Big Easy meets Big Ben

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Europeans won’t have to cross the pond this weekend for a taste of New Orleans.

New Orleans musicians will perform in a mini-Jazz Fest, called Festival New Orleans, which will run Friday and Saturday. It coincides with Sunday’s Wembley Stadium game between the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers.

Musicians expected to perform include Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Kermit Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band.

The event could provide a boost New Orleans’ tourism industry, which, according to a story by The Associated Press today, relied heavily on British travelers before Katrina. London festival co-producer Quint Davis said the gathering will be one of the largest ever of south Louisiana musicians outside the United States, and he hopes it becomes an annual event, according to AP.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Mary Beth Romig, spokeswoman for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she has roamed New Orleans every weekend for the past month with British television crews and print journalists filing reports from the city in advance of the game and festival.

“The British traveler was our biggest international market before Hurricane Katrina,” Romig said.

Before Katrina struck in 2005, she said, about 100,000 British tourists came to New Orleans. Overseas travelers accounted for about 1 million visits, or about 10 percent of annual travel to New Orleans.

Since the storm, Romig said visitor numbers are down, though she said the bureau did not have an accurate measure in part because of disruptions in visitor tracking after the hurricane.

The London event presents an opportunity to reinforce the message that the Big Easy is ready for global tourism.

Promotional posters featuring Dr. John and others have been strewn for weeks throughout the London subway system and elsewhere.•

Manatee tours for N.O.?

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Scientists are urging people not to swim with manatees in Lake Pontchartrain, because they can lose their fear of people and become more likely to get injured or killed by boats.

This got me thinking. There are tours galore in the New Orleans area, such as haunted tours, cemetery tours and swamp tours. But I have never heard of manatee tours, which are common in other states, such as Florida.

So why aren’t there manatee tours here?

Perhaps, at least for the manatees, it’s a good thing, though. Those tours might make them more likely to get hurt by a boat. But for an entrepreneur in this region, it seems like a product that not many are offering.

Debate emerges over N.O. contract transparency

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

In New Orleans, the mayor’s administration can award “professional services” contracts of $150,000 or more apiece, but the contract-awarding process is coming under fire.

City Council Vice President Arnie Fielkow wants the process to be more open to the public, and he is looking into an ordinance to accomplish that. Fielkow wants every aspect of the professional services contract-selection process to be subject to Louisiana’s public-meetings law, according to a story in this week’s CityBusiness by reporter Jaime Guillet. That means everything, from bid-request notices and selection review panel meetings to the grading of proposals by companies, would be “open, in the light of day and in total transparency,” Fielkow said.

He may have a fight on his hands, though, as City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields seems poised to challenge the ordinance.

Last week, at a meeting of the council’s Governmental Affairs Committee, Moses-Fields and former city attorneys spoke against the call for more transparency, saying it would slow down the contracting process and infringe on the executive branch’s power.

“Our main reason for being here today is to make sure you’re well aware you’re encroaching on powers,” Moses-Fields told council members at the committee meeting.

If Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s administration doesn’t allow more transparency into the professional services contract-awarding process, it apparently will be going against the recommendations of the mayor’s own Bring New Orleans Back commission, according to the CityBusiness story.

After Katrina, the BNOB commission was formed to help the city recover from the 2005 hurricane. On Jan. 19, 2006, the BNOB’s Governmental Effectiveness Committee recommended the city “create a transparent, standard, competitive professional services selection process,” the CityBusiness story says.

BNOB was not the only voice crying for more transparency. In its Forward New Orleans initiative in May 2006, the New Orleans Business Council also called for more transparency, according to the story.

Further, New Orleans would not be the first place to open its contract-selection process to the public. Robert Abbott, East Baton Rouge assistant parish attorney, said his parish’s competitive-selection process involves contracts worth $50,000 or more, all the meetings of two selection boards are open to the public and meetings are recorded.

In New Orleans, by contrast, the Nagin administration keeps the meetings private and no minutes are kept. But New Orleans’ contract-selection process does include some community representatives.

Jindal’s session wish list is common sense

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

 

This morning, I read the speech Gov. Bobby Jindal gave to open the special session that began Sunday. In the speech, Jindal details what he wants the Legislature to accomplish during the session.

 

Many of Jindal’s ideas, targeted toward improving the state’s business climate by doing away with a list of business taxes, seem like common sense, and I wondered why Louisiana hasn’t made these changes already.

 

For example, why didn’t Louisiana long ago do away with the tax levied on businesses for new equipment and machinery? According to Jindal, Louisiana is one of only three states that do this.

 

The state must become more competitive, especially now as we try to recover from the 2005 hurricanes.

 

You can read all of Jindal’s speech by clicking here.  

From N.O. to Chicago

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor 

I flew today from New Orleans to Chicago for a newspaper conference. 

I don’t fly often; the last time was the spring of 2006. So, here are some observations from an infrequent air traveler:

 - Business must be good at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, judging from the large number of vehicles in the parking garage. At 7 a.m. today, it was hard to find a space on the fourth floor. 

- I queued to go through security at about 7:15 a.m., and the line was long, snaking around like the wait to get onto a ride at Disney World. I’d say it took about half an hour to get through security. Transportation Security Administration staff were nice, though, answering questions politely. 

- United flight 972 was pretty much filled. I didn’t really see any empty seats.

 - As luck would have it, my seat was at the very back of the plane. Initially, I thought this would be a bad thing. But I discovered there are advantages to being in the caboose. For one, at least on my flight, I was the first to be served a snack and beverage. Second, the bathroom was right behind me, so no need to stagger down one end of a bouncing, rocking plane. But being next to the bathroom also has its drawbacks. For example, the people lined up to use the bathroom often stare at bloggers’ keyboards, trying to read what they are typing.

S is for stealing

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor 

Nearly every time I go to a bookstore in the New Orleans area, especially the Barnes & Noble on Veterans, it’s impossible to find a place to sit. (It’s also insanely difficult to find a place to park at the Vets B&N, but that’s a subject for a different day.) 

The cushy chairs nearly always are occupied with readers thumbing through magazines or engrossed in a novel, usually with a stack of books and more magazines at their feet. 

Getting a seat is as challenging as getting a parking space. 

On more than one occasion, I’ve seen people get out of their chairs — after spending an hour or so reading — and leave the books and magazines behind, never returning to buy them or put them back on the shelf. 

This is stealing. Period. 

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines bookstore as “a place of business where books are the main item offered for sale.” 

It defines library as “a place in which literary, musical, artistic or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings or films) are kept for use but not for sale.” 

So, the place to go when you want to read books but not buy them is a library. But most people with a first-grade education should know this already. 

When I buy a new book, I want it to be just that: new. If somebody spends two hours reading a book and puts it back on the shelf, that book is not new any longer. It is used — and the person who read it has stolen from the bookstore. 

I know that somebody is going to respond to this post saying something like, “Mr. Roberts, how are you supposed to know whether you will like the book if you don’t read some of it before you buy it?” 

My answer to that is, if you want to know what the book is about, read the back cover, the dust jacket or a book review in the newspaper or online. 

But if you spend a half hour or more reading a book or magazine, then you clearly find it entertaining. At that point, you need to buy it. 

If you don’t, you’re a thief in my book.  

Grammatical eyesores hurt our children

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

So, yesterday, I was driving around New Orleans, Metairie, the West Bank, and everywhere I looked, there it was: bad English on business signs.

“Were open,” one proclaimed.

How sad, I thought. It looks like another business has closed in the New Orleans area. I guess they gave up waiting for help from their insurance company, I thought.

But, my sadness went away when I realized that what the speller meant to say was “We’re open.”

I tried to comfort myself with the thought that maybe they did not have a spare apostrophe. Still, there’s quite a big difference between “were open” and “we’re open,” I thought, as I drove away.

Later, I noticed another grammatical eyesore. This time, it belonged to a business that performs oil changes for automobiles. A sign outside the business said “Open Sunday’s.”

Open Sunday’s what? Open Sunday’s newspaper? Why? Is there a coupon inside for a free oil change?

It seemed the author of the sentence had left something off the end.

But, in fact, what the person meant to write was “Open Sundays.” The apostrophe was unnecessary.

This got me thinking. Citizens often criticize Louisiana’s public school system for poor education, a complaint that is largely valid. However, these poorly written signs must surely contribute to the “dumbing down” of children.

In another example, some businesses insist on advertising their “ATM machines.” This is redundant, because ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine.

Another common error is when signs misuse “it’s” when they really mean “its.”

It’s really easy: You use “it’s” in place of “it is.” You use “its” when describing the ownership of something, as in “Let’s tell the business about its terrible grammar.”

Don’t even get me started on “your” and you’re.”

As adults who know better, I suggest we make it a habit to call these businesses and kindly ask them to correct their poor use of the English language. Our children’s education is worth it, don’t you think?

Businesses say state better wake up

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

I often talk to friends about how concerned we should all be that more businesses will leave New Orleans in the near future.

Business retention was a problem before Katrina, but it has been exacerbated by the storm.

Since 2005, the New Orleans area has lost a dozen publicly traded companies, according to CityBusiness’ 2007 Top Public Companies issue, which hits newsstands today.

A dozen companies gone in two years. Wow.

With 11 publicly traded companies left in the New Orleans area, if we keep losing at that rate, we will have zero publicly traded companies by 2009.

And these are not small, throwaway firms, either. We’ve lost mega companies with billions in revenue such as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and McDermott International, to name a few.

These companies didn’t fold; they left. In other words, they chose someplace else over New Orleans.

We may lose even more, if the city and state don’t abandon their laissez faire attitude toward businesses already here, some companies say. This state is willing to spend $400 million to lure a German steel plant while existing businesses slip out the back door, some companies say.

I have no problem with the state trying to attract the steel mill. But it’s clear that we need to pay more attention to the businesses already here before we lose even more.

Public companies always think about what’s best for their shareholders. Since Katrina, public companies – especially those with a majority of their customers outside of New Orleans and Louisiana – must ask themselves what value being here adds to their companies.

About two weeks ago, I spoke with Dean Taylor, president of Tidewater Inc., a New Orleans-headquartered company that supplies boats to the oil and gas industry.

Most of Tidewater’s business these days is international, and Taylor has not ruled out the possibility of Tidewater leaving New Orleans.

“Our plans are to do what’s best for our shareholders,” Taylor said. “Sometimes one wonders … whether it’s best for our headquarters to remain in Louisiana. That’s something we’re evaluating. For the time being we have not made a decision to leave New Orleans.”

“From my vantage point, our customer base is in Houston,” he said. “We need to be close to our customers. So that’s a disadvantage that New Orleans confronts.”

What is Mayor C. Ray Nagin doing to retain businesses? According to Taylor, not much.

“I haven’t heard from the mayor since Katrina,” Taylor said, adding, “I was really disappointed to hear some of the mayor’s comments after the hurricane.”

Taylor said that if Louisiana wants to make the state better for businesses, officials should visit other successful cities like Houston and Atlanta. Instead, Louisiana officials seem content with things the way they are, he said.

“I can tell you it’s very disappointing to be from New Orleans to see sort of the attitude where the status quo is OK. It’s not OK,” Taylor said. “New Orleans needs to get better. You just wonder what’s best for our employees.”

Will Nagin’s positive spin lure businesses?

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

After 21 months and a day, Mayor C. Ray Nagin gave his first “State of the City” address last night since Hurricane Katrina.

The mayor did a lot of finger pointing, rehashing the problems Katrina created and ran through a long list of signs of recovery. The mayor spent too much time talking about things that many of us already knew.

Perhaps some people need to hear those sunny nuggets from their elected leader.

But, somehow, that good news is not reaching the ears of businesses outside the city. Or, if it is reaching them, it is having no impact.

This morning, I talked with Rick Brown, general manager of Graebel New Orleans Movers, a company that helps Fortune 500 and Fortune 1,000 companies relocate their employees to other states.

What does Brown have to say about outside interest in New Orleans?

“I’m not aware of any significant company coming in,” Brown said.

Unfortunately, during the past 18 months, Graebal New Orleans Movers has moved a lot of companies out of Metairie and the New Orleans area to places like Houston, he said.

Very few companies have returned, he said.

If there is a bright spot, he said, it is the Michoud facility in New Orleans East, where external fuel tanks for space shuttles are made.

“They are bringing in a lot of people,” Brown said.

Also, “Shell is bringing in a few people, not many at all,” he said.

Brown said he doesn’t know why large companies are not coming to New Orleans.

“There’s not a corporate presence here,” he said.

So, something is wrong here, and the mayor should be trying to fix it. He needs to make sure his recovery message gets to the ears of large business. Then he needs to find out why they are so uninterested in New Orleans and do something about it.

Because, as it stands, out-of-town businesses think the mayor is just putting lipstick on a pig.