Austerity Party Patrol

This is not a good time to be a local elected official. As the insane momentum continues to build in Washington for a completely backwards policy of more and more severe budget cutting measures. Increasingly it becomes your job to deliver bad news to people.

The mayor, typically reluctant to expose political partisanship and alienate potential supporters, explained Tuesday that he wouldn’t be able to guarantee that a senior center in Central City would receive the same amount of money as it had in years past because of spending cuts in Washington.

Most recently, a $2.8 billion cut to the federal U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department budget crimped the city’s Community Development Office by about $3.5 million in federal grant money. The grants have long been the city’s main source of funding for social-welfare programs such as senior and childcare centers.

“That debate in Washington about downsizing government, cutting government spending that…is really about us,” Landrieu told a crowd of senior citizens seated together in matching yellow shirts emblazoned with the logo of the city-funded Central City EOC Senior Center.

And as Washington asks more and more Americans to "share the sacrifice" necessary to save corrupt bankers and protect the tax privileges of the wealthy, it also asks local officials like Landrieu to share the sacrifice of political backlash.


Photo via The Lens

Expect the anti-Mitch backlash to get even worse in the coming months as the mayor prepares to go Scott Walker all over city workers.

Meanwhile the City is desperately searching for even more obnoxious ways to squeeze money out of residents.

With the city of New Orleans owed a whopping $91 million in overdue parking fines and late fees dating back at least a decade, top aides to Mayor Mitch Landrieu told City Council members Wednesday that they have pressed the contractor in charge of collections for information needed to go after delinquent accounts.

Officials admitted they probably won't be able to recover anywhere near the entire sum -- equivalent to about one-fifth of this year's operating budget -- but said they are working to recoup as much as possible, particularly in light of recent budget shortfalls.

"We want to be aggressive in making sure we get every dollar the city is owed," mayoral spokesman Ryan Berni said, noting that officials think debt "in the $10 million to $20 million range is recoverable."

Leave aside the question of whether or not the $10 to $20 million in "recoverable debt" created by making navigating the city as inconvenient as possible for drivers is even legitimate in the first place. Let's just grant that the city is bending to the spirit of the times and that being dicks about fee collection is clearly in keeping with the austerity mode. So in that spirit of being "aggressive in making sure we get every dollar the city is owed," with regard to citations, let us suggest that perhaps the city should hire these people.

They fan out, wearing hats emblazoned with the words, “Party Patrol,” and obstruct the paths of their targets. They tell the surprised and unsuspecting tourists they are in violation of the law.

“I’m going to have to write you a citation,” a Hare Krishna says, pulling out a book of fake tickets from his pockets.

The violations include made-up transgressions such as “being too pretty,” “failure to smile” or “not having a good time.” The only way to settle the matter, they say, is to purchase one of their hats for $10 or more.

To locals, the ruse is obvious, but to unknowing tourists who might have had one too many cocktails, the trappings of the Party Patrol create an air of authority and a level of pressure many feel they must succumb to, said Robert Watters, owner of Rick’s Cabaret and president of the Bourbon Street Merchants Association.

It seems innocent enough, but it gets worse.

The men are volunteers with Food for Life, a Hare Krishna organization that claims to provide free meals to the needy. Watters says they harass and intimidate anyone who hesitates to make a donation, verbally abusing those who try to walk away. And in an attempt to close the deal, they falsely claim donations will go to local charities.

I know from experience, these people mean business. I've been harassed by them more times than I care to count. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I am a frequent target for Party Patrol officers attempting to issue citation for "failing to smile." Once I persisted in my unhappiness with one of these individuals nearly to the point of what would have been violence had I not been restrained by a companion. If that seems to you like an overreaction, you clearly haven't met these solicitors. Consider yourself lucky.

On May 9, during Jazz Fest, two Downtown Development District rangers witnessed a Party Patrol member block the passage of an elderly woman in a wheelchair on Bourbon Street in an attempt to sell her a hat, according to a DDD report. When the rangers intervened, the Party Patrol volunteer, using an amplified microphone, announced for all to hear that the rangers were an illegal organization. He then directed an obscene hand gesture at the rangers.

“They were overheard telling people, often while pointing at the NOPD logo on the barricade, ‘You’re not allowed to have an open container, so you can pay your fine now and receive a hat, or pay a larger fine at the end of the street,’” the DDD report stated. “While relaying this information to confused pedestrians, they also tended more often than not to physically block their right-of-way on each end of the barricade.”

Algiers resident Monique Sullivan, who is scheduled to testify before the city council in support of the proposed NOSCAM ordinance, said a member of the Party Patrol approached her shortly after Hurricane Katrina while she was walking down Bourbon Street with her two daughters.

He claimed to be collecting money for hurricane victims and when she declined to make a donation he “got in her face” and said, “What kind of parent are you? Are you trying to teach your children it’s not ok to help other people?”

“Their tactics are very aggressive,” Sullivan said. “They’re not like the Santa Clauses outside Wal-Mart who ask for a donation and if you say no, they leave you alone. It’s definite manipulation. They tried to use my kids against me and that’s the grossest part.”

During another confrontation near the Walgreen’s on Decatur Street, Sullivan said she challenged the Party Patrol member to tell her where the money goes.

“He said, ‘I am a Hare Krishna and we keep the money. What do you have against it?’” she said.

But when times are this tough, is it too absurd to suggest that the city turn to tougher methods like those of the Party Patrol? At the very least, it will clear up questions over whether the collections are being misappropriated. If the money is going to city, after all, there's hardly any room for doubt in that matter.