The Downtown Development District board has rejected a deal to transfer $2.5 million of its annual tax revenue to the City of New Orleans, saying the agency won't sign the agreement unless it retains oversight to ensure the money is used to fix the drainage system in its area.We thought they'd made a deal but, as it turns out, now they think they don't have to so they are backing out.
At issue is part of the deal agreed to last year by Gov. John Bel Edwards, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and leaders of the city's hospitality industry, under which City Hall received $50 million up front and a promise of another $26 million a year to help pay for long-overdue repairs to the city's crumbling infrastructure.
The way the funds will be spent has proved a particularly thorny issue, said Bill Hines, a DDD commissioner and its secretary.
During the board's meeting late Tuesday, he said that he and other members have been inundated with calls and letters from residents, small business owners and the corporations that own hotels and skyscrapers in the area, many of them objecting to the deal.
It wasn't an especially good deal to begin with but at least it was something. It turns out it doesn't take much to remind the skyscraper owners just how entitled they actually are. I mean, who is in charge of this city anyway? The elected government or the landlords?
In a better world, the DDD wouldn't exist at all. But as long as we are allowing Bill Hines and Frank Stewart and company to collect their own taxes for shoo-ing homeless people off of their porches and stuff, we probably should get at least some of that kicked back for basic city services, right?
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