Hay Problemas

James Perry suing the Mayor doesn't make the paper edition.

Ouch.

Bold Move

Slow Friday no more.

From a press release received just minutes ago:

New Orleans, LA – James Perry, as a taxpayer in good standing, filed a request for a preliminary injunction today against the Nagin Administration in Civil District Court.

James Perry, New Orleans Mayoral Candidate: “My hope with today’s filing of a request for preliminary injunction is that the court will act expeditiously to halt the abuse of power by the Nagin Administration by awarding contracts in violation of the City’s Home Rule Charter.”

“As a private citizen I have serious concerns when my government begins to operate outside of its governing charter and without regard or respect for the rule of law,” said Perry. “The City Charter expressly prohibits any city department or agency with the exception of the Sewerage & Water Board, Civil Service Department, the Public Belt Railroad Commission and the Board of Liquidation from the hiring of special counsel without the approval of two-thirds of the New Orleans City Council.”

“I say enough is enough with this use of semantics and creative interpretation by the Nagin Administration to justify the awarding of contracts in violation of the city charter.”

This, the latest lawsuit against the Mayor for abuse of power, comes as a result of the recent contracts totaling $660,000 given to outside law firms. The firms have been retained to help the Mayor fend off prior lawsuits against his administration.

If you've been paying attention to this unfolding drama, you may have noticed a little foreshadowing hidden not-so-subtly in David Hammer's Wednesday article in the T-P.

David Marcello, who served as executive counsel to Mayor Dutch Morial and who chaired a committee that revised the charter in 1995, said there are only two categories of city lawyers established in the charter: those in the City Attorney's Office and "special counsel." Those categories have not changed since the charter was adopted in 1954, he said.

"There's no functional difference between special counsel and outside counsel," Marcello said.

Sal Anzelmo, who served as city attorney under Dutch Morial, agreed.

"That's like saying 'and' and 'also' are different; it's ridiculous to make those kinds of statements," Anzelmo said. "I think when you read that charter, there's no question -- it's not even debatable -- that the council has to approve outside counsel."

City Council Vice President Jackie Clarkson, who signed a letter Tuesday calling on the council's lawyer to review the practice and consider legal remedies, is likewise skeptical.

"You can argue semantics all day long, but this is obviously a violation of the intent of the charter," she said.

Marcello said the clearest way to settle the question would be for a citizen to file a lawsuit in Civil District Court.

Mr. James Perry has stepped up to be that citizen in what is conveniently, also a pretty smart political move for a guy that hasn't even been able to get his name in the paper when his campaign HQ is just missed by stray bullets from a gun battle.

Not News: Gun Battle Outside Mayoral Campaign HQ

Yesterday afternoon, I was nearby enough to hear the machine gun fire that occurred right outside Mayoral candidate James Perry's new campaign headquarters.

He's just opened up shop there, right on the corner of Palmyra and S. Dorgenois and his building narrowly avoided getting sprayed with bullets yesterday evening at around 5:30ish.

Apparently, two cars came screaming down Palmyra St. before one opened fire on the other.

Luckily, nobody got hit or hurt.

Remember that this happened just a stone's throw away from Orleans Parish Prison, Orleans Parish Criminal Court, and thus, tons of police officers.

That demonstrates a depressingly bold disregard for consequences. Or, unfortunately, a fearlessness of consequences.

This is why DA Cannizzaro feels he needs to go all bullworth on his own office and the NOPD. We've got a broken criminal justice system...

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Strangely, the venerable Times-Picayune doesn't think it's news when a mayoral contender has to hit the deck as some nutcase fires off a round right outside his office.

I don't just know about it because I saw him standing outside as the police arrived, James Perry released a statement about the attack within an hour or so of the gun battle.

There was nary a mention of it in today's paper.

What gives? Was the story about the guy masturbating in a parking lot really so important that it couldn't be bumped from B-2?

Perry's statement is here.

New Orleans, LA – James Perry, New Orleans Mayoral candidate, released the following statement on the gun battle that occurred moments ago just outside his campaign headquarters.

James Perry, New Orleans Mayoral Candidate: “The gun battle outside my campaign headquarters brings home a point many of us know all too well: we will not be able to move forward as a city until we solve our public safety crisis.”

“Our city’s future depends on our ability to confront violence in our communities today. Our public safety crisis puts our families needlessly in danger, keeps our city from moving forward and attracting more and better jobs. Confronting violence will not be easy, but as we proved many times before, we are resilient, we are strong, and together, we are capable of fixing our public safety crisis.”

“I thank God that no one was injured, and I ask him for continued strength in our campaign to bring safety to our city’s streets. But make no mistake, even a hail of gunfire on the sidewalk outside of my campaign headquarters will not discourage me from my mission to become Mayor and make our city safe. In fact, it strengthens my resolve to fight for this city and its future so that we can finally have the New Orleans we all deserve, not the New Orleans we have today.”

At 5:20pm a fierce gun battle occurred in front of the James Perry for Mayor Headquarters located at 2547 Palmyra Street in New Orleans, LA. Perry and his entire campaign were inside the office as approximately 20-30 shots rang out. No one was injured and the New Orleans Police Department is currently on the scene.

TMI? PDA?

Melissa Harris Lacewell on Keith Olbermann last night:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The man Melissa Harris Lacewell says she's dating because of his strong character is a reference to one Mr. James Perry.

A Princeton prof?

That's a nice catch. Does MHL have tenure?

Are, um, you sharing benefits?

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Hat tip to Ricardo for noticing this.

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Update: Melissa Harris Lacewell has flagged on her facebook feed this article that calls her and James a "power couple."

I think that's a long ways away.

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Update II: Looks like James Perry has a new website almost ready to go.

This is awesome

You'll need to be able to listen to the sound. But you have to have to have to check this out.

Bravo to the Perry campaign for the frank discussion - I just hope you can make the rest of the city notice. (Nary a mention in this WWL election preview.)

Content aside, what a fabulous online media model they've got at FLYP magazine. Very impressive. They won me over and I'll be going back.

Seeking transformational leader to fill crippling municipal vacuum

The James Perry campaign blog is slowly rounding into shape. It might actually get to be quite formidable, especially if we get more like this:

This weekend, I met a true coaching legend. I was not at a Hornets game or at the NCAA tournament, but at a park in the upper 9th ward. For over twenty years, this coach had been volunteering his time to mentor and coach kids in Sampson Park. When I told him I was running for Mayor, his eyes lit up. He immediately mapped the best way for a new leader to revamp the New Orleans Recreation Departmen (NORD). He provided practical solutions to simple problems. The lights at Sampson Park do not work, and parents park their cars around the field with the headlights on to provide lighting for children playing football, basketball and baseball. All he wanted was the lights on. He also said that NORD won’t give answers to basic questions about uniforms and travel for the Sampson teams. While he was telling me his frustrations, one of his young athletes, pulled him aside, “Coach, are we going to Indiana?” His face grimaced in anguish, “I’ll be right with you son.” When the kid walked away, he told me that NORD had promised his team a trip to Indiana to compete in a basketball tournament, only to revoke the offer a few weeks later. He had yet to tell the kids. Throughout his story, he kept excusing NORD, “I know they don’t have much money.”

Imagine his disgust when he sees Lee Zurik’s report on WWL Channel 4 news tonight. Zurik will report that New Orleans City government has failed to spend $14 million allocated in 2006 by FEMA to repair New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) facilities. Like me, the Coach believes that the key to ending teen violence in New Orleans is investing in New Orleans teenagers. He nodded in agreement when I told him that we couldn’t arrest our way out of New Orleans’ high murder rate.

City leaders have their priorities wrong. On Feburary 9th, Mayor Nagin & Sheriff Gusman reopened Orleans Parish Prison, funded by $20 million dollars of federal and local money. The City budgeted only $4.6 million dollars to fund teen recreation programs in 2009.

Our City leaders believe they can arrest their way out of our crime issue, instead of providing opportunities for our teens.NORD’s 2008 budget was $4.5 million, and the city experienced 179 murders last year. In comparison, Baton Rouge’s Recreation and Park Commission 2008 budget was just shy of $40 million, and the city only had 58 murders. There is a clear correlation between quality investment in teen recreation and low crime.

Every citizen should write Mayor Nagin and the Council today and demand that they expend the $14 million and make NORD facilities available for all New Orleans teenagers, no matter what neighborhood they are from.

Yes! And conveniently, there is a hearing about NORD tomorrow on Council's agenda. Make sure to watch Lee's report tonight, I'll provide a link once it becomes available. (UPDATE: And here it is)

The Mayor's communications team is quick on the draw, they issued this presser toward the end of the business day today.

NORD COMPLETES MONTH OF VOLUNTEERISM

The Rehabilitation of Parks and Playgrounds Remain A Priority in
City's Recovery Efforts
This weekend, the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) will complete a month of volunteer efforts to clean and restore the City's baseball fields in time for the season kick off. The final clean-up event will take place on Saturday, March 28th at Bodenger Playground located 3400 Kansas Street in Algiers. The Boy Scouts of America, New Orleans Chapter, will restore the field from 9a.m.until noon.

(Though the event in Algiers is just one of the projects, I find it quite interesting that we're using Spring Break volunteers to clean up a baseball field that didn't flood during Katrina. I don't think volunteers are coming down here to take the city's self-inflicted Pre-K deferred maintenance problems. But whatever I like baseball fields.)

Bolstering NORD - giving it legitimate funding and making it accountable - seems to me to be an efficient way to directly invest in this city's traumatized Post-Katrina generation. Our next Mayor needs to bring us back to the industrialized world in terms of social services. Our city's kids deserve a robust recreation department. But it won't be easy to make it work.

Incompetence has consequences!

Big time props to Lee Zurik his latest report. The city is apparently ready to leave millions of dollars of federal HUD money on the table after years and years of failing to spend it on its intended purpose: affordable housing.

Remember, the lack of affordable housing is the biggest obstacle preventing displaced New Orleanians from returning home. City officials, though they have failed to implement anything close to their own coherent plan for the restoration of affordable housing, have continuously harped on the ongoing affordable housing crisis as a primary impetus for increased federal funding. And this whole time Blakely has just been sitting on close to $31 million.

All of the BS that we put up with - the incompetence, the gridlock, the lack of accountability, the lack of strategic vision - it ain't just politics. It's people's lives.

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The worst part is when Blakely tries to spoon feed us this horseshit explanation for why the money has been spent. He claims that nonprofits and contractors aren't around to apply for it.

Thankfully, Lee Zurik doesn't leave it to us to just assume that that statement is an outright lie because he finds proof.

James Perry, the head of the New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, said he runs a non-profit that requested money.

“That’s not true,” he said in response to Blakely’s statement. “The money we applied for is combined CDBG and home funding and we were awarded the money.”

Perry said that months later he received an e-mail saying the city put the money on hold. He said many non-profits have been ready to do work since the storm, but the city won’t spend the money.

“When you drive through Lakeview or Gentilly or the Lower Ninth Ward, the thing that stands out is the housing is not there. Imagine how much housing could be back in commission with that money; it makes no sense,” Perry said.

If I saw Blakely right now I'd have a hard time not spitting right in his face.

Get the hell out of here you asshole.

Lookout!

The prolific Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights endorses James Perry for Mayor of New Orleans...




Leadership little by little.

Perry on the loose!

But wait! There's more!

James Perry also posted a video in which he tells Bobby Jindal exactly what we think about his treasonous decision to reject $98 million in federal unemployment help for Louisiana residents.




Boom!

It's sad that this is a novelty for a New Orleans public figure.

It has already been picked up by super blog Jack and Jill politics.

James Perry, Leader?

I wanted to say something last week about Council's failure to override Mayor Nagin's veto last week but got caught up in Mardi Gras.

First off, there's been a lot of unfair criticism of Cynthia Hedge-Morrell's decision to abstain from voting. I think she made the right decision. She angered a lot of people by articulating people's mistrust for the good government crowd but I thought it would have been extremely useful as a starting point for negotiating a consensus response from Council to Nagin's executive order.

Part of the reaction derives from people's misunderstanding of what that vote meant. Hedge-Morrell did not kill a transparency law. The proposed ordinance, passed unanimously by Council and vetoed by Nagin would have brought professional services contract advisory committees under the purview of public meetings laws. Nagin circumvented the ordinance entirely by simply abolishing the advisory committees. So when the vetoed ordinance came back to Council for a potential override vote, it was totally worthless.

In my opinion, there was no reason to hold the vote. Hedge-Morrell suggested at City Hall that Council instead focus on discussing the language of a potential charter change - the only means Council has at its disposal to substantively alter the impact of Nagin's executive order. But instead, Fielkow and Clarkson pressed ahead with the vote, posing an unfair political challenge to Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, who was the only African American willing to sit in on the meeting.

While I don't understand why Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis had to be in Washington D.C. with the US Conference of Mayors instead of at Council for this debate, at least she has an excused absence.

The person to be disillusioned and angry with is Councilman James Carter. He was at Council chambers when the contentious debate began, only to slink out when things got too hot. It was unforgivable gutlessness. He could have provided a level-head and helped foster a respectful conversation. Instead, Councilman Carter headed for the hills. I believe the best excuse his office mustered to the media was a "previously scheduled appointment" or some nonsense like that.

The disdain he seems to have for his own responsibility is increasingly noticeable and unfortunate. He's a coward.

As soon as Carter abandoned ship, the vote should have been postponed.

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Meanwhile, in a stunning juxtaposition....

What is all this?

Am I really seeing a New Orleans political figure synthesizing viewpoints to take a stand in the midst of a fiery controversy? Huh?

Go read what James Perry says in Race and Trust in NOLA:

To build trust we need to have information from disinterested sources. We need information that provides clear unbiased data that we can rely on.

In New Orleans there is strong racial mistrust and general mistrust of our elected officials. We can use honesty and transparency to overcome that distrust and create a new basis for working together. Information and data, are key components in building this new trust. When objective data is unavailable, regardless of what the truth is, people revert to historic racial dividing lines. In today’s information age, there is a new opportunity. We can share all data and information and build relationships in much the way that friends do.

In working towards a post-racial New Orleans, sharing data is key. If we all have the common goal of a better City then there is no harm in making information available to everyone. Decisions about contracts should be open, inclusive, and transparent. Transparency and openness provide a base allowing trust to endure even through disagreement and bad reasoning. We need transparency in New Orleans government now. The progress of New Orleans’ racial dialogue depends on it.

This is an interesting way to construct the argument in favor of transparency since a lot of folks have been saying that the whole reason we can't have common sense public meetings and records laws is because of racial mistrust.

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Certainly the issues last week were extremely frustrating but I'm at least glad that when things finally broke down last Thursday, there was some frank talk (in Council and online) about the racial tension that too often manifests in blood pressure doubling passive aggressiveness.

James Carter's cowardly display was not what we needed. Arnie Fielkow's poorly contrived attempt to symbolically rebuke Mayor Ray Nagin was not what needed.

What we need is leadership that isn't afraid to substantively and publicly tackle the political and racial controversies that hamstring our recovery.

Perry Campaign Launches Blog

Link!

I also like this map feature that plots all of James Perry's different community meetings.

Perry Campaign Already A Daily Affair

While everyone anxiously awaits my next Mayoral odds line (later this week but no promises) why don't we check in with dark horse darling James Perry?

Perry, the executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, confirmed his interest in the Mayor's office to WCBF in mid-December:

The fundamental concern is that the rebuilding effort is failing. So far, the folks who have discussed running for Mayor have not had a strong record when it comes to rebuilding. Many of them are great folks with strong records but they haven't been pushing on these issues around getting the neighborhoods in New Orleans rebuilt.

Frustrated by the lack of support municipal government has provided for the city's various grassroots citizen-driven recovery initiatives, James Perry seems to have both the record and rhetoric local progressives like myself have yearned to inject into the political discourse.

The question for Perry has been and will remain whether or not he can generate the grassroots support necessary to compete with wealthier rivals. Without a vast personal fortune or the seemingly prerequisite political alliances, Perry will have to outwork adversaries in every other facet of the campaign from messaging to the field organizing. To be taken seriously when campaign fever hits the rest of the city, James Perry will have already needed to infect an army of supporters with his own mutated strain of the virus.

Considering the mountain ahead of him, it's hard not to be hopeful about the initial groundwork. He's announced his interest and formalized his exploratory committee, which is more than other contenders can say. He's launched a simple but interactive website, cultivated online social networks, attended more community meetings and events than previously considered possible, and set an initial fund-raising target. The $25,000 goal is extremely modest considering what he'll eventually need to compete, but nothing grows without seeds.

Recognizing that a competitive coalition will depend heavily on the enthusiastic support of young voters and the city's most engaged progressives, Perry is already laying down tracks - demonstrating the ability to use the tools of online networks for concrete organizing in the flesh. He hasn't just started a Facebook page for his campaign, he's tapping his early supporters there to host house parties on his behalf. He hasn't just opened a Twitter account, he updates regularly. He hasn't just published a website, he's provided forums for supporters to contribute to his platform.

So if you haven't yet...

Join Convince James Perry to run for Mayor of New Orleans!!!

Follow James Perry on Twitter

Donate a small sum to his campaign

Contribute your voice to his issues pages for crime, economic development, education, and housing. (I'm dominating these mini-forums by the way, someone had better get over there and shout me down.)

And if you're already ready already, endorse him on your blog - like my main man DSB or bad ass Princeton politics professor Melissa Harris Lacewell.

At the very least, join the facebook group and get to know the guy and what he stands for.

Bringing it Home

Is change now coming to New Orleans?

James Perry unveils beta campaign website

It's pretty.

It's not quite functional yet, but give it up. Not bad.

Speaking of James Perry...

I just spoke to James Perry.

Consider it confirmed.

We have heard from the man himself that he is indeed weighing a run for Mayor and has launched an exploratory committee to examine the possibility.

Why?

The fundamental concern is that the rebuilding effort is failing. So far, the folks who have discussed running for Mayor have not had a strong record when it comes to rebuilding. Many of them are great folks with strong records but they haven't been pushing on these issues around getting the neighborhoods in New Orleans rebuilt.

On the vacuum of leadership, an example of citizens and third parties forced to pick up the slack:

The leadership really just hasn't pushed on the issues. For instance, money is not flowing adequately from the Road Home program to homeowners but it's almost impossible to find comments from the City Council or from the Mayor's office where they take that issue head-on, where they go to the state legislature, where they go to the LRA and they say "you've got to get this money into the community."

The Road Home program has been failing since its inception but none of them have tackled it. On the other hand, when I saw failings, my organization filed a class-action lawsuit against the Road Home program to force them to allocate funds in a fairer fashion and to allocate more money.

There was a report a few years back that the Road Home program was likely $3 billion short. The Mayor sent a letter to Congress and said 'we need more money for the Road Home Program,' but that's about where it stopped. I think if we were short on that program, they should have flown up to Washington DC and met with members of Congress and lobbied for that money aggressively. Well, I'll tell you what, hundreds of rebuilding advocates and non profit leaders did just that. I was one of the folks who testified before a Congressional panel that we needed more money for the program. Our local leadership didn't do that. If we didn't that extra $3 billion into the program, thousands of homeowners would have been left without enough money to rebuild.

The bottom line is that they've been focused on issues other than the rebuilding process and if we don't really get it going shortly, we won't have the opportunity to rebuild the city to its previous grandeur.

Finally, the prerequisite caveats regarding the decision to run:

This is a difficult process to make this decision and the guiding factor is making sure that this would be what's best for the city. The thing that's clear right now is that the majority of programs and activities has stalled. If this is what it takes to get them moving, then this is what we'll do. We're still in the decision making process.

I'm anxious to hear more and I'm confident that we all will.