he’ll show up at the hearing with a get-out-of-jail-free card.•
As Louisiana officials wonder when the state will get its hands on more doses of the highly coveted swine flu vaccine, some Wall Street firms already have begun receiving doses.
At a legislative hearing Tuesday at the Louisiana State Capital, officials discussed the need for more doses of the vaccine in Louisiana, according to a wwl.com story.
“We’re really at the mercy of the distribution process at the federal level,” said Al Levine, the state’s health secretary, according to the story. “All I can tell people is to be patient. There is not enough supply yet.”
There have been at least 30 swine flu-related deaths in Louisiana.
In the meantime, some large New York employers, including Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, have gotten doses, according to a story today by The Associated Press. That has drawn criticism from people who say Wall Street firms should not have access to the vaccine before less wealthy Americans, the story says.
According to the AP story, union official John VanDeventer wrote on the Service Employees International Union Web site that “Wall Street banks have already taken so much from us. They’ve taken trillions of our tax dollars. They’ve taken away people’s homes who are struggling to pay the bills. But they should not be allowed to take away our health and well-being.”•
Here’s some alarming news to come out of the city’s ongoing budgeting process.
Mayor Nagin says the city has $5.2 million in its emergency fund, which is about $20 million short of what it needs to have on hand.
“If we do not have a $25 to $30 million fund balance set aside for emergencies, I don’t know what is going to happen,” Nagin said in a CityBusiness story.
Interestingly, in the meantime, Tropical Storm Ida is twirling off the coast of Nicaragua, and according to the National Hurricane Center it’s expected to be in the Gulf of Mexico at least by Tuesday, when it’s expected to still be a tropical storm.•
On Tuesday, CityBusiness held its 11th Women of the Year event, which recognizes the professional and community achievements of local women. Just before a luncheon began at the Sheraton hotel, I interviewed three of the honorees. Enjoy!
New Orleans City Council President Arnie Fielkow says he is disappointed in the hiring of a firm from outside of Louisiana to be program manager for the construction of a planned LSU hospital in New Orleans.
Last week, Jacobs Engineering Group announced that it has been selected as project manager for the construction of the new $1.2 billion, 424-bed, 1.6 million-square-foot teaching hospital.
Fielkow expressed his disappointment in a letter to the director of the state’s Office of Facility Planning and Control.•
A jury has found that Southern Electronics and Active Solutions should get $16.3 million in a civil case involving a business deal for the city’s crime cameras.
The jury found that former New Orleans tech chief Greg Meffert, computer company Dell and firms owned by city vendor Mark St. Pierre conspired to undercut the contract of Southern Electronics and Active Solutions.
Dell is liable for $12.8 million in damages on unfair trade and conspiracy claims, the jury found.
Meffert issued this statement today, apparently referring to The Times-Picayune when he talks about “a politically-motivated newspaper”:
Though I am relieved that the jury saw through some of this witch hunt, I’m disappointed that a majority of the jury found that I may have been liable for a small portion of the accusations, and we have a strong appeal underway. I am not giving up: the truth will win out and our significant advancements will be reinstated as the record of my service to the city I love.
This verdict and trial attest to the injustice of a politically-motivated newspaper partnering with profit-driven plaintiff lawyers. This unholy alliance destroyed my reputation and my ability to make a living for my family; clearly, the justice system can be manipulated in the name of money and politics.
The paper’s actions went beyond bad journalism in its efforts to deprive me of my civil rights. The newspaper obviously feels it is an authority higher than our legal system, even betraying the public trust, and I am forced to pursue legal recourse against them for intentional damage.
My family has suffered relentless, intentionally erroneous and mean-spirited attacks by the newspaper attempting to prejudice a jury. This indecent alliance aborted journalistic objectivity and misled our justice system.
Together as a family we will attempt to rebuild lives that have been irreparably damaged. I remain grateful and humbled by the steadfast love and support of my wife, family and many others.•
Mayor Ray Nagin, who leaves office next year, gave his final budget presentation to the City Council today, and it doesn’t look good.
As the city faces a nearly $70 million deficit in 2010, Nagin is suggesting not only ways to cut city spending, such as furloughs for city workers, but also extending parking meter hours, increasing enforcement of expired brake tags and reassessing fees, such as those from the police and recreation departments, that are not being collected, according to news reports.
It’s an interesting predicament for the city of New Orleans, which is not back to pre-Katrina population levels, to be in. Is it wise for the city to try to fill the budget gap by upping fees? Or will such a plan make it harder to attract and retain businesses and residents, especially during hard economic times?•
Louisiana’s oyster fishermen (and fisherwomen) are keeping an eye on a Food and Drug Administration proposal that would require oysters caught during warm months to be put through a process to kill potentially fatal bacteria.
The FDA says it wants to do more to protect the public from the oyster-borne Vibrio vulnificus. The treatments the oysters could undergo include mild heat, radiation, high pressure or quick freezing.
But in a state where people like to eat their oysters raw, there’s been backlash to the proposal.
Mike Voisin, vice president of Motivatit Seafood in Houma and a member of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, told CityBusiness that the FDA’s plan could result in a significant increase in the cost of consuming oysters produced along the Gulf Coast, the source of two-thirds of the nation’s oyster supply.
Sen. Mary Landrieu yesterday released a statement calling the FDA plan “not the appropriate response.” Last year, only 15 people who had pre-existing conditions died from eating raw oysters, according to Landrieu’s office.
“The FDA has bigger fish to fry and should let our seafood industry continue to educate consumers about the risks associated with eating raw products,” Landrieu said.
In an opinion piece today on washingtonexaminer.com, David Freddoso blasted the FDA proposal. Here are some excerpts:
Vibro Vulnificus isa deadly but extremely rare bacterial infection that affects oysters in warm waters. It kills about 15 Gulf oyster-eaters each year, nationwide. Each time you eat one serving of oysters from the Gulf of Mexico, your risk is a bit less than one-in-a-million of contracting V. Vulnificus, according to the Molluscan Shellfish Institute. Your chances of dying from it are half that.
For perspective, you are four times more likely to be struck by lightning. You are 100 times more likely to die in a car accident.
The government has yet to ban automobiles or cigarettes, two conveniences known to be mass-killers. But in 17 months, the FDA will nearly shut down a multi-million dollar industry, put thousands out of work, and bar millions from their passion for oysters — all because a handful of people died who should not have been eating raw food in the first place.•
Former New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely will forever been known in New Orleans for his “cranes in the sky” comment.
Today, some news about cranes came out of Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao’s office, although it had to do with the avian form of the word rather than the type of construction equipment used in the erection of buildings.
Cao said he has secured $500,000 in a fiscal 2010 bill for the Endangered Whooping Crane Propagation Facility at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans. But the bill still needs approval from Congress and then the president’s signature.•
Today, I posted a story to CityBusiness’ Web site about how Baton Rouge was the only place in Louisiana to add construction jobs from September 2008 to September 2009, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.
How can that be? After all, the New Orleans area is still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina. Wouldn’t it make more sense for New Orleans to have been the only place in Louisiana to add construction jobs, rather than Baton Rouge? Instead, New Orleans, Metairie and Kenner saw a 5 percent drop in construction employment during that 12-month period.
And then there’s this: The U.S. Energy Department said North Dakota is a bigger producer of oil than Louisiana.
Here are some excerpts from a story by The Associated Press:
The agency’s Energy Information Administration said North Dakota produced 6.38 million barrels of crude in May, edging Louisiana, which had 6.34 million barrels for the month. Oklahoma was ranked fifth, at 5.7 million barrels for that month, according to the most recent figures. Oil production data typically lags at least two months.
Steven G. Grape, an Energy Department petroleum engineer, said today that North Dakota averaged 206,000 barrels daily in May, compared with 205,000 barrels for Louisiana.
Energy Information Administration figures show Louisiana’s oil production has slipped from 7.4 million barrels in May 2005. Grape said natural gas has overshadowed oil as a priority for drillers in Louisiana.
“They’re looking at different targets onshore,” Grape said.•
A commission charged with revamping Louisiana’s higher education systems is calling for raising admission standards at four-year universities, according to a story today by The Associated Press.
The Postsecondary Education Review Commission said the tougher standards are a way to try to boost graduation rates, according to the story.
This news comes after the University of Louisiana System’s Board of Supervisors decided Friday to toughen admissions standards, beginning in 2011, for the eight schools it oversees: Grambling State University, Louisiana Tech University, McNeese State University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“About 500 current UL System students would not meet the increased standards, according to the UL System,” says a story in The (Baton Rouge) Advocate newspaper.
Interestingly, The (LSU) Daily Reveille reported Monday that the percentage of LSU students earning As has been on the rise since the mid-1960s at least:
In 1965, 17 percent of grades were A’s, but that number increased to 21 percent in 1984, 27 percent in 1991 and 33 percent for the spring 2009 semester.
Changes in grade distribution may result from higher admissions standards leading to a higher caliber of students and a late withdrawal policy, said Stacia Haynie, vice provost of Academic Affairs.•
So now news is coming out that when some were considering moving City Hall to the former Chevron headquarters others were considering Charity Hospital.
Really? I personally think it would make one heck of a haunted house.
This whole Charity Hospital debacle — reopening it or something in its place and what to do with the building — has just gotten downright funny, but not in a good way. It has become the poster child for the flawed recovery over the past four years.•
In 2007, Full Spectrum, a New York firm, was chosen to redevelop the New Orleans World Trade Center building.
Under contract terms, the developer — who pulled out of the project in August of last year — was required to put up a $600,000 deposit. “A $600,000 deposit applicable to the Lease payment, but otherwise not refundable, shall be required by the selected developer within seven (7) calendar days of its final selection,” according to the Jan. 31, 2007, request for qualifications and proposals that Full Spectrum responded to. In 2008, Full Spectrum tried to get its deposit back, which prompted the law firm representing the WTC to file a lawsuit in Louisiana Eastern District Court challenging the company’s attempt to reclaim the money.
According to a Sunday story in The Times-Picayune, that dispute has been settled:
On Sept. 14 a federal judge in New Orleans signed an order resolving disputes over the fate of the $627,313 deposit placed by Full Spectrum of N.Y. LLC, the developer who pulled out of the deal to redevelop the riverfront building at the foot of Canal and Poydras streets in August 2008.
In a deal that each of the parties involved described as a good settlement because no one’s happy, Full Spectrum got back 55 percent of the deposit after administrative expenses, while the New Orleans Building Corp., the city agency that owns the property, and the World Trade Center of New Orleans Inc. organization, which leases the building, got to keep the remaining 45 percent of the money.
According to an April 25, 2007, escrow agreement, the deposit became nonrefundable after a 60-day due diligence period ended or the lease was executed, whichever came later. I spoke today with Sean Cummings, CEO of the building corporation, who said that no lease agreement had ever been approved by the City Council (which could be used in the argument for refunding the deposit) because Full Spectrum withdrew from the project the night before the council’s vote (which could be used in the argument against refunding the deposit) .
“Therein lies the subject matter of the dispute” over the deposit, he said.
Thousands of dollars were being spent on legal fees, Cummings said. In the end, a tri-party agreement was reached “where everyone decided to settle it,” he said.
Constance “Conny” Charles Willems, the president of the WTC board, could not be reached for comment.•
The Republic, a New Orleans nightspot, will be featured in an upcoming episode of “That Morning Show,” an E! program.
E! host Mark Long will be covering a fashion show — the “Marie Antoinette-inspired” Hemline Fashion Show, to be precise — according to an invitation from The Republic.
The fashion show is tomorrow night.
The invitation did not indicate when the show would air, though.•
Once again, Baton Rouge’s construction industry and the employment that comes from it is being spotlighted.
A BusinessWeek online article published Thursday listed Baton Rouge as the sixth strongest economy nationwide. The publication used data and analysis from the Brookings Institution’s new MetroMonitor to come up with the nation’s 40 strongest economies. The MetroMonitor, which measures the nation’s health on a quarterly basis, ranks the top 100 metros based on job growth, unemployment, gross metropolitan product and home prices.
Employment was measured by the change from the peak quarter for each metro to the second quarter of 2009. The peak was the quarter in which the metro had the most jobs during the past five years. Unemployment was ranked by measuring the percentage-point change from the first quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2009. Gross metropolitan product was measured from the peak quarter to the second quarter of 2009. And the ranking of home prices compared the second quarter of 2009 with the previous quarter. The employment data were provided by Moody’s Economy.com, the unemployment data were collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the home price index came from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Using that data, Baton Rouge ranked fourth for job growth, eighth for year-over-year home price change, 10th for unemployment change and 39th for gross metro product.
Here’s who has the top 10 strongest economies, in order: San Antonio; Austin, Texas; Oklahoma City; Little Rock, Ark.; Dallas-Forth Worth; Baton Rouge; Tulsa, Okla.; Omaha, Neb.; Houston; and El Paso, Texas.
Looking at the rest of the top 40, most of the areas are in New York, Connecticut or Colorado, with only two — Jackson, Miss., at 11 and Memphis, Tenn., at 37 — in the Deep South.
New Orleans is not on that list. And that’s disappointing and confusing because we’ve heard so much about how New Orleans has been so recession-proof.
Here’s what BusinessWeek had to say about Baton Rouge:
Construction is booming in Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s capital, as firms take advantage of financing for post-Katrina hurricane recovery work and service-related companies expand to meet the needs of a growing population.
They also talked with Baton Rouge economist Loren Scott, who said this:
Baton Rouge, which was ranked No. 6, “grew jobs every month until August 2009 and in August it only lost 0.9 percent, compared to 5.1 percent nationally,” said Loren Scott, professor emeritus of economics at Louisiana State University.
Scott said $5.1 billion of construction projects have been announced or are under construction in the Baton Rouge metro, including a new plant for French chemical company SNF and the expansion of an ExxonMobil chemical plant.
“One nice thing after another thing happened that has countered what’s happening in the rest of the country,” Scott said.
While disheartening despite signs of recovery, that Baton Rouge beats out New Orleans based on construction shouldn’t be a surprise.
Our state’s capital saw the second-highest job growth in the construction sector for a major region in the United States, according to an Associated General Contractors of America report in early June.
“The work has not been let post-Katrina like we’ve been hearing. We keep waiting for it,” Ken Naquin, CEO of the Louisiana Associated General Contractors, said in June. “The Sewerage and Water Board has let very little and the streets department has done very little work. And outside of the four schools let by the Recovery School District, the city has done nothing.”
Naquin said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has provided some work, but those jobs are heavy-equipment-oriented, which means there are not a whole lot of people working.
“We keep hearing that New Orleans is on the cusp of letting their work. We met with the city’s administration last May, and they said they have a tidal wave of work coming that they can’t even mess up. Yet we’re still waiting in June 2009.”
By the way, BusinessWeek, I know it sounds the same, but it’s “Loren,” not “Lauren.” I went ahead and made that correction for this posting.•
According to The (Baton Rouge) Advocate newspaper, the manufacturer of “Slap Ya Mama” seasoning is suing the maker of “Punch Ya Daddy” seasoning, alleging trademark infringement.
Here’s an excerpt:
Walker & Sons, the family owned company that makes “Slap Ya Mama,” alleges the similarity of the other brand’s name and logo are an attempt to draw on their brand’s good reputation.
“We think the name itself was calculated to call on the image already created by ‘Slap Ya Mama,’ ” Walker & Sons attorney William Stagg said. “They were attempting to grab hold of the image ‘Slap Ya Mama’ had already developed.”
The Advocate said “Punch Ya Daddy” owner Kirby Falcon Jr., of Houma, and his attorney declined to comment.
Today, I attended a biotech forum at The Roosevelt Hotel, where James Greenwood, president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based Biotechnology Industry Organization, was one of the speakers.
One of the things Greenwood said that struck me concerned how Louisiana could help its life sciences industry (by the way, experts say that biotech and life sciences are pretty much interchangeable terms, so forgive me if I switch back and forth).
Anyway, Greenwood talked about the “valley of death,” which is basically the period of time in which scientific research struggles to get its hands on private sector funding. It’s hard to bring a scientific development to market without such funding, he said.
Louisiana does not have the venture capital sources that, say, Boston has, Greenwood said, adding that investors will often want companies to relocate to where they are located, which means the startup would have to leave Louisiana. (It’s not the first time I’ve heard that venture capital firms want the companies they fund to be located near them. I guess it’s so they can keep any eye on their investment.)
The answer, Greenwood said, is for Louisiana to provide seed funding to help bring biotech discoveries, as they are made in Louisiana colleges and universities, to market.
For those interested, I’ve found some testimony that Greenwood gave to Congress last year in which he discusses the valley of death.•
While Mayor Ray Nagin was in Cuba this week on a trip focused on disaster response, he made some observations that are garnering criticism.
Here’s an excerpt from a story by The Associated Press. Nagin’s controversial comments are included:
Under Cuba’s communist system, the government calls all the shots all the time — but during monster hurricanes that may not be such a bad thing, New Orleans’ mayor says.
In an interview during his six-day trip to Cuba’s capital to study the island’s disaster-response system, Ray Nagin told The Associated Press that “one of the biggest weaknesses we had during Hurricane Katrina is it wasn’t clear who was the top authority.”
“The president and the governor were going back and forth,” Nagin said Tuesday evening. “In Cuba you don’t have that problem. The government says, ‘This is what we’re doing, these are the resources we are going to deploy,’ and it pretty much happens.”
Mayor Nagin Praises Totalitarian Model. A totalitarian police-state featuring torture, imprisonment, exile and executions. According to New Orleans’ Mayor Ray Nagin, that would be a small price to pay for (questionable) disaster relief.
On patdollard.com, someone who goes by the name Grizz called Nagin a “commie dictator wannabe.”•
New Orleans businessman Tom Benson, owner of the Saints, will be given the Army’s “Strong Award,” according to a Saints press release today.
The award, however, is not being given to Benson for how much he can bench-press.
Rather, the award “honors leaders in the community who exemplifies the Army values and demonstrates those values among their peers and community in their daily lives,” says the Saints press release. “The seven Army values are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage.”
By the way, does anybody know how much Benson can bench-press?•
As the owner of a drafty old shotgun house, I wasn’t too surprised to find out today that Louisiana is toward the bottom of a ranking of states according to energy efficiency.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is releasing the scorecard Wednesday, although we in Louisiana already know we’re among 11 states on the “Most Room for Improvement” list.
I guess all the energy efficient housing that’s been built since Katrina, like Brad Pitt’s 9th Ward project, is still not enough to put Louisiana at least in the middle of the list.•
A defined benefit plan promises a specified monthly benefit at retirement. The plan may state this promised benefit as an exact dollar amount, such as $100 per month at retirement. Or, more commonly, it may calculate a benefit through a plan formula that considers such factors as salary and service — for example, 1 percent of average salary for the last 5 years of employment for every year of service with an employer.
Lawmakers are mulling a change that would put new hires into “defined contribution” plans.
Here’s DOL’s description:
A defined contribution plan, on the other hand, does not promise a specific amount of benefits at retirement. In these plans, the employee or the employer (or both) contribute to the employee’s individual account under the plan, sometimes at a set rate, such as 5 percent of earnings annually. These contributions generally are invested on the employee’s behalf. The employee will ultimately receive the balance in their account, which is based on contributions plus or minus investment gains or losses. The value of the account will fluctuate due to the changes in the value of the investments. Examples of defined contribution plans include 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, employee stock ownership plans, and profit-sharing plans.
Here’s an excerpt from the AP story:
House Speaker Jim Tucker wants lawmakers to consider switching incoming state government employees to “defined contribution” plans where the employees manage their own investments. Employees and employers pay into the plans, and employees retire with those contributions along with any investment earnings or losses.
Readers, what do you think? Should state employees be required to pay into their retirement plans, like those of us with 401(k) plans do, or should public dollars continue to fund their state retirement packages 100 percent?•
(Editor’s note: After this blog posting ran, I was contacted on Oct. 29 by Robyn Ekings, the spokeswoman for the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System. She told me that state employees do contribute to their retirement. Those hired before July 1, 2006, contribute 7.5 percent of their salary, and those hired after contribute 8 percent. Retirement contributions also come from the employer and investments, she said. So, it looks like state employees are already contributing to their retirement plans. I stand corrected.)
Today, Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion.
Price, who resigned last week as mayor, admitted he took pricey golf trips to California paid for by a developer and an engineer the city hired. Although the names of the engineer and developer are not included in the bill of information unsealed today, they are listed in a state audit as Rick Meyer, the head of Meyer Engineers, and Mandeville developer Don McMath.
So, what’s going to happen to them? No one seems to know at this point.
I did, however, come across this in an Oct. 9 story on WWL-TV’s Web site:
The federal investigation into Price began at least a year and a half ago. It grew out of a scathing state legislative audit report released last summer, which detailed questionable dealings between Price and Don McMath of McMath Construction, and Rick Meyer of Meyer Engineers.
McMath, Meyer and Mandeville Finance Director Milton Steibing could also be targets of the investigation.•
It was a story that was largely overshadowed, understandably, by President Obama’s visit Thursday to New Orleans.
At an event attended by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ground was broken on the redevelopment of the B.W. Cooper public housing development.
The start of construction at B.W. Cooper, which will be rebuilt as a mixed-income development, means construction has begun at all of the “Big Four” public housing complexes in New Orleans. C.J. Peete, Lafitte, and St. Bernard are the other three.
Just two years ago, people were protesting the demolition of public housing in New Orleans. Here’s an excerpt from a Dec. 13, 2007, USA Today story about the demolition of Cooper:
Federal officials began demolishing a local housing project Thursday despite protesters who angrily decried the destruction, saying the hurricane-ravaged city needs to preserve its affordable housing.
About 30 protesters had stood Wednesday in the path of a two-story excavator, temporarily blocking the demolition crew’s path into the B.W. Cooper housing development in central New Orleans.•
When it comes to nightlife and food and dining, New Orleans is the top city out of 30 included in Travel and Leisure’s 2009 America’s Favorite Cities rankings. But the Big Easy scores poorly as a place for family vacations, a relaxing retreat and quality of life and visitor experience.
Among high rankings, New Orleans is first for a place to have a wild weekend, second for its hotels, fourth as a romantic escape destination, fifth as a cultural getaway, sixth for holiday travel, seventh as an affordable getaway and eighth for shopping.
But the city earned some low marks, too, such as 29th for family vacation destination, 25th for quality of life and visitor experience, 21st for relaxing retreat and 19th for an action/adventure vacation.
CityBusiness staff writer Emilie Bahr is at the University of New Orleans today covering President Barack Obama’s visit to New Orleans. She will be filing blog postings throughout the event.
1:19 Obama called Jindal “a hard-working man.” The president’s announcements of Mary Landrieu, Mitch Landrieu, Charlie Melancon and Joseph Cao were all greeted with applause. The president made a point of pointing out how cute Cao’s daughters are. “I’m big on daughters.” Obama also pointed out Ray Nagin’s presence, to both jeers and applause.
1:14 The president just took the stage to resounding applause and a few shouts of “Obama” once the cheering died down. Jindal is present. When the president announced his presence, the crowd started booing. “If it makes you feel any better I get that all the time,” the president told the governor.
1:05 p.m. New Orleans trumpeter Shamarr Allen is playing the National Anthem
1:01 p.m. The crowd has just been asked to stand for an invocation, in anticipation of the president’s arrival. “God bless our president and all the leaders of our community,” the speaker urged. “…Open our eyes to identify those who continue to suffer from the storms and the injustice the storms exposed.”
12:22 p.m. A number of dignitaries are expected to be present for Obama’s address. Congressman Joseph Cao just walked in, two small girls in dresses assumed to be his daughters in tow.•
12:05 p.m. The seats are filling up quickly now, some of them with Obama loyalists, eagerly displaying their support for the president with T-shirts and buttons bearing his resemblance. Some are advertising for certain causes. One woman is wearing a hand-made T-shirt urging passage of the president’s effort at a health care overall. Others have simply come for a chance to witness a historic figure.
“We’ve never seen a president,” said Adam Plauche, 23, who works in ship navigation and was brought as a guest to the town hall by Chris Moises, a 23-year-old UNO graduate student. Moises signed up for the ticket lottery at 8:30 a.m. Monday. “I didn’t think I was gonna get seats, but I did,” he said.
The two were interested mainly in hearing what Obama had to say about issues confronting New Orleans.
“I’d rather hear him talk about local issues than national,” Plauche said.
11:15 a.m. Already there’s a long, winding line formed outside UNO’s recreation center. It is comprised of people, many of them dressed in the type of attire typically reserved for weddings and funerals, sweating in the unseasonably, warm humid conditions outside. People have begun to file in to the space where President Obama is scheduled to hold a town hall two hours from now, passing through airport-like security (with the added watch of Secret Security agents) to a gym filled with folding chairs and newly draped in giant American flags. Someone has piped in Cajun music that is tinkling over the din of the crowds trickling in — the excited few who received one of the town hall tickets made available by the White House through a lottery.
State employees must get permission from their bosses if they want to attend a public hearing on proposed changes to the state’s policy for pay raises, the state government’s employment agency, according to a story in today’s The (Baton Rouge) Advocate.
If bosses grant permission, employees must use annual leave to take part in the State Civil Service Commission hearing if it is held during their regular work hours, according to a memo cited by the Advocate.
According to the story, the Civil Service hearing will start at 9 a.m. Nov. 4, which is a work day.
Civil Service director Shannon Templet had this to say about employees attending the meeting, according to the story:
“Although the topic may be work-related, the taxpayers of Louisiana cannot pay employees when they are pursuing their personal interests,” Templet said. While attending the meeting, the employees would not be doing the job they were hired to do, she said.•
President Barack Obama is scheduled to be in New Orleans Thursday, on a visit that includes a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans.
The trip will give Obama “a firsthand look at progress on the ground and hear directly from the people of Louisiana,” says a White House press release.
But some say the visit won’t be long enough and that Obama should spend more time in New Orleans, which is still recovering after Hurricane Katrina struck more than four years ago.
According to a wwl.com story, the spokesman for Rep. Steve Scalise, a Metairie Republican, said Scalise would like Obama to extend his visit.
Here’s an excerpt:
Senators David Vitter, a Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, have expressed wishes that the president would spend more time in the region. Congressman Charlie Melancon, a Democrat, said he wishes President Obama could see more of the recovery and hurricane protection too.
But while some in the New Orleans area want Obama to stay longer, some in Mississippi are upset because Obama apparently won’t be making any stops in that state while he’s in the Gulf Coast this week.
Here are some excerpts from a clarionledger.com column that ran today:
Surely, Mr. President, Mississippi’s Gulf Coast — the place where Katrina actually made landfall and Ground Zero of the storm’s worst damage — is worth a look.
The Thursday visit is Obama’s first trip to New Orleans as president, although he has made at least five visits in recent years. While Obama visited Mississippi several times as a presidential candidate — Columbus, Jackson, Greenville — he has yet to visit as president.•
Is this another sign of New Orleans being recession-proof?
In a CNBC survey of 19 major U.S. cities, New Orleans and Houston were the only two to show increases in median home prices from 2007 to this year.
CNBC published the results of its report, “Million Dollar Homes Across America: Then and Now,” this week.
Citing National Association of Realtors figures, CNBC said the area median home price for New Orleans grew 3.4 percent, from $160,300 in 2007 to $165,800 this year.
“In 2007, homes for sale spent an average of 95 days on the (New Orleans) market,” the report says. “That’s down to 91 days in 2009, according to realtors in the area. Activity is beginning to pick up in the area, but it is significantly slower than the market’s high point prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2006.”
The report also compared two New Orleans homes priced in the million-dollar range. In 2007, $1.02 million bought a 4,722-square-foot, six-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom home on an 8,635-square-foot lot. This year, a home listed for sale for $1.2 million comes with 6,759 square feet, four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms on a 10,500-square-foot lot.•
Yesterday, I read a story about a Chinese company that wants to build a plant in Baton Rouge to make a radiation treatment device.
According to the story, the company, Huiheng Medical Inc., which would make Baton Rouge its North American home office, was approached by Baton Rouge Mayor-President Melvin “Kip” Holden during an economic development trip he made to China in April.
It got me thinking about Mayor Ray Nagin’s trips to China. What ever came of those? I can’t recall any announcements about Chinese companies setting up in New Orleans as a result of Nagin’s trips, but, then again, I have a toddler and a infant who like to keep me up at night, so my memory is a little rusty these days.
Since my memory is so unreliable, I did some searching on the Internet but could not find any stories about Chinese businesses coming to New Orleans because Nagin visited the country. I’ve also left messages with the mayor’s press office, but no one has called me back.
I know of at least two trips Nagin made to China. The first trip, in April 2008, was to attend a conference on world tourism involving 400 mayors. Also during that trip, Nagin was supposed to tour the Port of Shanghai. During the second trip, which took place in June, Nagin and his wife were quarantined after a passenger who traveled on the same plane as them to Shanghai was suspected of having swine flu. On that trip, which was billed as an economic development trip, the mayor was supposed to meet with “four prospects interested in the possibility of locating their businesses in New Orleans,” his press office said at the time. Despite being quarantined, the mayor met with “a manufacturing company the city is courting,” according to news reports.
What company was it, and what is the latest on those talks? That’s what I’m hoping the mayor’s press office can tell us.
I also asked GNO Inc. to comment this morning of the effectiveness of the mayor’s trips to China, but the economic development group declined to give its opinion.•
Outback restaurants will sell not sell imported shrimp at its Louisiana restaurants, the company said today.
Gov. Bobby Jindal called a news conference at the Governor’s Mansion today to announce the news.
Here’s an excerpt from a story by The Associated Press:
Bruce Attinger, a partner in the Florida-based company, said today that the company had planned to begin selling less costly foreign shrimp next month. Attinger said he decided that was a bad idea after he heard about hardships of the state’s industry, which is struggling to compete against the imported product.•
In another encouraging sign of recovery, New Orleans was ranked the 25th best sports city in the United States by Sporting News magazine between October 2008-09.
Other Louisiana locations include Baton Rouge, 79; Ruston, 108; Lafayette, 133; Monroe, 137; Thibodaux, 175; Hammond, 201; Lake Charles, 223; Natchitoches, 256; Shreveport, 227; and Grambling, 377.
Fellow Southern cities ranked above New Orleans include Houston, 11; Nashville, Tenn., 12; Atlanta, 13; Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., 15; and Charlotte, N.C., 23.
Rankings are based on point values assigned to various categories, including, but not limited, to won-lost records, postseason appearances, applicable power ratings, number of teams and attendance at sporting events.
And this was before the Saints were red-hot.
But then again, look at New Orleans’ upcoming sports schedule in the next five years: the Bowl Championship Series national championship game and NCAA men’s final four in 2012; the Super Bowl and NCAA women’s final four in 2013; and the annual New Orleans and Sugar Bowl games every year during that time.
Don’t forget, too, that the National Basketball Association was pleasantly surprised with their first All-Star Game experience in New Orleans in 2008. That was the same year we hosted the BCS national championship game and Sugar Bowl, three major sporting events, and Mardi Gras within roughly six weeks.
It’s no wonder we’re ranked 25th. But the best part is the dollars spent on hotel rooms, food and drink and shopping. That equates to more, and much-needed, tax revenue for a city that’s projected to have a $68 million budget shortfall for 2010. It also goes to show we’re open for business and a good place to hold marquee sporting events.
This only shines a whole new meaning on Sportsman’s Paradise.•
The Big Easy isn’t big-brained, according to a new ranking.
New Orleans is 45th among 55 large U.S. cities included on the first-ever “America’s Smartest Cities – From First to Worst” list published on dailybeast.com.
The list ranked metropolitan areas of 1 million people or more.
New Orleans earned an IQ score of 68. The highest score possible was 200.
Here’s what the site said about New Orleans:
From food to music to literature, New Orleans’ cultural impact on America has been massive: It’s done a lot of good for itself, and for the country. New Orleans also knows about the blues, and the sad truth for this hard-hit area is that while it’s in the top quarter in universities-per-capita, it’s also in the bottom 10 percent for higher-education degrees per capita. Changing that dynamic would move a long way toward helping the Big Easy recover.•
Earlier this year, it was reported that Louisiana State Police Retirement System and New Orleans City Employees’ Retirement System funds had been invested with Bernard Madoff, the man whose name has perhaps become synonymous with the term Ponzi scheme.
News reports said the groups retirement systems might have lost nearly $400,000 each.
On Tuesday, Jerry Davis of the New Orleans Municipal Employees’ Retirement System attended a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable on securities.
Here are some excerpts from a Dow Jones Newswires story:
Some panelists at a roundtable on securities lending Tuesday told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission they should consider new rules governing the securities lending market to protect institutional investors from major losses and promote more market transparency.
Meanwhile, the self-regulatory group for the brokerage industry announced it is strongly leaning toward proposing new rules this year that would offer greater protections to smaller retail investors who are increasingly being approached by firms to see if they would be willing to lend out their shares.
“We did not expect the kind of disaster in the securities lending program that we experienced [last year],” said Jerry Davis of the New Orleans Municipal Employees’ Retirement System during a roundtable hosted by the SEC. “This was sold to us as an idea some 20 years ago. It was going to be free money from your idle assets. That was a very seductive concept. Then Lehman failed,” he added.
“I absolutely think there should be more disclosure and a more precise commitment from lending agents in terms of what they will do under what circumstances,” Davis said, noting that the agreements the New Orleans pension fund had with its agents were “marvels of simplicity.”•
Jim Press, the deputy CEO of Chrysler who is mired in financial troubles, reportedly owns some real estate in New Orleans.
According to a story by Fortune, Press owns a $470,000 condo in New Orleans. Some news reports say the condo is in the French Quarter, while others describe it as near the Quarter.
CityBusiness reporter Richard A. Webster today reports that a man wants to resurrect pedicabs in New Orleans, more than nine years after the city put the brakes its last rickshaw-based business.
According to Webster’s story, “PJ” Patrick James Lynch, a former South Carolina businessman, sold his interest in a business there and came to New Orleans with a plan to establish a rickshaw operation, New Orleans Bike Taxi.
But first he has to get approval from the City Council and possibly fight the city’s taxi cab industry.
Lynch said New Orleans is the perfect city for rickshaws.
“This is a flat city that is heavily based on tourism,” he said. “Plus the speed limit isn’t fast on most roads so it’s safe. Over the last two years it seems like, from a tourism perspective, New Orleans is really coming back and I want to get on board.”•
Last week, CityBusiness honored its 2009 Innovators of the Year at the Sheraton hotel.
Before they ate their chicken and mashed potatoes, though, I asked them some hard questions — if you think questions about Crocs, fanny packs and infomercials are hard, that is.
Next week, the New Orleans City Council is expected to decide whether the developers of Lake Forest Plaza mall in eastern New Orleans should be given a tax break to rebuild the shuttered property.
The developers have said they need the tax increment financing, through which 2 percent each in city and state sales taxes generated at the mall will be used to fund the mall’s construction, for the project to work.
But the developers’ plans to use some of the TIF proceeds to pay for private debt has alarmed the New Orleans-based Bureau of Governmental Research, which issued a report critical of the TIF. After BGR released its report, Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis last week deferred a vote on the TIF. She then wrote a letter to Mayor Ray Nagin this week, saying she wants more information about the project.
A few weeks ago — before the BGR report and before Willard-Lewis’ letter — it seemed the TIF would have no trouble getting council approval. Now, passage of the TIF no longer appears to be a fait accompli.
At CityBusiness, we’re asking our readers in this week’s poll question whether the city should approve the TIF if the developers use some of the money to pay off private debt. As of 11:23 a.m. this morning, 87.8 percent say “no.”•
Today, Louisiana Department of Economic Development announced that Louisiana has moved up five places in Forbes magazine’s Best States for Business ranking, to 44th from 49th last year.
According to the press release, it’s the highest ranking Louisiana has earned since Forbes launched the list in 2006. Louisiana was 49th in 2007 and 50th in 2006.
If Louisiana continues moving up five places in the ranking, it would take nine years to get to No. 1.
In the press release, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Louisiana is “headed in the right direction and there is no doubt that our efforts to improve Louisiana’s economic environment are working.” But, Jindal said, “the latest Forbes ranking also indicates that we’ve got more work to do to make Louisiana’s business climate the best in the nation.”
Interestingly, this news comes the day after the state announced that an increase in the number of unemployed in Louisiana will cause businesses taxes to go up and state benefits for jobless workers to decrease next year. •
For those who can’t get enough of Sidney Torres, owner of garbage company SDT Waste and Debris Services, TLC said it plans to feature him in a new reality TV show.
CityBusiness reporter Stephen Maloney broke the story on our Web site today.
According to the story, the pilot episode will focus on Torres, his immediate family and five of his closest associates, “all of whom have unique appeal to viewers across the nation.”
Could those “closest associates” be Torres’ buddies, Lenny Kravitz and Kid Rock?•
The Urban Conservancy, a New Orleans nonprofit that advocates for locally owned businesses, says a report to be released Tuesday shows that local retailers have a bigger economic impact than national chains.
The report says local retailers generate twice the annual sales, recirculate revenues within the local economy at twice the rate and on a per-square-foot basis have four times the economic impact.
“This means that a small change in spending habits – a 10 percent shift in shopping dollars from national retailers to local retailers – would inject an additional $235 million into the regional economy annually,” said Daniel Houston of Civic Economics.
I’d like to know what percentage of the metro area shops at locally owned stores, because national chains seem to do quite well here. Have you ever tried to find a parking space at the Barnes & Noble in Metairie or at the new Borders in Uptown? Don’t attempt it with a nearly empty gas tank; you might run out of fuel before you find a space.•
Bobby Jindal has one more request that he change his mind about turning down federal funds for a high-speed rail system.
The New Orleans City Council is asking the governor to accept the federal stimulus dollars to build the system between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, with Council President Arnie Fielkow calling it “a great opportunity for Louisiana.”
Louisiana Transportation Secretary William Ankner, who submitted a pre-application for the funds but later withdrew it, said it would be too expensive for the state to maintain the system, which would result in the state being on the hook for an estimated $18 million operating loss each year.
Fielkow said he understands that “the state has some concerns about finding funds for the eventual operation and maintenance of a high-speed rail project. However, it is important to throw our hat in the ring and attempt to develop creative financing solutions over the next year so that we don’t miss another opportunity.”•
Baton Rouge is the best — and worst — place to live in Louisiana, according to a new study.
Here’s an excerpt from an Associated Press story:
A coalition of groups analyzed 2007 data on health, education and earnings to form a quality of life index.
The “best” rating for Baton Rouge cited a suburban swath of predominantly white southern East Baton Rouge Parish combined with West Baton Rouge Parish. The “worst” rating came for sections of downtown and north Baton Rouge, which are predominantly black.
The report, spearheaded by Oxfam America, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and other groups, said someone in the first area “can expect to live, on average, nearly half a decade longer, earns twice as much, is almost three times more likely to have a bachelor’s degree, and is three times less likely to have dropped out of high school” than someone living in the other section.
The differences reflect a broader gap in quality of life across Louisiana between black and white residents, a condition also especially noted in Mississippi, Alabama and Nebraska.
The report adapted a United Nations formula to create a 10-point “human development index,” according to the AP story.
The story also says Kristen Lewis, co-author of the report, said whites in affluent neighborhoods of New Orleans scored as well in the group’s index as top-rated states. “But, she said, ‘African-Americans living in rural Tangipahoa have a score that corresponds to the human development level of the average American in the early 1950s.’”
Here are more excerpts:
Louisiana’s overall score of 3.92 put it above only West Virginia and Mississippi among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., the report said. The group’s national report, using 2005 statistics, put Connecticut first at 6.37, followed by Massachusetts (6.27) and Washington, D.C. (6.14).
The area of Baton Rouge scoring lowest in Louisiana — 2.51 on the index — is 88 percent black. The top-rated area spanning parts of East and West Baton Rouge parishes that scored 5.73 is 70 percent white.
Other sections of East Baton Rouge — one including Zachary, Baker and unincorporated parts of the city, and one including parts of downtown and the LSU campus area — also are in Louisiana’s top 10, with scores of 4.47 and 5.12 respectively.•
New Orleans will lose another consulate when Spain closes its office in the World Trade Center at the end of October, according to news reports.
It’s not the first consulate the city has lost in recent years. Since Katrina, New Orleans has also lost the Japanese consulate.
Yesterday, I asked Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret his thoughts on the losses.
Here’s what he said:
“The city of New Orleans has had a relatively steady population decline for at least 50 or 60 years. I look at our state and New Orleans in a lot of ways in a similar sense that if you look back 100 years, the beginning of the 20th century, we should have been the top state economically in the country. New Orleans should have been as significant a city for commerce as New York City. I know this sounds melodramatic, but I kind of look at the 20th century as almost a lost century for Louisiana. There’s been a lot of good things (that have) happened. But economically there was so much lost opportunity.
The way I think about New Orleans is New Orleans is one of the great cities of the world but a city that is not today one of the great cities for commerce in the world but I think a city that has the potential to regain that position. For all the challenges that we face it still has one of the most powerful brands in the world and I think the trick for us is going to be identifying a relatively small number of major job-creating initiatives that can help turn a corner in New Orleans. I think digital media is one of them. I think aerospace is one of them.
But I think when you talk about the consulates, I think what you’re looking at basically is the question of scale. I mean if you look at Houston, for example, (it) has picked up lots of those over the years. When you’ve got a city with a population the size of our state, or at least a metro (area) the size of our state, not to mention the flight options and so forth. So, I regret those losses that we’ve had. But, frankly, the answer to that over time is we need to have a vibrant, growing economy. New Orleans could be a natural place for those types of offices. But when you’ve got the population where it is today versus what it once was, let alone where our competitors in Atlanta and Houston and Miami and so forth are, it’s really night and day.”
By the way, the city might have the best person — or at least the person with the best last name — in charge of trying to retain the Spanish consulate. The city’s international relations director is Lisa Ponce de Leon.•
“With the recession we’re trying to hold the line,” said Jeff Tandberg, general manager of Centerplate, the exclusive concessions provider to the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Arena. “And as a small-market team, we can’t get the pricing that large-market teams with higher per-capita incomes can get.”
Today, I came across a column that the Guardian newspaper published last month on the post-Katrina efforts to rebuild a “greener” New Orleans.
In the column, headlined “New Orleans’ green dilemma,” writer Anna Hartnell talks about the energy-efficient homes being built in the Lower 9th Ward with the involvement of actor Brad Pitt.
“A city built below sea level would be stupid not to be persuaded by the idea of carbon-neutral living,” Hartnell writes. But she also points out that “technologically sophisticated green homes” are expensive to build and that “massive subsidies” would be needed to make the entire city green.
She also goes on to talk about how “New Orleans can be seen as a microcosm of the global story about climate change, in which developing nations continue to carry the burden of western affluence.”•
Edouard Quatrevaux says the new office will look at solicitations for contracts before they are issued. And, he says, the office will investigate bidders to make sure they have clean records and the ability to do the job.
A study by Harvard University says many U.S. businesses are not prepared for large numbers of employees to be absent because of swine flu.
Here’s an excerpt from a story by The Associated Press:
The Harvard School of Public Health study released today found that two-thirds of the more than 1,000 businesses surveyed nationwide said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two weeks. Four out of every five expect severe problems if half their workers are out for a month.
Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and project leader, said companies need to change sick leave policies to deal with a possible flu pandemic.
It makes me wonder: Are businesses in the City That Care Forgot forgetting about swine flu? Then again, maybe New Orleans-area businesses are well prepared for employee absenteeism during a swine flu outbreak: After all, how many people call in “sick” each year for Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest?•
On average, home values in New Orleans will deflate by 11.3 percent this year while Louisiana deals with a glut of rebuilt housing and rising unemployment, according to housingpredictor.com, a site I stumbled upon today.
That’s a bigger than the average decline of 9.6 percent and 8.3 percent expected for Baton Rouge and Lafayette, respectively.
Shreveport, meanwhile, is expected to see a 1.4 percent average appreciation in home values. •
