Yell at the Mayor season drawing to a close

The Mayor's traveling budget circus has almost completed its year 2012 circuit. The only stop remaining on the official tour will be Monday's District D event on the Dillard University campus.

Everybody should make an effort to catch at least one of these events. Sure, they're mostly just window dressing that allows the Mayor and his staff to brag about having collected some "community input" before releasing the budget proposal they've already decided upon anyway. But the entertainment value is well worth your time. If you catch the right show, you might even see someone get arrested as we happened to witness in District B a few weeks ago.

Note, also, your opportunities were unexpectedly limited this year. As The Gambit and The Lens note, the number of performances was reduced to five from an originally scheduled seven. Gambit's Kevin Allman writes

In an appearance before New Orleans City Council earlier this month, deputy mayor Andy Kopplin told the council that Mayor Mitch Landrieu would be having seven community budget meetings in August and September — one in Districts A, B and D and two in C and E. District C would have meeting on the West and East Banks, while District E would have meetings in the Lower 9th Ward and in eastern New Orleans

Only five meetings have been announced, however — one in each district — and in an email this afternoon, Landrieu spokesman Ryan Berni indicated those plans have changed, saying, "We have five meetings this year, one in each council district. ... As you know, we take community engagement in the budget process very seriously. Our budgets the last two years have incorporated community input gathered from community meetings and community members. We'll do the same this year."

Berni went on to have one of those fun Twitter back and forths with reporters on this question.  The word robust came up, as it often does.



Note this is Berni's personal Twitter account so the snarky closer is and should be just fine with everyone. Still... BURN, right? Anyway, neither those tweets nor his emailed response to Gambit provide anything like an actual answer. Why are there fewer meetings this year? Because it's more robust that way, I suppose.

Anyway, the good news is there's going to be an extra special bonus meeting for District C tonight hosted by some East Bankers who couldn't make it to Algiers for the official one.

Tonight’s meeting will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark’s Churck, 1130 N. Rampart Street.
Follow @beattylensnola on Twitter for coverage of the meeting.

Unfortunately the Mayor won't attend this one.  But really that's just one less guy there telling people when to shut up.