Kingdom of the Wicked part 1

Did cruelty live in the bones of this late pastel double joined shotgun -or is the world really this evil?
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This unremarkable double shotgun was demolished yesterday by city contractors after being declared an imminent health threat in danger of collapse. The wrecking ball punctuated a pattern of neglect, and in the sharp tongue of the New Orleans Police Department, "slum conditions."
According to a 2004 police investigation, the son of the house's owner "willfully neglected to provide adequate living accommodations to a 76-year-old female who rented a home from him. The suspect refused to make structural repairs to the home. The home’s interior and exterior had unsanitary conditions and the City of New Orleans’ Health Department declared the residence unfit for human habitation."
Five years and one mama storm later, this house was still unfit, and still inhabited.
In the weeks before the bulldozers arrived, a homeless family had been squatting there, taking shelter inside the house's unsteady walls while they waited for transitional housing to open up. It was probably not a great place to be; on a recent Thursday night, a lone man stood in front of a nearby house, also unlit, waving his arms frantically at passing cars. Finally late last week, the city called Unity of Greater New Orleans , and requested the housing non-profit place the family in some kind of transitional housing. By Monday afternoon, the house was gone, a patch of mud in its place. By evening, the frenzied waver was likely back on site.
While confidentiality rules prevent Unity from providing any information on the family's whereabouts a case worker said today that they, at least temporarily, were staying somewhere more secure than the South Liberty Street house. The organization estimates there are thousands of people living in homes awaiting demolition. The Beck contractor who handled the eviction of the squatters on South Liberty, Justin Augustine, agrees.
"It’s very common that people are living in the structures we are demolishing,” said Augustine told a today.
Imagine spending your days traveling from decrepit house to decrepit house, sometimes finding extreme decay, other times a freshly made bedroll and on occasion, a family that you must evict. Now imagine doing that with relatively little support from the city. Unity, an umbrella of more than 70 social service providers and community organizations, relies on its vast network to point its outreach workers towards the 1619 South Liberty Streets in our midst. Last year it launched a program, "No One Suffers Alone" aimed at moving people from abandoned houses or the streets and into permanent housing that will be paid for with an increased number of supportive housing vouchers the organization is currently asking federal officials to approve. The organization is also advocating for the city to rewrite zoning policies to mandate developers to make a certain percentage of units in all new housing developments available to low to moderate income renters or buyers. The practice, known as "inclusionary zoning," is done in New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, and other major cities.
But these progressive housing policies alone won't solve the problem of New Orleans' impatient wrecking ball.
Other tools are needed. One the most critical is an active and engaged City Council. District B Councilwoman Stacy Head was able to get three properties back on the tax rolls with a successful sheriff sale on the courthouse steps. Head said the sale netted the city almost $50,000. She plans to spearhead more of the sales in the future.
"Rampant demolition is NOT the answer," Head wrote (the caps are all her) in an email today. "If the properties are salvageable, the city should secure them and code enforcement should push the owners to compliance with codes, to sale or to expropriation."
Wise words. Maybe the next mayor will listen.


credit: Ariella Cohen.
Ariella is a freelance journalist and a contributor to the New Orleans Institute

Stimulus: Crossing Our Fingers

I've tried to stay on top of the New Orleans implications of the big federal stimulus bill being negotiated in Congress. When I last broached the topic, I discussed the competing asks coming from the state and municipal levels.

Under a directive from Governor Bobby Jindal, the Department of Transportation and Development released an approximately $1.4 billion plan that is almost entirely comprised of major highway expansion projects outside of Orleans Parish. DOTD Secretary Ankner is on the record saying that the state is really only expecting to receive something in the ballpark of $400 million from the feds.

That's not very much money at all, and almost none of it would go to New Orleans, you know, the place with the most crippling infrastructure needs in the United States of America.

But as it turns out, New Orleans has come up with it's own ask. I alluded to the competing plan by the Regional Planning Commission, Regional Transit Authority, and the City of New Orleans.

Here are some more details:

Total ask: $6.3 billion
Estimated "shovel ready" spending for 2009: just under $1 billion.

First up is public transportation, where we request a total of half a billion dollars,

This portion of the draft document proposes seven streetcar projects, including:

-extending the Carrolton ave. line to connect to the Canal st. line
-extending the riverfront line to Jackson Avenue, building a new line north along Jackson Ave to St. Charles
-extending the riverfront line to Poland Avenue, building a new line along Poland from the river to St. Claude
-building new line to link union passenger terminal to Canal
-new line from Canal to Elysian Fields along N. Rampart and then from N. Rampart to the river along Elysian Fields
-a new line along convention center boulevard
-a new line connecting Canal all the way to Poland Ave, perhaps extending the proposed line along N. Rampart all the way down St. Claude

Also there is several tens of millions of dollars in spending proposed to build Bus Rapid Transit lines from the CBD to N.O. East and Algiers as well as for shelters, new buses, kiosk technology, etc. etc.

Then there's what is known as 'infrastructure resilience' spending, which actually comprises close to half of the city's total request. This includes an ask of $2.5 billion to supplement efforts to replace our sewer lines and pipes and half a billion to bury electrical and telephone wires.

Another section details our requests for regional rail spending, about $1.2 billion. There's a 450,000,000 request for a light rail line from downtown New Orleans to the airport. The city also proposes high speed rail connections to Baton Rouge, Mobile, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Hattiesburg, and Meridian.

Then there's just over a billion dollars proposed for "pedestrian enhancements" like new sidewalks, curbs, gutters improved drainage systems, street lights, trees, crosswalks, etc.

What else?

$120,000,000 for airport improvements
$240,000,000 for road repaving in Orleans Parish
$65,000,000 for bicycle infrastructure

Of course, all amounts are approximated and project details are heavily annotated.

But after a quick browse, it's a pretty solid package. I'm not sure what's "shovel ready" for 2009 but it's not hard to imagine how helpful these projects would be for our short, medium, and long term regional health.

Just think if all we got funded out of this was half of the proposed streetcar lines and half of the proposed sewer replacements. Even that would be an extremely significant, if not a game-changing investment.

I'd been wondering why it was that the city of New Orleans and the RPC were putting out a plan that would compete with the state plan, why the DOTD plan didn't just include our region's requests.

It turns out that this was by design - as a result of lobbying by the Mayor - to counteract what might happen if states were not given strict guidelines on how to allocate federal money. This was something discussed within the US Conference of Mayors, so I don't mean to insinuate that Nagin just invented the strategy out of thin air.

In fact, it would appear that the USCM thinks that a lot of the infrastructure money in the stimulus bill can and will be funnelled directly to cities and regional planning organizations through existing programs like CDBG.

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I have also heard from a couple of different sources that, to a significant extent, the amount of stimulus money allocated for New Orleans depends on the lobbying efforts of folks like Karen Carter Peterson and Desiree Glapion Rogers instead of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation.

My question now is why our Congressional Delegation isn't up to bat for us. Is it just because New Orleans doesn't have political clout within our state delegation? Or is it because Congress in general isn't actually doing much "earmarking" of the package?

I have some theories but I'd like to know what you guys think...

I'll be standing with Lower Mid City

Yes, let's crush a live neighborhood to make way for a big giant hospital development project right next to an abandoned public hospital. Let's ignore calls to rehabilitate and reopen Charity. Let's not even look at other sites that wouldn't demolish a neighborhood.

These Times-Picayune articles by Kate Moran suck. They barely scratch the surface in terms of context. (At least the paper is paying attention to other things, now.)

Adam Nossiter of the New York Times provides a much more honest narrative.

It's an excellent article, actually. Highly recommended.

Maybe I'm not gauging this properly, but I think people will chain themselves to their homes if they have to.

New Orleans East and the Master Plan

There have been a couple of interesting articles about the new master plan and the future of New Orleans East over the last week.

From City Business:

The days before the master plan charter change amendment appeared on the Nov. 4 ballot were marked by opposition from black community and neighborhood leaders who feared giving legal license to a land use vision that could ostensibly plan low-lying neighborhoods out of existence.

While television ads and dozens of “Vote No” signs at key intersections in eastern New Orleans, Gentilly and the 9th Ward failed to produce enough voters to defeat the widely supported measure, the campaign succeeded in hitting a delicate public nerve, reopening a conversation about the role race and class play in the development of the city.

“They talked about ‘green-dotting’ neighborhoods and really hit this spot of mistrust, fear, anger and disappointment,” said Pam Dasheill, director of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development and an advocate of the master plan process.

I don't think the lingering trauma related to the green dot map can be overstated. People try to pretend like that effort didn't happen but it did. The power players behind it are still big time power players. The inability to heal those wounds has been one of the biggest factors complicating efforts to build biracial progressive coalitions.

That is why it is so understandable that the heart of the opposition to the master plan charter change came from the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East. The very existence of those communities was put in doubt under the BNOB plan. Since then, Mayor Nagin's recovery ideology and the larger edict that neighborhoods must prove their 'viability' instead of their need, have combined to compound the frustration and distrust in these communities.

So for me, the misgivings that many had about the charter change and the whole concept of planning in general are entirely understandable.

Yet, when I think about New Orleans East in the future, I don't exactly envision a series of sustainable communities. Instead, I see miles and miles of neighborhoods suffering from lack of social services, private investment, and public development. That's the direction it's been heading in, at least. I certainly don't see the area regaining substantive political clout given the current pace of repopulation.

For New Orleans East to be sustainable, doesn't it need a master plan more than anywhere else?

Michelle Krupa's article on Saturday was a great read.

Strident remarks in recent days by Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents most of the eastern part of the city, have given voice to racially charged suspicions that city leaders might not embrace the area's complete redevelopment. And those suspicions have been stoked by citywide voters' approval of a City Charter amendment that will give a master plan for land use, one not yet complete, the force of law.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis' position is curious to me. She has consistently and vocally complained about the lack of recovery projects in the East and the failure of her ally, the Mayor to provide the resources necessary to help it rebuild. Yet must vote with the Mayor's agenda close to a million percent of the time. I wonder what kind of political leverage she expects to get moving forward that would allow her to transform her district. I'd like to know Councilwoman Willard-Lewis vision for fixing New Orleans East. I don't mean that in a sarcastic or snarky way. I think it would be helpful for her to articulate how we could get a full recovery for her district. What would it look like and how do we get there?

There are 60,000 some people in the East today. There's no turning back.

They really need a plan, right?

Doesn't New Orleans East really need a high density mixed use urban main street? How else does CWL expect to get that?

From the end of the Krupa article:

Nabonne said that with the passage of the master plan amendment, his focus has shifted to another line of defense: "Now, we have to have full and meaningful participation."

That's so true.

New Orleans East needs this process to work. They need a plan.

He Meant to Say "Another"

So the World Trade Center redevelopment may finally get moving again with the runner-up developers after the original bid winner unceremoniously skipped town. That's good news, I guess.

I got a chuckle out of the setup for a quote from Arnie Fielkow made in regard for the need to hurry completion of the project:

City Councilman Arnie Fielkow said if the project did not move forward in a timely fashion it would become a "black eye" for the city.

The next sentence in the article:

The project has been delayed for about 10 years and dates to former Mayor Marc Morial.

I'd say we've been getting battered for quite some time. I don't know if another delay could further bruise us. Since I've lived in New Orleans I have only known the WTC as an abandoned building.

Par 5, Split Fairway

This is the fifth part of my series called Demolishing and Redeveloping Alphonso Jackson.

I wanted to leave that out of the title because this post extends Jackson's reign at the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development very concretely to the city of New Orleans. It's not just about him because of its consequences for us.

In part 1, I describe how Alphonso Jackson not-so-subtly explained to minority vendors that contracts from HUD would be awarded partially based on the political affiliations of the bidders.

Part 2 briefly describes how the city of New Orleans lost independent dominion over the Housing Authority of New Orleans, how HANO came to be under the direct control of HUD.

The scandal that most directly brought about the resignation of Alphonso Jackson resulted from his actions against the Philadelphia Housing Authority. In part 3, I detail the spat between minority developer and Republican contributer Kenneth Gamble and PHA's Executive Director Carl Greene. Gamble, after failing to meet the terms of his non profit's contract with the PHA, called in Alphonso Jackson to intervene. When Jackson and his people at HUD began to retaliate against Philadelphia by attempting to withhold federal funding, Carl Greene filed suit. The suit became public and the heat of the subsequent congressional investigations prompted Mr. Jackson to resign.

In part 4, I interviewed PHA Executive Director Carl Greene in detail about his experience with Alphonso Jackson and HUD. He had some impressive insights into the public housing demolition controversy from late last year and spoke to the problems that arise as a result of ceded municipal authority.

Why have I been slowly releasing research on Alphonso Jackson and HUD? What does it all mean? How does the scandal in Philadelphia tell us about New Orleans?

I hope to connect the dots for you today. I will draw a lot on the previous four posts of the series to help illustrate the big picture. I encourage you to read those if you can but I hope that this is clear enough to stand on its own.

I can tell you now that this is going to be really long, but I promise it'll be worth it. Take your computer into the bathroom with you.

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Most rewarding thus far, was my interview with Carl Greene. I had hoped that discussing his legal authority to file suit against HUD on behalf of the residents of Philadelphia's public housing would help illuminate the problematic alliance between HUD and HANO in the housing decisions that have occurred here.

Mr. Greene was willing to be so forthright with me about his view of things. His perspective on the operational philosophy of Alphonso Jackson was thought-provoking and was way more frank than I had envisioned when I contacted his office.

There was one thing that really had me thinking for some time after I'd posted the interview.

. . . I think Alphonso Jackson somehow felt as though he was the king of black people and his job was to somehow [benefit] these black contractors at the expense of the law. . . . [I]t's not just African American because I don't think it's just about black. I would say black-hyphen-socially-elite black. There's still a lot of poor black people out there that I'm in the business of serving every day. [Jackson] wasn't doing nothing for them. He went to Congress and said 'oh yeah give them 75%, give them 76% funding, take away all of their money.' But on the other hand, for one guy who can make some records, or some guy that makes contributions, or some guy that hangs out at the right golf club, I mean, the whole socially elite type that he was interested in - he would sacrifice the whole program for the purposes of benefiting the social elite. And that's what it came down to. It came down to the self-ascribed country club social contacts that he had, and he didn't care about the rules when it came to these folks.

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I think Jackson was left to his own discretion to do whatever he wanted at HUD and he used that discretion - he abused that discretion - to take care of business and personal friends who became part of an elite social and business network. This was done at the expense of the city of New Orleans and its Housing Authority and if the City Council or the Mayor tried to object then he could always threaten to withhold the money or not give the money. [T]hat was his normal M.O. 'If you don't go along with me then you won't get the money.' It's a 40 billion dollar agency and he's doling out money - he used it as a political weapon to force you to go along with his policy. With the compromising of the political infrastructure [in New Orleans], you had a guy [Jackson] that was in charge of the agency who would beat you over the head with the power of his office if you didn't really vote the way he wanted you to vote on the demolition application, so, effective advocacy for the very very poor folks down there, an effective, professional housing advisory to the Mayor and the Council and the housing authority board was not present. [H]e kind of hijacked that for his office and made it an organization that put on a front of taking care of affordable housing and public housing when at the same time, it was always the people that were part of the social and business elite crowd that he was associated with, that were getting the work.

Now, Mr. Greene of course knew firsthand about Jackson's favors for socially connected elite African American business people through HUD's attempts to retaliate against the Philadelphia Housing Authority on behalf of 2000 RNC speaker and Republican donor Kenneth Gamble.

But there was something else there that really stuck out in my mind and it took me awhile to really put a finger on what it was.

I had to think on it.

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Stroke 1: The philosophy of black capitalism as applied in New Orleans

Black capitalism in general is not bad or dangerous at all. In fact, I like it. Basically, it argues that for African Americans to rise as an oppressed minority, they must accumulate wealth by building their own businesses. Essentially, it's a large-scale "buy local" campaign to keep African American money in the African American community and away from large corporations that contribute to the larger economic system that has cemented aspects of structural racism.

In some instances, however, some African American business leaders have lost their way. They come to exploit the African American communities they purportedly assist by obtaining wealth. I can even see the justification. For example, though Kenneth Gamble was bilking Philadelphia Housing Authority residents, most of whom are poor African Americans, by failing to build the houses his contract with PHA demanded, he could sleep at night because the profits he and his company received from the market rate development he wanted to build would remain in African American hands - his own.

Now let's take a New Orleans example.

In early November, the Times-Picayune wrote about our sanitation contracts with Richard's and Metro disposal. I think everyone remembers that one, it sparked a lot of outrage and a City Council investigation. The gist was that two minority-owned sanitation companies, Richard's Disposal and Metro Disposal, were receiving suspiciously cushy treatment from the city. While Jefferson Parish receives full sanitation service including "unlimited bulky waste" for about $8 from each taxpayer, New Orleans tax payers receive less service for at least $10 more per resident.

Additionally, as you'll recall, the original contracts with Richards and Metro actually did call for the removal of all "unlimited bulky waste," but after the fact, Nagin drafted an amendment that was sponsored in Council by Cynthia Willard-Lewis that eliminated this requirement from the contract.

*To be fair, Councilwoman Willard-Lewis' amendment was approved unanimously by all members of City Council, save for Stacy Head, who was not present. Councilwoman Head has an ideological opposition against funding certain city services for residents and believes that the city should not pay for debris removal at all. This reflects very poorly on the functioning of Council as a whole and on the individual culprits.

Of course, Richard's and Metro are owned and controlled by Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods, respectively. Since 2006 alone, Richard's and Metro, or their owners or partners, have given thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Ray Nagin and Cynthia Willard-Lewis.

That's not the end of the story, however. As you might remember, when City Council got around to investigating their prior mistake, Richard's and Metro organized a protest of chambers. They alleged that the investigations into their contracts, which were quite clearly taking advantage of the population of New Orleans, amounted to racism against minority-owned firms. They stacked council with their employees and brought in officials from what could once be called a civil rights group, SCLC, which threatened a comically ridiculous boycott of the city.

Never mind that the inflated garbage collection contracts were hurting predominantly African American New Orleans taxpayers, our neighbors most disproportionately hurt by any form of economic exploitation or tax revenue waste. Never mind that a boycott by any group would disproportionately harm African Americans at the bottom rungs of the service industry economy. The warped interpretation of the black capitalism philosophy allowed Cynthia Willard Lewis, Sanitation Director Veronica White, Ray Nagin, Jimmie Woods, Alvin Richard, and Spiver Gordon of the SCLC to sleep well at night because they were working to keep the money in the hands of African Americans: two sets of hands, those of elite African American multimillionaires Alvin Richard and Jimmie Woods.


Stroke 2: Alphonso Jackson and William Hairston in New Orleans

While HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson's retaliation attempts against the Philadelphia Housing Authority yielded the political pressure that ultimately caused him to step down, Mr. Jackson was also under investigation for his role in steering contracts to his friends here in New Orleans. In October, the National Journal's Edward Pound reported on some nefarious relationships between Mr. Jackson and the firm that ultimately won the contract to redevelop the St. Bernard housing complex. The Times-Picayune also picked up the story. The allegations, at that time and as they developed, were two-tiered.

First, Alphonso Jackson was accused of steering a no-bid contract via HANO to millionaire African American businessman William Hairston to the tune of close to $500,000 for work done as a construction manager over an 18 month period. Later, Edward Pound found that HSD, a Georgia company affiliated with Hairston received an additional $186,000 contract directly from HUD.

So who is William Hairston?

According to Pound, he is:

"a golfing buddy and social friend from Hilton Head Island, S.C."

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, of course, is an extremely exclusive residence and elite vacation destination, where, according to the New York Times, Alphonso Jackson purchased a home in 2004. Hairston's wife, Starletta Hairston is currently running for the SC House from Hilton Head Island as a Republican.

Remember Mr. Jackson's contracting philosophy, as relayed to a conference of minority real estate executive in Dallas, from Part 1 of Demolishing and Redeveloping Alphonso Jackson:

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

Here is a list of political contributions by William and Starletta Hairston over the years. I'm sure that there are more listed under Mr. Hairston's various business ventures.

(Democratic majority whip James Clyburn also plays golf with Jackson and Hairston and also has questions to answer about his role in steering the HANO contract.)

Stroke 3: Alphonso Jackson and Columbia Residential in New Orleans

Columbia Residential is the company contracted for $127 million to redevelop the St. Bernard housing complex. Its President, Noel Khalil is a multimillionaire African American contractor from Atlanta.

According to the Times-Picayune, Columbia Residential via its subsidiary Columbia Highlands LLC had history in New Orleans before the storm:

Last December, a Columbia Highlands employee pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a HANO contractor he was supposed to be overseeing. According to a summary of the case filed by the government, James Lozano of Atlanta admitted accepting $45,000 from the owner of a construction company helping to build the Fischer Senior Housing Village in Algiers. The money was paid in increments starting in 2002, the records say.

Columbia Highlands initially received a small project management contract from HANO, Moon said. In late 2002, the firm got a much larger contract, essentially putting it in charge of overseeing the redevelopment of all of the complexes undergoing renovation at the time: Desire, Florida, Fischer and Guste. The value of that contract could not be determined Thursday.

Moon said the larger contract was awarded after a competitive-selection process, under which HANO would not have been bound to choose the lowest-priced vendor. She declined to continue the interview after being asked how Columbia Highlands first came to work for the agency.

Remember, HANO was directly controlled by HUD beginning in 2002.

Turns out, Alphonso Jackson and Noel Khalil are close:

At the same time, the secretary still has financial ties to one housing developer. According to Jackson's financial disclosure reports, an Atlanta-based development company, Columbia Residential, owes him $250,000 to $500,000. Before joining HUD, his spokesman said, Jackson was a "partner/consultant" for the developer.

According to his disclosure reports, Jackson is to receive periodic payments "for past services" under a separation agreement with the company. He has received only one such payment in the past six years -- $35,000 in 2003. HUD officials said that Jackson avoids any dealings with Columbia Residential. They released a memo he wrote in August 2001 in which he recused himself from HUD matters having "a direct and predictable effect on the ability or willingness" of the company "to satisfy its obligation to compensate me for prior service rendered."

Columbia Residential's $127 million contract to redevelop the St. Bernard projects was, of course, above-board because Mr. Jackson has agreed recuse himself from the panel that awarded the big four redevelopment contracts?

The four-member selection panel included Scott Keller, who was until recently Jackson's deputy chief of staff and who is often described within HUD as Jackson's "right-hand man." But in an interview, Keller said that because of the press of other HUD business he did not participate in, or influence, the selection of the Columbia Residential team. Keller left HUD in August to become a private consultant.

Nothing to see here, other than a follow-up by Pound that explains how Mr. Keller became a central figure in the investigations into HUD.

As it turns out, however, Keller not only helped choose the panel but also served as a member. The other panel members were another senior HUD official from Washington, a HANO official, and an executive from the Fort Worth, Texas, housing authority. Legal and financial advisers assisted the panel in the selection process.

According to three people with intimate knowledge of the selection process, Keller strongly favored the Columbia Residential team's proposal. Margaret (Peg) Stone, a private financial adviser who is now retired, sat in on the discussions and recalls that Keller promoted Columbia Residential's plan "from the beginning." Stone said: "He certainly liked them a lot.... He advocated strongly for the best solution to the project, which he thought was Columbia Residential."

Khalil, a registered Democrat and donor, certainly knew how to play ball the Alphonso Jackson way in 1999 when he contributed to George W. Bush's first-term campaign.

So to quickly sum up, Noel Khalil of Columbia Residential won a $127 million contract from the taxpayers of New Orleans after formerly employing Alphonso Jackson, who used his chief of staff to pick and serve on the panel that awarded the contract. Columbia Residential continued to make direct payments totaling at least $250,000 while Mr. Jackson served at HUD.

Stroke 4: Columbia Residential, Bayou District Foundation, and St. Bernard

A 501c3 nonprofit, the Bayou District Foundation, came to be the public face of the complicated web of companies and foundations working on the St. Bernard redevelopment:

St. Bernard Redevelopment is the same group of nonprofits and businesses that have struck a partnership that includes the Fore!Kids Foundation and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, both established charities.

An affiliate of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, Commercial Properties Development Corp., will manage commercial elements of the redeveloped St. Bernard site. A for-profit Atlanta company, Columbia Residential, will develop the apartment complexes. The Bayou District Foundation, formed earlier this year, acts as the public face of the complex partnership.

The Fore!Kids Foundation? I thought this was about building houses.

Why build affordable housing in a city with an affordable housing crisis when you can risk it and try to reach the green in two?

So the Bayou District Foundation is asking park officials to give up a portion of future revenue in exchange for the foundation's massive front-end investment in three golf courses, two of them of a quality that could lure PGA Tour events to the city. The foundation has proposed taking $500,000 from an expected $1.5 million in yearly golf revenue to finance educational and recreational programs at the St. Bernard complex. The plan's backers say they will assure City Park retains at least $500,000 in golf revenue.
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Despite the obstacles, businessmen pushing the foundation plan have high hopes. Federal housing officials have endorsed the developers' broad vision. And the complicated agenda has advantages created, oddly, by Hurricane Katrina.

While they face criticism and questions from displaced St. Bernard residents, the Bayou District Foundation leaders don't face the wrenching prospect of relocating people. The more than 1,000 families living in the 52-acre complex before Katrina flooded the neighborhood are gone, and St. Bernard is shuttered.

Nope, no annoying residents to ask questions, the storm took care of them. Now that we have the backing of Federal housing official (Alphonso Jackson) that our primary housing partner (Columbia Residential) owes hundreds of thousands of dollars, we can just go ahead and build two PGA-caliber golf courses.

It gets even more ludicrous:

Golf and public housing may seem like odd bedfellows. But the plan uses as its model Atlanta's East Lake housing and golf development that replaced a notorious Atlanta public housing complex with what by all accounts has become a thriving mixed-income neighborhood. That unique project taps the golf revenue to finance education and recreation programs for families in subsidized housing.

But, the as that TP article indicates, there are two key differences. First, the Bayou District Foundation's plan will cost at least $240 million whereas the East Lake plan cost $128 million. The other difference is kind of shrugged off in the article, but I'm going to highlight it because it's actually a huge difference:

The New Orleans effort lacks a local "sugar daddy," a philanthropist like Atlanta's Tom Cousins, who spearheaded that project after buying and restoring the storied East Lake Golf Club. And so the proposal will have to rely more heavily on nationwide fundraising and federal financing.

Atlanta's East Lake development was financed by a single philanthropist! Our plan relies on taxpayer money and public lands. That's a huge difference.

"This is not a New Orleans fundraising effort. It has to be national," said Gerard Barousse, a real estate executive and managing partner of the Bayou District Foundation. "He (Cousins) told us he will introduce us to people, make some calls."

Genius! Not only are we going to melt our affordable housing tax dollars with a golf course redevelopment plan, but we're also going to rely on our big brother Tom Cousins to introduce us to his friends?

Well, Mr. Barousse, how's that fundraising effort going?

From an April TP story:

The rapid decline in financial markets has upset plans developers made last year to remake the public housing developments with a mix of public and private money. Since the City Council voted to demolish the complexes late last year, a spiraling credit crisis has made banks uneasy about making new loans. Meanwhile, the value of low-income housing tax credits that will be used to finance the projects has declined.

In recent weeks, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, the state entity handling the award of tax credits, has said that any affordable housing developers who have not yet closed on their financing plans may find themselves unable to do so.

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Gerard Barousse, managing partner of the Bayou District Foundation, which is redeveloping the St. Bernard complex, said the market has gotten tougher, but he hopes to close on financing in July and begin construction at the end of summer. "There's a little bit of a gap that we're working with, but it's not an insurmountable number," Barousse said.

But Bayou District is still shopping for a lender and tax credit syndicator, making it harder to nail down figures. "We're still sorting through a lot of that," Barousse said.

So it's not working out so well? What happened to all of Tom Cousins' friends that you were going to get introduced to?

Stroke 5: Saving for Par?

Let's once again revisit the words of Carl Greene of the Philadelphia Housing Authority:

. . . I think Alphonso Jackson somehow felt as though he was the king of black people and his job was to somehow [benefit] these black contractors at the expense of the law. . . . [I]t's not just African American because I don't think it's just about black. I would say black-hyphen-socially-elite black. There's still a lot of poor black people out there that I'm in the business of serving every day. [Jackson] wasn't doing nothing for them. He went to Congress and said 'oh yeah give them 75%, give them 76% funding, take away all of their money.' But on the other hand, for one guy who can make some records, or some guy that makes contributions, or some guy that hangs out at the right golf club, I mean, the whole socially elite type that he was interested in - he would sacrifice the whole program for the purposes of benefiting the social elite. And that's what it came down to. It came down to the self-ascribed country club social contacts that he had, and he didn't care about the rules when it came to these folks.

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I think Jackson was left to his own discretion to do whatever he wanted at HUD and he used that discretion - he abused that discretion - to take care of business and personal friends who became part of an elite social and business network. This was done at the expense of the city of New Orleans and its Housing Authority and if the City Council or the Mayor tried to object then he could always threaten to withhold the money or not give the money. [T]hat was his normal M.O. 'If you don't go along with me then you won't get the money.' It's a 40 billion dollar agency and he's doling out money - he used it as a political weapon to force you to go along with his policy. With the compromising of the political infrastructure [in New Orleans], you had a guy [Jackson] that was in charge of the agency who would beat you over the head with the power of his office if you didn't really vote the way he wanted you to vote on the demolition application, so, effective advocacy for the very very poor folks down there, an effective, professional housing advisory to the Mayor and the Council and the housing authority board was not present. [H]e kind of hijacked that for his office and made it an organization that put on a front of taking care of affordable housing and public housing when at the same time, it was always the people that were part of the social and business elite crowd that he was associated with, that were getting the work.

I've been thinking about what this all means for the city and for the children displaced by Hurricane Katrina and subsequently abused by the affordable housing crisis. It's just so shameful. Not only was Alphonso Jackson executing an increasingly blatant agenda to enrich his elite friends with lucrative HUD contracts or other favors using his political muscle, but our local leadership seemed something more sinister than ambivalent.

They seem complicit.

The racial implications of this are uncomfortable. We have a situation in which Alphonso Jackson and his friends, like Ray Nagin and his friends, have achieved a monetary and social status reserved for a select few.

Golf is symbolic in this sense. It is an exclusive game, a sport with prohibitive membership costs. To get in, the Mayor and his friends and Alphonso Jackson and his friends sold their souls. Their policies and practices have hurt the very communities they purportedly began careers in public service to assist.

Now they serve a different community. They serve Gerard Barousse of the Bayou District Foundation. They serve the Bayou District Foundation's design and construction team (click on 'management team'): Broadmoor LLC is a subsidiary of Boh Bros. Construction.

Now certainly there can be an argument made that the ascent of elite African American business people to country club status is an inspiring feat. Certainly those behind the Fore!Kids Foundation have a stated intention to make golf more accessible to a demographic historically barred from the game.

But I wonder if it's a game worth playing at all. I wonder if it's a game worth teaching our youth. And I'm not talking about golf the sport, I'm talking about the game played by the likes of Alphonso Jackson, Ray Nagin, Jimmie Woods, Alvin Richard, and William Hairston.

Is it really worth teaching a select few how to achieve "success" in a game systematically rigged to prevent the vast majority of their peers from ever playing? Especially when "success" relies upon one's ability to use that exploitive system for one's own selfish benefit at the expense of the larger community.

And that's ultimately what is happening with the St. Bernard redevelopment plan and with the city's larger affordable and public housing non-policy. Rather than address the incredible challenges that ordinary people face every single day in this city and the incredible risks to this city's long, medium, and short term viability, our state, local, and federal leadership has instead adopted a backward trickle-down approach to community development.

Let's not build housing or raise the minimum wage or provide hospitals or schools or public transportation.

Instead let's put up hundreds of millions of dollars for a "vanguard" river redevelopment and promise that the eventual revenue fallout will drip down to residents.

Instead let's demolish salvageable public housing units and install market rate homes to be sold at a profit with the promise that this will help spread neighborhood revival down the road.

Instead let's build three new golf courses and promise that the social benefits of accessibility will allow a few hundred to maybe learn sportsmanship and integrity. We promise that the small business economy will develop as soon as we can get PGA tour events to bring more high end business here.

NO NO NO NO NO.

They want to snooker us into believing that the economic development that follows upfront investment in ventures by and for elite business interests will eventually provide enough tax revenue to then go ahead and invest in the social services and infrastructure necessary to help middle and working class New Orleans families.

That's not what happens. Any increased tax revenue that might arrive will only be reinvested into another chic development project like a new stadium for the Saints or into tax abatements for more luxury condominiums.

That's why you say no right now.

All that initial startup investment they want to shower upon these wealthy developers, contractors, and construction companies might foster more economic development and eventual tax revenue if they put it into the programs, services, and infrastructure that we're frustrated with every day. Maybe instead of investing in a golf course that might eventually entice wealthy golfers to play here, the smarter strategy would be to directly invest into the community so that families will actually want to live here.

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This week, we learned that our fearless President "gave up" the game of golf out of deference to military families suffering through the frustration of a difficult war sometime in 2003.

Yet, at the same time, President Bush's friend Alphonso Jackson was rounding up his own golf buddies for a Katrina aftermath tee-time.

Pockets of Development: A Wishing Well

The Board of Ethics has decided to allow Sean Cummings to continue leading the New Orleans Building Corporation.

The Louisiana Board of Ethics said Thursday that Sean Cummings, a private developer who also leads a city agency called the New Orleans Building Corp., can continue to steer two public developments because he does not have a "substantial" financial interest in the projects.

That's okay. We'll see very soon what is meant by "substantial" financial interest. I don't know why I need to wait. I'm against the his riverfront development plan regardless of whether or not his family stands to make millions.

I think it's a stupid idea.

There, I said it.
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I feel as though politicians everywhere have this stupid expectation that just because some development deal gets put together and promises to spend a bunch of money and generate a bunch of revenue, ordinary citizens are supposed to just support it and not ask questions.

Wake up.
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During my lifetime, the city of Philadelphia went through probably 300 different plans to redevelop the Delaware River waterfront. The plans were always foolish deals to bring retail space or expand concert space or for condos or for casinos.

The plans all more-or-less mirrored different riverfront revitalizations from around the country, think Baltimore or Pittsburgh.

Urban capitalist group-think was that if you have a river or a harbor and put shops there, (shoppes, rather) yuppies will want to go there to purchase things and will move back to the city and put money into the tax base.

In Philadelphia, for whatever, reason these things never panned out. There are too many people to pay along the way. Unions wanted too much. Developers wanted this tax incentive or that tax incentive. Residents, who all along wanted green space, were able to mount opposition. Several plans came and went in this way. Finally, the city decided to go back to the drawing board entirely. They invited the University of Pennsylvania to engage the waterfront communities in crafting a new master plan for the waterfront.

Guess what?

The residents and the planners got together and crafted an absolutely fabulous vision for the Delaware River Waterfront.

It doesn't promise museums and hotels and cruise ship terminals and amphitheaters.

It's got parks and bike trails. It has housing. It extends the street grid to the river to melt the planned community with existing neighborhoods. Residents gain riparian rights.

It's awesome, even though it still faces hurdles.

Check it out here and here.

You know who didn't like the plan?

The unions and the private developers that have owned the politics of municipal development since before WWII. Something something about economics. Whatever.

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It's called quality of life.

Think about your own neighborhood in New Orleans. How greatly would it benefit from a recreation center, a community garden, or a park? I know that different groups are trying to get things done in their neighborhoods and are just being ignored.

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Why does the leadership of this city still govern with some 1990s economic development magic wand? It makes no sense to sink so much money into this project. We have plenty of attractions and things to do in this town. There are plenty of concert venues. The tourists have a lot of options.

If you want people to move into the city, if you want people to invest in the city, if you want residents that grow up here to stay here, you're going to have to make the place more livable.

We need hospitals, public transportation, schools, and sanitation service.

Let's start there.

Pockets of Development

This is an important read from Saturday's paper.

A commercial developer credited with swanky projects such as downtown's International House hotel, Cummings has long defended his government post by saying he amassed his holdings years before Mayor Ray Nagin tapped him to run the Building Corporation in 2003.

But the Marigny warehouse represents at least one instance in which Cummings pursued a private real estate deal at the same time he was lobbying for public investment in the riverfront that could raise the value of his personal land holdings. The sale occurred less than a month before the Building Corporation's board of directors authorized work to begin on the first phase of Reinventing the Crescent.

Mr. Cummings' transaction is being reviewed by the Louisiana Board of Ethics. It should be. He owns a lot of property and has a great deal of influence over development projects in the city through his post at the NOBC.

Cummings' appointment to the Building Corporation sparked criticism from day one. Not only is he personally entrenched in the development business, but his father, John Cummings III, wields an impressive real estate portfolio of his own.

A wealthy trial attorney known for directing a successful lawsuit against Shell Oil after a 1988 explosion at the Norco refinery, the elder Cummings controls dozens of properties that make him one of the biggest land holders in the state. Among his many possessions are a 3,000-acre parcel in eastern New Orleans and the former Whitney Plantation in St. Charles Parish.

Sean Cummings has failed to be direct with the Board of Ethics about his various property interests in the past.

Cummings first captured the attention of the ethics board in April 2005, when the City Planning Commission asked whether his livelihood created a conflict of interest with his public role.

Planning Commission Executive Director Yolanda Rodriguez wrote a letter to the board pointing to properties Cummings owned on Frenchmen Street, in the Warehouse District and in the 2900 and 3000 blocks of Chartres Street as holdings that "may represent a conflict."

The board initially ruled that the properties did constitute a conflict and said Cummings could not "participate in matters concerning the redevelopment of the New Orleans riverfront." However, the board recanted after Cummings appealed, asking him to return for a review when the Building Corporation solidified its riverfront designs.

With the Reinventing the Crescent plan in tow, Cummings requested another review in February. In a letter to the board, his attorney said the "relevant facts have not changed" since 2005. The letter cited a property at 2900-2920 Chartres St., a vacant building Cummings and his father have owned for more than 12 years, "long before the Reinventing the Crescent Plan was adopted" by the Building Corporation.

The letter does not mention Cummings' recent purchase of the Marigny warehouse. Cummings disclosed his ownership in an e-mail his attorney sent to the board two days before the April meeting, after a reporter asked why he did not include that information in his initial statement.

The letter also failed to disclose that Cummings and his father sold two Warehouse District lots along Tchoupitoulas and Annunciation streets for $1.37 million in December 2005. The sale occurred just two months before the Port of New Orleans approved a plan to sell a group of old wharves and other properties to the city for Reinventing the Crescent.

So what does this mean? I'm honestly not certain. Is NOBC's development plan for the Mississippi riverfront in the best interest of the public? What do residents get for all that spending? How do ordinary citizens benefit economically? What does it do for quality of life?

How much does it matter that the Cummings family stands to earn millions from increased value of the property they own by the river?

The warning sirens go off when you continue to acquire parcels of land in that area.

City Councilwoman Stacy Head expressed concern that Cummings has been working on private real estate deals and said she "was not aware that his holdings had increased" since he was appointed chief executive of the Building Corporation.

However, Head described her concern as a "double-edged sword."

"On the one hand, you want someone who cares about the area ... and who has a level of sophistication that would require a history of development," she said. "On the other hand, you don't want someone who has a motivation for self-dealing."

A double edged sword.

For what it's worth, I've been compiling campaign finance information for the Mayor's office and City Council. Some file electronically and some file on paper and the information is scanned. It's pretty tedious and not exactly user-friendly. I'm assuming the information online is accurate.

The Cummings family hits heavy.

Ray Nagin has accepted at least $22,500 from Sean, Donna, and John Cummings between 2002 and 2007.

Stacy Head has accepted at least $3,000 from Sean Cummings since 2006.

James Carter: at least $1,000 since 2006.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis accepted at least $20,000 from Donna Cummings, John Cummings, and the law firm Cummings, Cummings, & Dudenhefer.

Arnie Fielkow: at least $1,500 since 2006.

That's just City Council and the Mayor. It's a lot of loot, though not for the Cummings family. I'm not sure what it all means. Just passing it along.

Y'all should check out all the campaign info available. You never know what you might find.

UPDATE:

Schroeder has another thread here. His number for total Cummings family contributions is $47,500. I went back and took another look and can raise my number to at least $32,500.

Everyone Must Pay Attention to NORA

I have to admit that I don't know anything about these guys.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority seems like it will have an extremely significant role in helping us out with our empty lot problem.

Er, it would be nice to get some help with the empty lot problem.

(Note: Not the empty lot problem we create for ourselves by demolishing public housing and handing over that already-public land to private developers that determine that it is more profitable to leave stick us with the lots.)

I refer to the empty lot problem that the city has been creating 'on our behalf'. (Though without permission, basic disclosure, or transparency)

And the empty lot problem created by the federal flood.

Today, Mr. Frank Donze wrote a long piece that made the cover of the Times-Picayune.
Some interesting background that anecdotally provides insight into how pathetic this city and state are:

NORA, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority was an agency created by the state of Louisiana thirty some years ago and was originally called the Community Improvement Agency.

Though NORA was created by the State of Louisiana, it is run by appointees of the Mayor of New Orleans.

NORA's own website has predicted that Hurricane Katrina will swell the number of blighted properties in this city to well over 100,000.

Certainly, blight removal emerged as a pressing need for the rebuilding process.

Yet, according to the T-P:

Historically an underfinanced, low-production organization, NORA was effectively shut down after Hurricane Katrina. The agency has been rebuilt since the fall of 2006, when Nagin expanded its board and persuaded the Legislature to pass laws strengthening its authority to assemble land.

So it took about a year for the city to decide that the flooded-out NORA would be the lead agency for flipping blighted properties back into commerce. The Mayor chose a devastated agency but somehow was able to convince the State Legislature to give it the authority necessary to get anything done.

Then the Mayor castrated the agency's ability to move forward with the Mayor's own plans. The very next paragraph from the T-P article:

But the revival has been painfully slow, as the Nagin administration sparred with NORA over how much autonomy from City Hall the agency will have and how much money it needs to operate.

Now that's what I call good governance!

NORA spent 2006 and 2007 operating without a budget from the city, instead relying on charitable grants from non-profit organizations. This allowed NORA to triple it's pre-storm staff from a why-does-this-agency-even-exist-in-the-first-place five to a are-you-serious-this-is-the-agency-that-is-in-charge-of-getting-rid-of-the-blight fifteen. But when the money ran out over the summer, NORA had to put a freeze on hiring.

Additionally, from the T-P:

In the past, city waited until the end of the year to reimburse NORA for expenses incurred over the previous 12 months.

Wow, what a novel business model!

But this T-P article is largely hopeful because Nagin and NORA have come up with some sort of compromise that will allow the agency to really set things off in 2008...

After months of sometimes angry debate, Nagin and NORA board members settled their differences in December when the mayor signed an operating contract and a pair of agreements that assign NORA specific recovery-related tasks.

The contract will eliminate NORA's immediate cash-flow problems, allowing the agency to collect $1.2 million in reimbursements from City Hall for costs incurred in 2007. Once that money is in hand, Abbott said, the agency will resume hiring.

The city also has increased NORA's 2007 appropriation for its regular operating budget by $800,000, to $2 million, this year.
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...The administration now is willing to repay NORA as expenses come due, a move that agency officials say will provide needed flexibility when it comes to hiring and purchases.

Nagin also has signed two documents that will funnel federal dollars to NORA for specific assignments, including:

--$5 million in Community Development Block Grant money to begin clearing pockets of blight in the city's 17 target recovery areas. Under the federal program, NORA will be reimbursed after it acquires a property.

--$2 million in Urban Development Action Grant money to acquire land around the footprint of the planned veterans hospital, just off Tulane Avenue. Under that agreement, land acquisition by NORA will be restricted to an area bounded by Poydras Street, Broad Street and Claiborne and Orleans avenues.

Now that sounds like progress. I hope there's nothing else to italicize...

All parties agree that the money allocated for the two land-assembly projects is too little to finish those jobs, but the city has agreed to seek additional financing. The amount of money needed for the tasks hasn't been determined.

Ah, damn it!

...And there's even more silliness:

The delicate budget picture became evident last week as the board authorized its staff to sign a contract to map the entire city using geographic information system technology, even though NORA lacks the money to pay for all but a fraction of the work. The entire project is expected to cost $400,000.

Abbott said NORA is negotiating with nonprofit organizations to pay for the mapping initiative but hasn't yet secured any money. Determined to get the project started, he told his staff to earmark just enough money for one month of work. If the grant money doesn't materialize, he said, NORA will pay only for work done and suspend the project.

Yup. The Mayor says 2008 is the tipping point. Can't you FEEL the optimism?!?

I don't feel completely helpless and crazy though because I know there are people organizing neighbors to keep up with what's going on...

Go here and make your questions and confusions and comments and rage and encouragement known. Get down. Put it on public record at thinknola!

Land Value Maximized When It's Empty

Okay, these are some city initiated demolitions isolated from a much more daunting map that looks a little something like this:


When you look at the big map, the one of the whole city with the huge huge clusters of dots, it's hard to actually visualize what that looks like on the ground.

But when you look at the map isolating that gorgeous neighborhood lakeside of the French Quarter, it feels that much more sinister. That's valuable land that's being cleared. It's just north of the most profitable land in the city. It has poor people living on it.

It makes the theory that this demolition fetish is the result of gross negligence, incompetence, and mismanagement seem sadly naive.

It makes it seem down-right targeted and thought out, doesn't it?

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Not that this next thought is related or anything...
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I was thinking that since the new developments aren't working out after all...

Maybe it's time we came up with a game plan for the hundreds of empty lots because I'm afraid they'll be around for a long time...

First, we've got to remove the arsenic.

What kind of crops should we grow? Corn? Poppies?

Our Post-Apocolyptic Empy Lot Aesthetic

The City of New Orleans, HUD, and HANO have made a commitment. They are going to redevelop public housing in this city. They are going to demolish public housing units and replace them with "mixed income" communities. This is about revitalization. This is about putting this city on the right track. Right? Right?


I think I remember...

From the New York Times sometime in December:

Stacy S. Head, a City Council member whose district includes two of the complexes, said she had heard from many who welcomed the new plan.

“The vast majority do not want to go back to the way it was,” Ms. Head said, adding that the old projects were run-down and dangerous, and that the new buildings would help the working poor.

As for the protesters, she said, “I wish that all these people, particularly from out of town, would just leave us alone and let us improve our city.”

Hmm.

I remember something about 12,000 homeless people in New Orleans. (oh.) I remember reading something about upcoming FEMA trailer evictions. I remember something about a rental shortage. There was something else about housing I was reading at approximately the same time I was reading those ones. What was it? What was it? What was it?

There had to have been some other news about housing around. Hmm.

Now, I remember.

If you weren't able to wade through the unfortunate street theater of the public housing advocates that got the most attention, you might not have really made all the way to the other side.

Why were we in such a hurry to knock those buildings down? Why were we in such a hurry to give public property and public money so that a group of private developers could then turn around and resell that property on the open market? Why was it such an outrage to come up with a strategic game plan for our long term housing situation BEFORE demolition approval occurred? Why approve $31 million in demolition contracts and then hastily issue demolition permits without actually contractually guaranteeing the redevelopment projects pledged by the private developers benefiting from the city's money and land?

Listen to longtime civic activist, Reverend Marshall Truehill point out that HANO and HUD already has plenty of vacant lots around town from public housing projects they've already demolished but have been unable to redevelop:





Audio posted by Matt Olson to NOLA Indymedia (1.0 mebibytes)

Why has the city also been so content to demolish our ex-neighbors' private homes? Why do they continue to permit these types of demolitions? Why do we need so many vacant lots?

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We must make C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, Lafitte, and St. Bernard into something else like we turned St. Thomas into River Garden. We must. It will make the city better. Councilwoman Stacey Head was adamant. It's about moving forward...

Today Jeffrey linked to this article in City Business:

National homebuilder KB Home has scrapped 35 planned market-rate homes in River Garden, the mixed-income development that replaced the St. Thomas housing project in New Orleans.

The decision raises questions about the future of a planned community HRI Properties owner Pres Kabacoff touted as a redevelopment model for city housing projects.
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“It is not wise to flood the market with a number of homes that are not selling and we will not make a decision on what to do with the (remainder of the lots) until our homes sell,” said Clint Szubinski, president of the Gulf Coast Division for KB Home, a Los Angeles-based builder.

KB has sold 11 homes in River Garden since the 2006 unveiling of a first model two-story shotgun home and plans to sell the 12 now under construction before stopping work on the candy-colored subdivision, where 58 market-rate homes were to have been built.

In November, the national tract home giant decided to curtail investment in the state until market conditions changed. Slow sales and sinking prices at River Garden, which was developed by HRI and remains under its management, factored into the KB decision to leave the state, Szubinski said.

“Our lack of success contributed to our decision to not make any future investments here,” he said.

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From the same City Business article, Councilwoman Stacey Head:

“I have received calls from both affordable housing advocates and homeowners who see a need to insure that the (promised) number of subsidized units are built as well as the market-rate units. (Residents and potential buyers) are concerned that the balance has tipped and will continue to tip in a way that won’t be healthy,” said Head. “The success of (River Garden) is critical for the success of mixed-income developments that we hope to see in the very near future. We need people to want to live in these developments and want to build them also.”

Stacey Head very clearly took a side in the public housing demolition debate. I think she took the wrong one. She screwed this city, I fear. Ashley Morris isn't surprised. River Garden, the crown jewel of District B., will be comprised primarily of a giant vacant lot owned by private developer.

As the public housing demolition decisions were about to go in front of City Council this past December, I remember something I wrote after a trip to B.W. Cooper with Alan Gutierrez, Katharine Cecil, and Marshall Truehill:

Wait. Just wait.

Doesn't it make sense to reexamine all of this?

You know what might be an eyesore, a cesspool, and an unsustainable community? The entire city of New Orleans once its reduced to empty lots and blighted homes once the demolition committee is finished tearing down salvageable properties and leaving behind ones that are not.

I give you Gadbois:

So here we are letting market forces do the job, and right now the market force is demolition. Let’s face it, it is easy..not cheap, so a fair number of folks are making a nice profit off it. And it sounds like progress to our Mayor. But it sounds like, looks like and feels like despair to those of us who do not live on Park Island.

Market forces. The economic buffet. Who can eat? Is it the outside agitators coming down here and living out of cars to defend public housing residents? Or is the outside agitators coming down here and showing Ray Nagin power point at the Yacht Club?

We need a plan for this city not just for the projects. Have any of you been to B.W. Cooper recently? What kind of "mixed-income community" do we expect that to look like?

Do they have gates in the budget? Because I don't know many white collar people who will be willing to buy a home or a condo in a neighborhood that looks like what surrounds B.W. Cooper. Not because of the people that live in that neighborhood, but because there really aren't a whole lot of people in that neighborhood. I did see stray dogs having sex and making more stray dogs.

So what are we talking about? Are we really talking about a sustainable urban community when we redevelop this land?

Or are we talking about a subdivision?

Well City Council obviously didn't want to wait. They're in a hurry. They're reinventing this city. Except, now, after reading about the struggles at the reinvented River Garden, I don't know that we're talking about subdivisions anymore. Are we talking about world-class empty lots?

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Nah. They probably know what they're doing.

It was an awful situation

I got to City Hall around ten minutes before 10:00 AM, which was when the public hearing on the public housing demolition projects at City Council was scheduled to begin. I walked around the corner and saw a large group of public housing activists standing around a locked gate. Bill Quigley was locked out too. Maybe there were 100 people total, though it seemed to grow to 200 people or more before too long. People were pretty upset.

I was ticked too. I rearranged my whole schedule to have the day off so that I could make sure I was down at City Hall. People were saying all around me that HUD, HANO, and Council had stacked the room with all of their staff and employees and stuff to block spaces that would have gone to public housing residents and activists. Apparently, those people started filing in at 8:30 or 9:00 AM before anyone else even had a chance.

I kept asking around for an estimate of how many public housing people actually made it inside. Some people said in the twenties, some people said in the fifties, I can't really be sure.

It seemed Council had decided to exercise the fire code to prevent more people from entering the hearing beyond the 27o-something that could be seated in chairs. I heard Mr. Quigley saying how unusual it was for council to do so much to restrict access to a public meeting. There were apparently close to 500 people allowed in for a different meeting the week before. It felt like a pretty dirty trick to me. We were all stuck standing in the rain waiting to see if those inside could negotiate to get everyone allowed inside. "Everyone" included media, housing advocates, housing residents, bloggers, and gadflies.

It wasn't going to happen. People were very tense to begin with, being excluded from the Council meeting really made protesters upset. (As if the metaphor of being locked out of the process and locked out of the projects needed to be buoyed by actually being locked out of a public Council meeting) I believe the situation was made many times more volatile both inside and outside of the building because of Council's decision to refuse entry to such a large number of advocates and residents.

The protesters outside received updates from allies on the inside. At around 10:40, it was reported that Arnie Fielkow had begun the meeting and was ejecting all of those making noise or being disruptive.

Within five minutes, I saw a WDSU reporter with a nerdy haircut jumping up and down like an excited little child, I overheard him exclaiming about the fight breaking out inside the building. New Orleans Nation has a sweet post up about the goings on inside City Hall. By 10:55 there were NOPD reinforcements allowed through the gate and a few minutes later there was a stretcher brought in as well. Protesters were talking about the use of tasers on those being ejected from the building and the arrest of rapper Sess-45.

Not long after that, the T-P's Gwen Filosa said it was around 11:15, the protesters outside began becoming increasingly agitated, presumably as word spread about the rough treatment on the inside. Several protesters began violently shaking the gate and it appeared it would soon give way. One man breached the gate and was quickly apprehended. Officers swarmed on the gate area and one got up on the fence to spray mace. Here are three silent videos I have of that incident from my dinky digital camera in chronological succession:





After this first pepper spray incident, people backed off briefly. One man was hit pretty directly in the eyes but recovered in an amazing amount of time and reclaimed his place at the front of the crowd at chained gate.

This original breach of the gate prompted police officers to handcuff the gate together.

Within minutes the crowd was back at the gate, shaking it violently. Those handcuffs proved to be useless and snapped, the gate swinging open toward the crowd. One woman was being crushed by the open gate against the police barricades along the side of the driveway entrance. Activists and witnesses lifted her out of trouble. Concurrently, the police charged again, and attempted to pull the gate shut again. They utilized pepper spray and mace to push back protesters. It all happened very quickly. One woman was hit with both spray and the stun gun and began having what appeared to be a seizure. She hit the ground and started shaking violently. I, along with a group of several carried her out of harms way into the grass where she was helped. I have some video of these events as well that I will post as soon as YouTube begins accepting them. These are shorter and are of poor quality because I started running out of battery and because I dropped my shot to assist the injured. Otherwise, I'm sure there's extended video out there somewhere, maybe even with sound. My mom said she saw me on CNN (she said I looked handsome)

Those affected by the pepper spray were on their own for too long considering the large numbers of emergency personnel on site. There were many pedestrians around with some medical knowledge that took charge. Someone ran and out to buy milk (the best antidote, apparently). Otherwise, the ambulances parked within 50 yards of the incident were empty. I don't know what happened to the girl that had the seizure, I hope she's okay. She was turning blue, it was scary.

After all that, people were extremely upset, but realized I think there was no use in rattling the fence anymore. That pepper spray is powerful stuff. I got a little bit on my right arm from helping to carry that one person and I developed a pretty nasty irritation. I mean, I got it second degree and it still took me 20 minutes of scrubbing when I got home to clean my arm off. So it shouldn't be surprising that the protesters locked out of the meeting were largely incapacitated. They chanted and sung for over an hour after that but it started raining harder and harder. After a senior citizen and public housing resident fell ill and was taken to the hospital, leaders of those protesting outside decided to adjourn the mobilization.

It was really ugly. Very upsetting. The whole event made me sick to my stomach and not because of the pepper spray fumes, though that didn't help matters. It didn't have to happen the way that it did. City Council was extremely arrogant and undemocratic in the way they handled the proceedings today.

There are other tried and true means of diffusing a situation like the one City Council was confronted with this morning. If I were in charge, I would have let all of the advocates and residents come in, I would have let them chant and yell and scream and take turns with the microphone. I'd have allowed them to do that all morning. Then you have HUD and HANO and the developers do their side and then you vote. Given the experience at the demolition hearing last week, there was no real reason to assume things were going to get out of hand. Sure people are going to shout and be rowdy. They're going to boo things they hear and don't like. They're going to stomp their feet and speak out of turn.

Big deal. Let them. At the hearing last week (see the link), public housing advocates were well behaved, they allowed representatives of HANO and HUD and the Developers to prevent their case. Sure people interrupted to boo from time to time but the meeting went forward, the vote went forward. They voted with the developers and against "the mob" but nobody went out burning condominiums, nobody pushed down police officers, nobody was violent against any of the HUD or HANO officials, and representatives of the developers, or any members of the review board. The same thing probably would have happened. Protesters would have filed in, they would have been loud and obnoxious, council would have voted in favor of the developers and protesters would have been loud and obnoxious. Big deal. They would have left in peace. Maybe someone would have broken a window in frustration or something.

People want to feel like they're listened to. They want to yell and scream. They want to be given access to the democratic process. They want to feel like their voice matters. That is why so many people showed up this morning to attend this meeting. They all already knew they had little chance of stopping council from approving the demolitions. Don't we all know that?

But when they were cut off completely from the process, barred from entering a public meeting by their own elected officials, literally locked out..... that's what really pissed people off - in a let's break down this fence and let ourselves in kind of way.

People weren't even chanting "stop the demolitions" at that point, they were chanting "let us in!" Here's a video from NOLA.com of the fence breach. You can see my red shirt in the background at the end of the video, helping to carry away that one woman.




It made me mad too. I thought everyone that wanted to do so should have been allowed to witness that meeting, witness Council's vote and Council's decision. Would that have been so hard on everybody? Really?

Instead, what everyone is witnessing, all around America, all around the world, is another scene of New Orleans being out of control. That's hard on all of us. Really.