This year alone, at his home in Marrero, he’s rebuilt his shed, including putting a new roof on it, and put siding on his house. He did most of this work himself. (I don’t have a handy bone in my body, so watching him perform these impressive feats of home improvement makes me feel like even less of a man. Thanks, John.)
As the housing market struggles just about everywhere in the U.S., including New Orleans, I wonder if it is smart for John to be sinking thousands of dollars into his home at this time. After all, this is a time when, across the nation, more and more homes are sitting on the market for a long time because buyers just aren’t buying.
For example, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors, homes sat for an average of 129 days on the market in Algiers last month compared with 98 days in October 2007. Also, there were 24 sales this past October compared with 44 in October 2007. So, not only are there more homes for sale in some areas than there were a year ago, but also not as many homes are selling as this time last year.
Let’s also not ignore that home prices are down. Looking at Algiers again, in October the average price of a sold home was $90,500 compared with $167,500 the same month last year. That’s a 45.9 percent decline.
So, with house prices falling and homes not selling, is it a good idea to sink money into home improvements? I’d love for real estate experts, or even homeowners, to weigh in on this. Leave a comment to this blog posting.
Also, check out the CityBusiness Real Estate CloseUp e-mail Dec. 5, when we’ll ask three real estate experts this question. To subscribe to the CloseUp, go to CityBusiness’ homepage and sign up for Daily Updates on the left-hand side.•
Today, Louisiana State University and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officially named the downtown locale where their new hospitals will go: a 70-acre site bounded by Tulane Avenue, Canal Street, Claiborne Avenue and South Rocheblave Street.
The campus will replace hospitals the VA and LSU lost in Hurricane Katrina.
For some, it’s good news. For others, it’s not so good.
Some see the medical center as a major economic boost for the city and the downtown medical district, not to mention a much-needed source of medical care and training.
“This is outstanding news,” wrote milwriter. “It provides the reality of dragging NOLA’s economy into the 21st century, diversifying the economy from the tourist industry, offering quality, good paying jobs.
But the announcement did not quell concerns about the site choice. The National Trust for Historical Preservation is among those upset with the selection of the Mid-City site. Among the National Trust’s concerns is that homes in a historic neighborhood will be destroyed to make way for the project. About two hours after the press conference at which the VA and LSU announced the site, the National Trust issued a press release criticizing the site choice.
Yesterday, CityBusiness posted a poll question regarding the Mid-City site to its Web site. The question: Do you like the proposed Mid-City site choice for the new Veterans Affairs and teaching hospitals?
Out of 113 votes cast as of 2:30 p.m. today, 54.87 percent chose “Yes, it is the ideal site”; 28.32 percent chose “Yes, but reuse Old Charity for the teaching hospital”; 15.04 percent chose “No, because homes will be demolished”; and 1.77 percent chose “No, because another parish could use the economic development.”•
In the wake of a heated exchange in City Council Chambers between the city’s head of sanitation, Veronica White, and Councilwoman Stacy Head, some in the public are trying to gather enough signatures to get White removed from her job.
“This petition seeks to encourage Mayor Ray Nagin to relieve Sanitation Director Veronica White of her responsibilities,” says a description accompanying the online petition.
The goal is 500 signatures. As of 1:56 p.m. today, there were 374 signatures.
The full text of the petition:
We the undersigned believe:
The recent acrimony between members of City Council and the Office of the Mayor over Veronica White’s pattern of selectively disclosing relevant data highlights a longstanding problem with her administration of the Department of Sanitation. It is not just that she has been unwilling to disclose data critical to Council’s audit of the sanitation contracts, it is also the widespread evidence that the very contracts for which she was responsible are unnecessarily costing the city millions of the dollars that should be reallocated to other critical recovery projects. Veronica White also oversees the city’s disastrous demolition process and has shown a stunning unwillingness to repair its flaws. Not only has the city mistakenly demolished homes right out from under everyday New Orleanians, but it may now be libel for millions of dollars in damages. Veronica White futile handling of these critical city functions is magnified by her defensiveness against all of those that would dare to call attention to some of her official dysfunction. It is not enough for Council and the Mayor’s office to sign yet another truce if the fundamental problem at hand, Veronica White’s job performance, is not addressed. The issues at the Department of Sanitation are too fundamental for someone with the diminished credibility of Ms. White to be capable of implementing the changes needed to restore the agency’s public standing.
Thus, we advocate the immediate dismissal of Veronica White from her position as the city’s Director of Sanitation.
Thanks for your consideration, we hope to move forward together with the recovery of this city.•
This week, I sat down with three people who are New Orleans metro area apartment experts: Mark Madderra, Larry Schedler and Cheryl Short.
The week before, they had released their fall report about the metro area apartment market. After the report came out, they offered to get together with me to talk more about the market.
Here are my notes:
- Downtown New Orleans apartment rents are high, averaging more than $1 a square foot, even though occupancy has fallen. Apartment owners can command those rents because people are willing to pay them to live in that area. “That’s a product that’s one-of-a-kind,” Short said. Some apartment owners are willing to have lower occupancy rates and keep rents up. Some downtown properties are renting for as much as approximately $2 a square foot.
- There are very few new apartment construction projects being considered for the New Orleans metro area, thanks to the lending crisis affecting the rest of the country, except for projects that have funding from the New Market Tax Credit and historic tax credit programs. So, look for a period of time — no one knows for how long — when the inventory of apartments in the metro area will be flat.
- Plenty affordable housing will pop up in New Orleans, thanks in large part to the redevelopment of the four former housing projects in Orleans Parish, which should be under construction next year. The $600 million redevelopment of those four sites could shift the affordable housing population to those sites, Madderra said. “It’s going to change the dynamics of Orleans Parish,” he said.
- It is a hard market for a buyer who can’t put down at least 30 percent to buy a complex, and properties that are in disrepair are even harder to get financing for.
- The biggest barrier to building new apartments in the metro area is not lack of land, which has long been a challenge. It’s lack of construction financing.
- New Orleans has among the highest percentages of renters — more than 60 percent — out of major U.S. cities. On the North Shore, renters make up about 10 percent of the population. There’s also a large population of elderly renters on the North Shore, because their children living in the metro area want them close by. As the economy struggles, though, some of those elderly renters could move out of apartments and into single-family homes with their children. Also in St. Tammany Parish, there is a large need for work force housing, because many workers can’t afford the rents there.
- Before Katrina, in the metro area there were 48,000 apartments in complexes of at least 100 units apiece. That figure is now at around 40,000.•
A few weeks ago, I posted this CityBusiness poll question to our Web site: Is the New Orleans metro area a good place for young professionals?
I thought it was good timing for the question, because of the buzz at the time about 504ward, an initiative to attract young professionals to New Orleans.
While that poll question was active, more than one person suggested that to make it in New Orleans, you have to know the right people. Having spent my whole life in this area, I’ve heard comments like that before about the New Orleans region. But reading comments to that effect on our Web site made me sit up straight. After all, this is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; aren’t we trying to do things differently around here?
Here’s what susan@rebirthcapital.com had to say on our poll:
“I recently moved here as a young professional and it was very hard to find job opportunities outside of the non-profit arena. Compared to other cities, the New Orleans economic culture is a lot of small, entrepreneurial businesses and heavily based on who you know.”
Then there was this comment by quantos1@gmail.com:
“With abundance of family businesses in New Orleans — unlike more progressive cities where newcomers can grow and prosper in their new chosen communities — it does become a “WHO you know versus WHAT you know” culture in the workplace. Look at all of the local names here that occupy jobs that newcomer professionals and those not politically connected could never have: the Romig’s, Nalty’s, Villere’s, Eustis’s, Jefferson’s, Charbonnet’s, Gray’s, Carter’s, Westfeldt’s, Milling’s, Terrel’s, Broussard’s, Connick’s, Willard’s, Morrel’s, Strain’s, etc.”
In the past week, there have been some not-so-flattering reports about Louisiana and New Orleans that I’ve blogged about.
I’m referring to a report that put Louisiana second-to-last on a list of states ranked for attracting and retaining businesses that contribute to economic growth and another report that ranked New Orleans among the worst American cities for commercial and multifamily investment in 2009.
But it’s not all bad news for New Orleans and the state.
This week, it was announced that the Louisiana Superdome will host the 2012 men’s basketball Final Four tournament for the fifth time. The Crescent City was one of five cities chosen as locales for the event from 2012-16. The tournament will surely pump some tourism dollars into the New Orleans area’s economy.
“There are significant improvements to the Superdome,” NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee Chairman Mike Slive said in a story by The Associated Press. “And there is strong leadership in the community. Besides that, New Orleans has a proven track record and is a fan favorite.”
Of course, no matter how good news is, some commenter on nola.com is always ready to say something vicious, and they did not disappoint this time.
“I’d rather see Marc Morial and Ray Nagin indicted and then The Iberville torn down and sold off,” someone named 34zip wrote Wednesday.
“Crime is up, up and steadily going up in New Orleans. Corruption is rising, rising, and increasingly on the rise. And all we get from our illustrious leaders is nothing but talk, talk, and more talk. And that is all they are good at is meaningless babble,” someone named pivo00 wrote.
“Will any Final 4 make a difference to the economy of New Orleans?” asked AhContraire. “Well if any of them ever did, why is crime up? Tourism, sports, Super Bowls, Final 4’s, Festivals have produced one thing: Last place finish in everything New Orleans that matters. No one lives in New Orleans except the criminals and corrupt officials.”
But there were plenty of happy nola.com readers, too.
“Awesome news for a deserving city. Hey, they can’t all be in Detroit, right?” wrote someone named aglock.
“No one does it better than New Orleans !!!! Congrats city of New Orleans,” wrote someone named nomopono.•
In New Orleans, the city’s crime camera program has come under fire, with complaints that the cameras are netting few convictions and in some cases not working and missing crimes under their noses, making them a waste of tax dollars.
Late last month, WDSU-TV in New Orleans ran a story about the few convictions that result from the crime cameras. Here’s an excerpt:
“We are not using them to solve crimes,” said New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head. The WDSU I-Team obtained recent statistics from the district attorney’s office about how many times prosecutors have used crime cameras.
On average, since Hurricane Katrina hit the area, police have made roughly 12,000 felony arrests per year. The district attorney’s office accepts anywhere between 7,000 to 8,000 of those cases on average.
In a written statement, the district attorney’s office told WDSU prosecutors have “utilized” crime camera video in three cases during the last year.
“If all we have is three prosecutions stemming from it, the only way you could explain it is disappointment,” said Rafael Goyeneche. Goyeneche heads up the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
“I think the public has an inflated expectation level of what those cameras actually mean,” said Goyeneche.
But New Orleans residents are not alone in their criticism about crime cameras. In cities across the U.S., there are similar complaints.
Earlier this year, a San Francisco Chronicle story reported that “San Francisco’s 68 controversial anti-crime cameras haven’t deterred criminals from committing assaults, sex offenses or robberies — and they’ve only moved homicides down the block, according to a new report from UC Berkeley.”
Last year, a story on officer.com ran this headline: “D.C. crime camera misses daylight shooting.”•
Recent national reports have scored Louisiana very low on business indicators, news that should have economic development officials and leaders in high gear.
Today, a report put Louisiana second-to-last on a list of states ranked for attracting and retaining businesses that contribute to economic growth. Only Mississippi, which is at the bottom of the list, scored worse than Louisiana in the eighth edition of Beacon Hill Institute’s Competitiveness Report. Mississippi officials should be hanging their heads today; their state ranked last in 2006 and 49th last year.
If that’s not enough bad news for Louisiana, last week CityBusiness reported that the 2009 Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers Emerging Trends in Real Estate report ranked New Orleans among the worst American cities for commercial and multifamily investment in 2009. New Orleans was third to the bottom of a list of American “markets to watch.” On a ranking scale of one to nine, with one being an “abysmal” place to invest and nine being “excellent,” New Orleans scored a 3.33.
The grim news for Louisiana does not end there, though. The American Community Survey says Louisiana’s population last year was 4.29 million, down from 4.5 million in 2000, according to a story by The Associated Press this month. According to the AP story, Gov. Bobby Jindal said it would be a mistake for state officials to blame Hurricane Katrina or any other storm for the migration, which he said goes back almost 15 years.
Here’s more from the story:
The reason people are leaving, Jindal says, is because of the lack of educational and economic opportunities in Louisiana. And Jindal says his administration is seeking to address the problem.
Officials say the Census Bureau numbers show that in the past 27 years, Louisiana has lost about 84 residents each day, or about four per hour.
Sounds like Louisiana economic development officials and elected officials have their work cut out for them.•
As the U.S. economy struggles to climb out of what seems like an ever-deepening hole, businesses everywhere are in a world of hurt. Small and independent businesses might be especially struggling, as consumers are more likely to shop at Wal-Mart and other chain stores that usually can afford to lower prices than mom-and-pop businesses can.
In the New Orleans metro area, where billions of dollars in federal aid have coming pouring in since the 2005 hurricanes, locally owned businesses apparently are not immune from today’s tough economy. And New Orleans-area businesses are also struggling with challenges the 2005 hurricanes created.
For example, in this week’s CityBusiness I read that Dave Bachli, owner of X/O Studios in the Faubourg Marigny, plans to shut down and leave New Orleans next month. He will move back to Massachusetts after living in New Orleans for 22 years.
“I thought Katrina could be a catalyst for some good things but it’s just not happening,” Bachli said in the story. “I really expected to see more riverfront development going on, which would have rejuvenated the Marigny Bywater area, and that’s why I opened the gallery here. It’s too stressful down here and I can’t do it anymore. Property taxes are going up, we’re getting screwed by the utility companies, Nagin wants to raise our taxes even more, insurance is going through the roof and I don’t see us getting anything for it. It’s just not worth it anymore. I’m leaving for better things.”
This morning, I spoke with Dana Eness, executive director of The Urban Conservancy, a New Orleans-based organization that acts as an advocate for independent businesses. Eness’ group is calling for metro area residents to support local businesses Saturday during a promotion called New Orleans Unchained, a local version of a national promotion called American Unchained, a national campaign of the American Independent Business Alliance.
Metro area businesses are “definitely feeling the credit squeeze,” Eness said. Businesses are “seeing greater imperative” to pay bills from suppliers within 30 days, and they are seeing surcharges on deliveries, she said. In addition, metro area businesses are also reporting reductions in foot traffic.
“Nobody’s being Pollyanna about it,” she said. “Times are tough economically, and they’re worried.”
New Orleans businesses certainly are not alone in the fight for survival in this rough economy. Three months ago, a TV station in Indiana reported about the struggles of locally owned restaurants there.
It shows that despite the influx of federal dollars Louisiana has received since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, despite the construction jobs that have been created here and all the other post-hurricane spending, we’re not insulated from the national, and now international, economic problems.•
Last week, while the dispute in City Council chambers between Councilwoman Stacy Head and the city’s sanitation director, Veronica White, captured the media’s attention, some people in New Orleans were talking about something else: Speculation about whether Mayor C. Ray Nagin will play a prominent role in the Obama administration.
Nagin is rumored to be among those incoming President Barack Obama is considering to head up the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Of course, many people weighed in on this one in postings online.
“You have got to be kidding. Ray “School Bus” Nagin? LOL.”
“All this time, I thought he was being considered for Disaster Relief/FEMA head…”
“I think the campaign just throws names out as a form of flattery. C’mon, Obama, there are plenty of capable black people out there who could do a better job than Ray Nagin.”
Before reading this post, let me warn you that I’m an editor, which makes me a word nerd. So, I often obsess over the misuse of words.
This week, Mayor C. Ray Nagin accused City Councilwoman Stacy Head of using “profanity” during a heated exchange she had with city sanitation director Veronica White. The exchange, captured on tape, has been aired all over TV news and the Internet.
Nagin, who was not at the City Council hearing, on Wednesday wrote an e-mail to Council President Jackie Clarkson before ever reviewing audio or video of the exchange. “It is my understanding that a council member verbally abused (White), used profanity and boldly proclaimed very crude race-baiting remarks during a public meeting,” Nagin’s e-mail says.
I’ve almost been losing sleep over Nagin’s use of the word. Does he know what profane means, or did he misuse the word? The former would truly disturb me.
According to the fourth edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary, a profanity is something profane, and things that are profane show “disrespect or contempt for sacred things.”
So Nagin thinks White is sacred? Really, Mr. Mayor?
The only other explanation is Nagin misused the word.
It wouldn’t be the first time a politician has goofed up over a word. Can anyone spell potato?
The passage of Proposition 8 in California on Nov. 4 limited the definition of marriage in the country’s most populous state as a union between a man and a woman, effectively reversing an earlier California Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriages.
Prop 8 has stirred up a firestorm of controversy across the nation as groups from coast to coast gather to protest the decision. A New Orleans rally will be held this Saturday to coincide with a series of nationwide protests.
But Forum for Equality spokesman Ryan McNeely said same-sex marriage isn’t even on the agenda for the New Orleans-based political action committee and civil rights organization.
Before the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Louisiana can even think about legalized marriage, a right guaranteed by law for every other sector of society, McNeely said a host of other civil rights issues will have to be addressed; chief among those is the lack of workplace protection for the gay community.
“One of the things that we run up against when we try to educate people on this issue is they think that existing laws are already in place to prevent workplace discrimination, and that’s absolutely true for certain protected classes like race and religion, but sexual orientation is not on that list in Louisiana outside of Orleans Parish,” he said.
In the state’s 63 other parishes, an employer can fire an employee based solely on the employee’s sexual orientation without fear of legal action.
“Orleans Parish and the New Orleans city government do have protections on the books, but anywhere else in Louisiana if your boss doesn’t approve of homosexuality he or she could fire you specifically for that reason and actually state that reason and there would be no legal recourse for that employee,” McNeely said.
If an employer fired that same employee because of race or religious preference, McNeely said state and federal laws would quickly apply, but the lack of state protection in issues of discrimination based on sexual preference leaves many in the gay community without options.
“Marriage is an incredibly important issue, and we saw all this money pour into California to fight for that. But when you take a step back you realize that what was at stake in California was really the word ‘marriage,’” he said. “Gay and lesbian couples in California already had a number of rights and protections through the domestic partnership law. … In terms of state rights, gay and lesbian couples already had all the protections and rights that married couples did.”
The fact that Louisiana doesn’t even allow same sex civil unions and lacks workplace protection in the majority of parishes shows how far behind California the state was even before Prop 8, McNeely said.
“California stands in stark contract to Louisiana, where marriage is maybe a goal or an aspiration but it is seen as something that is far down the road and maybe less important than some of the other things like workplace protection or a very basic domestic partnership law,” he said.●
This week, I took a tour of The Preserve, a mega, 183-unit apartment development being built at 4301 Tulane Ave. Anybody driving over the Pontchartrain Expressway headed toward the lake has seen the multicolored structure to their right as they pass over Carrollton Avenue.
The $55 million construction project is nearing its end, and the first apartments are expected to open Jan. 1. The project will be complete in February, if all goes according to schedule.
I visited the construction site Wednesday, the same day a New Orleans metro area apartment report was published. The report indicated that I might not see another apartment development under construction like The Preserve for a while.
The report, by the Metairie firms Larry G. Schedler & Associates and Madderra & Cazalot, talks over and over again about how hard it will be for apartment developers to get financing because of tightening in the credit markets. It’s a national issue that New Orleans apparently is not immune from.
“The nation’s ongoing financial crisis continues to impact new apartment construction in the New Orleans metro area,” the report says.
Even the wealth of post-Katrina federal incentives is not enough to offset “the obstacles new projects now face,” the report says.
There are many challenges to new apartment construction, the report says: the cost of equity and the reduced value of tax credits, to name a couple. “To this list you can now add the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, major bank failures and a worldwide liquidity crisis,” the report says.
While there are apartments under construction in the New Orleans metro area, those projects began construction before the market meltdown, the report says.
I thought of all of this as I toured The Preserve, with its shiny new units ready for tenants to move in. I walked through an $850-a-month, 700-square-foot, one-bedroom unit. I wandered around another, a 1,100-square-foot, two-bedroom unit that will rent for $1,450. I looked out at a courtyard in the middle of the development where a swimming pool will soon go.
I listened as one of the developers, Chris Papamichael, who is from New York, talked about how big the closet space is, how The Preserve is “a new type of product for New Orleans” because of all the amenities — washers and dryers in the units, a fitness center, a garage — it has.
I listened to all of this with interest. I scribbled in my notebook all the details about The Preserve that Papamichael rattled off. But in the back of my mind was that report and the idea that in New Orleans — which has always had a large renter population — apartment construction might come to a halt, at least for now. Surely New Orleans, with all its post-Katrina federal aid, is sheltered from the national credit crisis, I thought.
Skeptical of the report, I asked Papamichael about the outlook for new apartment construction. Yes, he said, these days it’s nearly impossible to get financing for new construction. His project has Gulf Opportunity Zone Act incentives and other post-Katrina federal funding. Without that, a project like this would be impossible, he said.
The report, it seems, is right.
“As a result of both local and national market issues any new project faces serious obstacles,” the report says, adding that “little new activity is anticipated over the next 24 months.”
So, take a good look at The Preserve. You might not see new apartment construction like it in New Orleans for a long time.•
Mayor C. Ray Nagin has jumped into the controversy involving city sanitation director Veronica White and City Councilwoman Stacy Head.
On Tuesday, White walked out of council chambers after a heated exchange with Head, who accused her of withholding information about garbage service location lists, a claim White denied.
Since the Head and White exchange, which a lot of New Orleanians are surely talking about, Nagin sent a letter to Jackie Clarkson, president of the council. Clarkson, at the hearing, said White was out of order for the way she spoke to Head.
Nagin, who made national news for his infamous “Chocolate City” speech, accused Head of race-baiting.
“It is my understanding that a council member verbally abused the city sanitation department head, used profanity and boldly proclaimed very crude race-baiting remarks during a public meeting,” Nagin wrote in the Wednesday letter.
Nagin admitted in the letter that he had not seen a tape of the exchange. So, he was basically relying on hearsay when he wrote the letter.
“But it has been reported that the employee was publicly chastised, threatened, belittled and carelessly accused of being a liar in spite of any clear facts being presented,” Nagin wrote.
Head and White definitely traded barbs at the hearing.
It began when White claimed she receives garbage service location lists every month. “I can give you every last one of them,” White said.
“I have asked you for this no less than five times verbally,” Head said.
“You have never asked me for this,” White said.
“This is grounds for discharge,” Head said.
“Do what you have to do,” said White, who then refused to answer any more questions from Head.
“I reserve my comments for the inspector general,” White said.
“I am not going to be bullied by (White),” Head said. She then accused White of not telling the truth.
“I find it offensive that you’re saying I’m not telling you the truth when I’ve always been truthful,” White said. “The problem is with you, you have selective understanding, and your motive is to paint a picture as if everybody in this department is thieves and crooks when you’re the one.”•
California residents voted into law a proposition banning gay marriage on Nov. 4, leaving gay communities across the country shocked that what had been seen as a progressive state could take such a step backward when it comes to gay civil rights.
Ryan McNeely of the New Orleans-based political action committee Forum for Equality said the decision on Prop 8 brought to light some misconceptions California voters held that might have led to the ban’s passage.
“Some people in California believed, wrongly, that a ‘no’ vote on Prop 8 would lead to religious officials being forced to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies, or that young children would be taught about gay marriage in school over the objections of their parents,” McNeely said. “Others knew the truth but simply do not believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry — and it is their right to believe this.”
But Prop 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote, a significantly smaller percentage of California voters than voted for a similarly worded gay marriage ban that passed with 61 percent of the vote in 2000.
This drop in support is seen as a positive sign in the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, McNeely said.
“While the vote was certainly a disappointment to Louisiana’s LGBT community, there is cause for optimism,” he said. “Support for a ban on gay marriage in California has dropped nine points in eight years. Second, the LGBT community had some victories on Election Day, most notably in the presidential race, but also in New York State, where the state Senate flipped control. It is now likely, though not guaranteed, that the third largest state will extend marriage rights to same-sex couples through the legislative process.”
Locally, McNeely said the passage of Prop 8 helped return to the spotlight severe restrictions on the local gay community.
“The high visibility of Prop 8 has gone a long way towards exposing Louisiana’s truly unjust treatment of hardworking gay, lesbian, and transgendered people,” he said. “While the largest state in the country is narrowly divided on the question of using the word ‘marriage’ to describe committed same-sex relationships, Louisiana does not even allow for civil unions, which is a common-sense compromise that provides stability and basic rights.
“Beyond the issue of relationships, a gay person in Louisiana can be fired from his or her job simply because of sexual orientation. That is unfair and wrong. Job performance — not someone’s private life — should be the sole criterion for hiring and firing decisions in this state.”
Until every Louisiana citizen is allowed equal protection under the law regardless of sexual orientation, the state will remain behind the times in what many consider to be a civil rights issue, McNeely said.
“The bottom line is that whatever your thoughts on marriage, discrimination against anyone is wrong,” he said. “We have a lot more work to do in Louisiana to ensure that LGBT people are treated with fairness.”•
Should Sen. Mary Landrieu chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs?
Some in the public think so.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., currently chairs the committee. But some aren’t pleased with Lieberman’s performance as chairman.
“Lieberman does little for ‘Homeland Security’” was the headline of a posting Sunday on washingtonmonthly.com.
Here’s more from that posting:
For one thing, Lieberman, as chairman for the last two years, barely used his committee to actually explore domestic security policy. For another, it’s not as if Lieberman has such a unique expertise that Americans would be at risk if, say, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) chaired the same committee. Or Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) or Thomas Carper (D-Del.) or Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
It’s one of those rare arguments from Lieberman that combines arrogance, incompetence, and demagoguery, all at the same time. A rare feat, indeed.
While Lieberman gets criticized — not only for his performance as chairman but also for his support of Sen. John McCain president — some New Orleans-area bloggers are calling for Landrieu, D-New Orleans, to replace him. For example, on Friday, yatpundit.com asked Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid to dump Leiberman for Landrieu.
Yatpundit, referring to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, says Lieberman “has continued to bury what happened to New Orleans.”
Here’s more:
This lack of inattention on part of Sen. Lieberman has had consequences, as the Houston/Galveston area also suffered from poor FEMA response/reaction after Hurricane Ike this year. While I am hopeful that President-elect Obama will take ownership of FEMA and its problems, this does not excuse Sen. Lieberman’s wilfull misconduct and complicity with Bush Administration failures.
Sen. Lieberman should not be rewarded for covering up the federal response to the greatest man-made disaster this country has ever experienced. Please recommend to the Steering Committee that he be removed from his chairmanship and be replaced with Sen. Landrieu.•
Editor’s update: On Nov. 18, 2008, the Senate Democratic Caucus decided to keep Lieberman chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Here’s what Landrieu said in a statement that same day:
“Louisiana has a long tradition of elected officials having the independence of mind to cross party lines when duty and conscious calls. I am proud to serve in this tradition and to be the recipient of such support in my career. I did disagree with some of Senator Lieberman’s actions and statements in the Presidential race, but I certainly respect his right to express his independence. I supported the resolution that allows Senator Lieberman to remain in the Democratic Caucus in a leadership role. As President-elect Obama has stated, it is time for unity, not division, in our country. In my view, that spirit should start in the United States Senate.”
The Road Home, a state-run, federally funded program to compensate Louisiana victims of the 2005 hurricanes, has come under fire for a lot things. Now, a lawsuit filed today claims the program discriminates against blacks.
The program, which bases grant amounts on the pre-storm values of homes, favors majority white neighborhoods where property values are higher, according to the federal, class-action lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversees The Road Home.
Here’s an excerpt from a CityBusiness story today:
The suit seeks to end the use of the pre-storm value formula and as a result eliminate the disparity in grant allocations between black and white homeowners, said Joseph Sellers, a Washington, D.C., civil rights attorney acting as head counsel in the case.
“(The Road Home program) falls far short of its noble promise by linking (the size of rebuilding grants) to the depressed values of their pre-storm segregated housing rather than to the cost of reconstruction,” said Sellers, head of civil rights and employment practice with the firm Cohen, Milstein, Hausfield and Toll.
The story, citing Sellers, says it would cost an estimated $1 billion to recompute grants for the class of plaintiffs estimated to include more than 20,000 black homeowners.
The LRA issued a statement about the lawsuit.
“When the Road Home program was designed, the state added an additional compensation grant to assist low-income homeowners who may have had low pre-storm values,” the statement says. “The Road Home program does not discriminate and, as it is our policy not to comment on pending litigation, we have no further comment.”
News of the lawsuit is spreading across the Internet. For example, an hour ago, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul published a story about the suit by The Associated Press. The Los Angeles Times also ran the AP story on the business section of its Web site today .
This on the heels of a story yesterday about an alleged Ku Klux Klan-related killing in St. Tammany Parish.•
It’s budget time in the city of New Orleans, and perhaps the most controversial issue is whether the city should increase its property tax collections.
Mayor C. Ray Nagin is pushing for higher property tax collections. But it’s an idea members of the City Council do not agree with, according to news reports.
Nagin is suggesting that the city reverse a millage reduction approved by council last year. The council approved the reduction after the total value of taxable properties in the city spiked. Nagin wants to raise the property tax rate by 10 mills next year.
Here’s an excerpt from a story Thursday by The Times-Picayune:
He (Nagin) said the 10-mill increase would be “a modest amount.” It would cost the owner of a $150,000 house an extra $75 a year in taxes, while the owner of a $250,000 house would pay an extra $175 a year. Nagin said the increase would cost the owner of a $250,000 business property $350 a year and the owner of a $1 million business $1,400 a year.
According to an Oct. 28 CityBusiness story, Nagin said that, under a worst-case scenario, the city would be forced to pay $26 million a year in additional debt service from pension bonds beginning in 2010 if the property tax rate is not raised to 10 mills.
Here’s more from that story:
The debt stems from stocks, purchased on credit via the firefighters’ pension fund, that have since fallen significantly and now the debt is being recalled, said District B Councilwoman Stacy Head.
“It’s worth noting we have had to do a lot of cleaning up from bad political decisions in the past and now we are having to make hard decisions related to the pensions — a very bad political decision 10 years ago,” said District A Councilwoman Shelley Midura. “We’re grappling with something that was ducked in the past. It’s not about C. Ray Nagin or this council.”
The additional revenue from the millage roll forward would also help replenish the emergency fund balance.
According to the Times-Picayune story, Council President Jackie Clarkson said the council will pass a balanced budget but “we will not raise taxes to do it.”
Some council members don’t think now is a good time to raise property tax collections, according to the T-P story. “With the national economy perhaps going into recession, members said a tax increase is no more appropriate now than a year ago,” the story says.•
Barack Obama hasn’t even taken office yet and some are already looking ahead to the 2012 presidential race.
The name many are talking about for the next election would be familiar to Louisiana residents: Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Indeed, since Democrat Obama’s victory, and the loss of Republican John McCain, the Internet has been a flurry of news stories and blog postings about whether Jindal is the one to rebuild the GOP, almost making him sound like a real-life Neo from “The Matrix” who will save the Republican Party.
On Friday, just three days after Obama was elected, a story headlined “Jindal for President 2012?” was posted on the Web site of an NBC-affiliated television station in Baton Rouge. Here’s an excerpt:
The next election is four years away, but thousands of Facebook users have already made their decision; they want Bobby Jindal for President in 2012.
He’s denying he’ll make a run for the White House, but insiders say Governor Bobby Jindal is the future of the Republican party. Later this month Jindal will deliver the keynote address to a conservative group in Iowa.
Could Jindal galvanize young voters the way Obama did? Some might think so. Here’s more from the story:
Chuck Fontenot is the President of College Republicans at LSU and a member of a Jindal for President group. Fontenot says what Obama did for young Democrats Jindal is doing for young Republicans.
“Bobby’s such a charismatic figure. A lot of conservative youth can identify with him and go forward with him into the future.”
Then, yesterday, on cbsnews.com, columnist David Brooks of The New York Times said this about the Republican Party in the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election:
“Now it’s just a circular firing squad, with everybody attacking each other, and no coherent belief system, no leaders. You’ve got half the party waiting for Sarah Palin to come and rescue them. The other half is waiting for Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana governor, to come rescue them. But no set of beliefs. Really a decayed conservative infrastructure. It’s just a world of pain.”
According to a source cited by the Hindustan Times on Thursday, “Jindal is going to be one of the big gainers from a full-scale Republican defeat.”
Jindal is part of a younger generation of Republicans who retain the conservative values but combine it with high levels of administrative efficiency and a squeaky-clean image. It helps that Jindal made his mark in the field of healthcare, one of the issues that led many working class Americans to defect to the Democrats. Jindal is scheduled to visit Iowa next month, a pilgrimage that all presidential hopefuls make.
On a side note, according to a posting today on The Washington Post’s politics blog, Jindal was never vetted as a vice presidential pick for the 2008 election.
Here’s more from that posting:
Jindal was approached by McCain forces to gauge his interest in the vice presidency and told them he was not interested in being vetted due to his desire to continue on with his current job, to which he was elected just one year ago.
While the official reason that Jindal took his name out of contention was his lack of a desire to leave the Louisiana governorship, there was also real trepidation within his political inner circle that Jindal might wind up as the pick — McCain was attracted to his comprehensive health-care knowledge — and be caught up in what they believed to be a less-than-stellar campaign that could pin a loss on Jindal without much ability to change or control the direction of the contest.•
Yesterday, Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the city’s redevelopment agency signed an agreement to pour $38 million in federal funding into the city’s fight against post-Katrina blight.
State approval is needed before the money can be used by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.
Some in the public cheer Nagin and NORA’s plan. Others are against it.
Someone posting under the name “acitygone” posted this on WWL-TV’s Web site:
“Big investment alright, just another of Nagin’s crooked scheme like NOAH. I’m sure Nagin and his family and contributors will benefit from the program.”
On nola.com, someone posting under the name “milwriter” said, “This is a drop in the bucket for what is needed to correct this quality of life problem. While this is too little, too late, it’s better than nothing.”
There also seems to be concern about corruption in contract awarding; on nola.com, someone named “Moshuluu” said, “I wonder if ‘PMF Consulting LLC’ will have an inside bite on this? Ahh, just asking, that’s all.”•
When money is tight, people resort to all sorts of tactics to make ends meet: eliminating frivolous spending, taking on an extra job, cutting back on retirement savings, donating plasma.
In the New Orleans area these days, some are using their homes to make a little extra dough.
In this week’s issue of CityBusiness, reporter Emilie Bahr wrote about the practice — which could be on the rise — of New Orleans area renters and homeowners opening their homes to one, and sometimes more, tenants to help pay the bills.
Of course people — particularly young adults and college students — have long shared their apartments and homes with perfect strangers to defray living expenses, even before the current national economic crisis. But higher rents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, coupled with the national economic downturn, is forcing some families to take up the practice.
The post-K rise in rents in New Orleans is why 37-year-old tree cutter Frank Thornton says he has tenants in the eastern New Orleans home he rents from his brother, according to the CityBusiness story.
Thornton now has two boarders at his home. He calls it his “creative financing” strategy.
“Before the storm, you could find a two-bedroom house in New Orleans for maybe $450, $500,” he said. “Now, for the same thing, you’ll see $1,000, $1,200.
“My sister always tells me, ‘I don’t know if I could do that.’ But I have to sacrifice a little of my personal space to make my life comfortable.”•
With Barack Obama our incoming president, now is good time to look back at comments he made about New Orleans’ recovery and how he said he would speed things up. Some of his goals are not needed anymore, such as the closure of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a process taking place right now.
On Aug. 26, 2007, The New York Times ran a story headlined “Obama’s Plan to Restore New Orleans.”
Here’s an excerpt:
The Gulf Coast restoration, Mr. Obama said, has been weighed down by red tape that has kept billions of dollars from reaching Louisiana communities. As president, he said, he would streamline the bureaucracy, strengthen law enforcement to curb a rise in crime and immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in order to restore wetlands to protect against storms.
Mr. Obama also said that he would seek to lessen the influence of politics in the Federal Emergency Management Agency by giving its director a fixed term, similar to the structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FEMA director would serve a six-year term, under Mr. Obama’s plan, and report directly to the president.
The story, citing details provided by his Obama’s campaign, says Obama would appoint a chief coordinating officer to knock down bureaucratic obstacles and a chief financial officer to keep waste and abuse in check. Obama, according to the story, said only about 40 percent of FEMA money to rebuild schools, hospitals and other infrastructure has made it to its destination: Louisiana communities. Better coordination could improve the flow of funds, he said.
FoxNews.com, in a Jan. 29, 2007, story about an Obama visit to New Orleans, reported that he “toured hurricane-scarred New Orleans … after criticizing the White House for the slow pace of recovery from storms that hit the Gulf Coast almost a year and a half ago.”
Here’s more from that story:
“There is not a sense of urgency out of this White House and this administration,” Obama said during a Senate committee hearing on the response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “If nothing else, I hope that this hearing helps restore that sense of urgency.”
At the hearing, Obama urged federal, state and local authorities to try to speed up the process of getting aid money into the hands of storm victims.
Then there’s the “Katrina Fact Sheet” Obama issued as part of his presidential bid. The five-page document, “Barack Obama: Rebuilding the Gulf Coast and Preventing Future Catastrophes,” can be found here.
Here’s a pledge from the fact sheet:
As president, Barack Obama will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm. Obama will also direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection.•
I like the sun, and though I don’t prefer waking up in the dark, it’s a small price to pay to leave the office during daylight hours.
Sure, waking up in the morning is easier, but that’s the only plus I see with switching back to standard time.
Leaving work at my normal time of between 5:30 and 6 p.m. now feels like I’m walking out the door at 10:30 p.m. after a roughly 14-hour day.
I know it will take a couple of days for my body to adjust, but it’s more and more difficult each year to maintain a good attitude when I look out the window at the end of the day and see the night sky — at 5:30 p.m.
I miss being able to play with the dog, cut the grass after work or sit outside and enjoy a sunset. Many people say the switch is beneficial so children don’t have to go to school in the dark.
But I take issue with that. Many people, even more so now with the economy, say day care is a huge expense. The argument has also been made that children have to get up way to early for school.
So here’s my solution. Don’t roll the clocks back, but instead of making children go to school in the dark, push the start time of school up to about 8:30 or 9 a.m. This all works out to children being in school for roughly the same amount of time parents are at work, eliminating at least two hours of day care dollars.
Is turning back the clock really that necessary or economical?•
Leading up to Tuesday’s election of Barack Obama, workplaces across America were hotbeds of political discussion.
Talk of politics was everywhere: the water cooler, the bathroom, the coffee station. It could be heard across the office, cubicle to cubicle exchanging opinions and jokes about the latest political news.
Before the election, many no doubt surfed the Web at work to read election stories, watch YouTube videos lampooning the presidential candidates and their running mates and e-mail friends and family about the latest poll results.
But the election — the election many people called the most important election in our lifetimes — is over. The fat lady has sung. The climax has passed. What will those employees do now?
Surely today, and perhaps for the rest of the week, they will still talk — and surf the Web for stories, videos and blog postings about — Tuesday’s outcome.
A week from now, a month from now, will those employees who were addicted to CNN.com for the past six months find themselves wondering what to do at work?
Now that the election is over, will you feel a little more bored at the office? Share your thoughts.•
Did you vote today? Did it take five minutes or five hours? We’d like to know.
Share your voting stories today on CityBusiness’ blog. Just submit a comment to this post.•
Three of 155 Circuit City stores to close nationwide are in the New Orleans metro area, the company said today. Circuit City is closing about 20 percent of its U.S. stores in a move to improve its bottom line, according to news reports.
The three stores in the New Orleans area set to close are at 2421 Veterans Memorial Blvd. in Kenner, 4945 Lapalco Blvd. in Marrero and 61119 Airport Road in Slidell. The fourth Louisiana Circuit City store to close is in Baton Rouge on Airline Highway.
Circuit City stores in Metairie, Covington, Houma and on Picardy Avenue in Baton Rouge are not part of the closures.
Circuit City has already removed the four Louisiana stores from its Web site. Closing sales are set to run no later than Dec. 31, according to news reports.
Here’s an excerpt from a story by The Associated Press:
The nation’s No. 2 consumer electronics retailer said it will shut 155 of its more than 700 stores and leave at least a dozen markets entirely, including Phoenix and Atlanta, by Dec. 31. It will lay off about 17 percent of its domestic work force, which could affect up to 7,300 people.
Circuit City also said it will further cut back on new store openings and plans to work with landlords to renegotiate leases, lower rent or terminate agreements while it deals with tightening credit from its vendors.
The moves renewed the specter of bankruptcy hanging over the Richmond, Va.-based company as it heads into a holiday shopping season that could determine its future, amid slower consumer spending that has even the least vulnerable retailers worried.
“The weakened environment has resulted in a slowdown of consumer spending, further impacting our business as well as the business of our vendors,” James A. Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and chief executive said in a statement. “The combination of these trends has strained severely our working capital and liquidity.”
Marcum called the decision to close stores “difficult, but necessary.”
Circuit City opened stores not too long ago in the metro area: one off Manhattan Boulevard on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish and one on Veterans Boulevard in Metairie. Those stores have been open for what seems like less than a year.•
It’s hard to escape the buzz about the 2008 presidential election. And New Orleans bars and restaurants are seeing opportunity in the fervor.
CityBusiness reporter Emilie Bahr last week wrote about Jacques Broussard, owner of Mark Twain’s Pizza Landing, who is serving glasses of Palin Cabernet. The wine is named after a Chilean vineyard, not the vice presidential candidate from Alaska. Nevertheless, Broussard got an idea.
“We thought being a red state, people might like it,” he said.
The Old Metairie business is not the only one in New Orleans trying to cash in on the election.
Bar UnCommon, in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel, will be pouring 2008 presidential election-themed drinks tomorrow night. Imbibers can have an Obamanator cocktail, made with vodka and Louisiana blueberries, or The Maverick, a drink appropriately colored red and made with raspberry puree and rum.
In a press release, Bar UnCommon said it is also has a selection of beers — for Joe The Plumber types.•
