Bag fine recycling

Earlier this week Cantrell Administration officials appeared before City Council where they all commiserated with one another over the millions of dollars in costs incurred as a result of the Cyberattack and Hard Rock disaster.  So far it looks like the costs of computer boo boos will be (barely) covered by emergency funds and insurance. The Hard Rock costs will likely become a protracted legal and political dispute.

Estimated costs from the the Hard Rock collapse came to $11.7 million by the end of 2019. That includes about $4.8 million in costs and lost revenue for the Regional Transit Authority, which had to reroute its buses around the disaster site.

But Montaño told the council that the city plans to get the bulk of the costs for both incidents reimbursed through their cybersecurity insurance, the Hard Rock developers’ insurance and, if necessary, through litigation with the Hard Rock developers if the insurance payments don’t cover everything.

“This will at some point will be handled by a court,” Montaño said. “The city should not bear those costs and we have no plan to bear those costs.”

Montaño went on to say that he is "confident and secure we do maintain a healthy fund balance" even though he seemed pretty fuzzy on the details of that.  He must not be too too confident, though, because he also told City Council he was "going to be cautious" and delay "major expenditures" until after summertime.

That sounds prudent, I guess.

Anyway, I know this is what you might call a different pot of money, but it does look strange for the Council to then turn around that same week and hand a half million dollars in tax breaks over to a plastic bag factory.

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday approved two five-year Industrial Tax Exemptions for a new factory in eastern New Orleans that will produce plastic packaging. The exempted property is worth $7 million, and the city stands to lose out on $435,634 in tax revenue over the first five years of the exemptions as a result of the vote, according to a presentation by Tracey Jackson, the Industrial Tax Exemption administrator for Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Office of Community Development.

We should point out one detail the Lens story doesn't mention explicitly, but the T-PAdvocate does.  This is the first ITE approved by the city under its new wage and job requirements. Although, it looks like the plastic company may have gamed the rules a bit.

Still, the Iriapak deal has irked critics of the tax breaks, who argued that one of Iriapak's subsidy applications didn't meet the city's jobs requirements.

Iriapak actually submitted two applications for the tax exemptions. Its first application was for a $5 million investment, which represented its 80% stake in the project. The second application represents $2 million that an affiliated real estate partner is investing in the project. That firm, Iriapak RE, owns a 20% stake.

Together New Orleans, a group that has long criticized ITEP tax exemptions, argued that the investment partner should be required to meet the city's jobs rules for the construction jobs it is financing. For those and other reasons, the group urged a denial.

That argument found supporters in council members Helena Moreno and Jared Brossett. Both voted against the application.

The larger concern, though, is happy to hand out large corporate tax exemptions during a time of fiscal uncertainty. This is going on even while the city continues to nickel and dime ordinary people playing keep away with ill gotten traffic ticket money, for example.

For another example, we read here that the float riders may be fined up to $500 for tossing plastic bags into the crowd this parade season. Maybe they should just forward those citations to Iriapak so the city can recover its funds.