These two items are not related

The way this story presents the information, a casual reader might conclude that Caesar's "pledged" to uphold its obligations under its licensing agreement because Erroll Williams gave them a tax break. Rest assured this is not the case. 

Part of Caesars' pledge on the license extension deal was that it would continue to employ at least 2,400 people and add 500 staff after the hotel was built. It also committed to pay for various state and city infrastructure projects, including $19.5 million over three years to New Orleans.

Earlier this year, Caesars got a big break on one of its biggest city bills. The casino operator was one of the prime beneficiaries of a decision by the Orleans Parish Assessor to cut property valuations for 2021 — and thus cut property taxes — for businesses in the area because of the unprecedented effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Hotels saw the highest valuation cuts, at about 58%, which translates into an annual savings for Caesars of an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million.

The license agreement has nothing to do with the property tax assessment. The license agreement was negotiated with the legislature in the spring of 2019. The tax break is part of a larger corporate giveaway cooked up by the Assessor's office this year. Just after homeowners saw their assessments go up dramatically and as housing costs remain high while workers are being laid off left and right during a pandemic, Erroll Williams and Michael Sherman arranged to hand over $42 million to commercial landlords with deep corporate pockets.  I know the placement of the two paragraphs above in today's story might make it look like this has something to do with Harrah's/Caesar's lease. But it does not.  

Meanwhile, Did You Know.. next Friday your beloved City Council and School Board are scheduled to approve a series of back-tax exemptions that would cede another $25 million to Folgers. Last month when the state Commerce board gave its preliminary approval to the exemptions, a certain parish assessor took their side. 

At Friday’s meeting, Folger consultant Jimmy Leonard said the company requested the delay simply because it wanted the board to consider the application along with the company’s other newer applications at the same time. Leonard also presented a letter to the board from Orleans Parish Tax Assessor Erroll Williams describing Folger as a good taxpayer that has been transparent with him throughout the process. 

Together Louisiana members were armed with a letter of their own — from New Orleans Councilwoman Helena Moreno — that painted a different picture.

“A recent investigation by journalist Lee Zurik on WVUE-TV brought this matter to the public’s attention in August, due to the alarming length of time of not paying millions of dollars of taxes and now seeking a loophole to get a pass,” Moreno wrote in the Oct. 26 letter. “The total owed could be as high as $12 million…We cannot afford for a large corporation to not pay its fair share when our residents and small business owners are being asked to sacrifice so much.”

The board, nevertheless, approved Folger’s application because it was up to the tax assessor to place the property on the tax rolls, which he never did, Board Chairman Jerald Jones said.

Together New Orleans has scheduled a rally and press event at City Hall to discuss the Folger's situation. Although, at the moment that page says the event is Friday in the headline and Monday in the text. So maybe check back when they have it sorted out.

Return to Jaegertown

Always love to pull out our old friend, the NOligarchs Map.  Yes, it needs updating. But for now, please find Jaegertown. (It's the purple strip along the river.



It was on hold for a while but now it is back in play. Thanks, of course, to a healthy public subsidy by way of the Convention Center.

The latest proposal comes after years of stalled negotiations with the same local businessmen, Darryl Berger and Joe Jaeger, who previously were negotiating to build a larger, $1.5 billion development that would have included the hotel as well as retail space, restaurants and entertainment venues on a 47-acre site upriver of the facility.

Under a timeline discussed last week, negotiations for the hotel alone are expected to wrap up by July, with construction potentially beginning in late 2019 and the hotel opening by April 2023.

The development team now also includes Matthews Southwest Hospitality, a Texas-based real estate firm, and Preston Hollow Capital, a Texas-based finance company, as well as Omni Hotels.

Under the latest plans, the total project costs are estimated to be more than $550 million. To help cover them, the developers are seeking $41 million from the Convention Center, as well as a rebate of hotel occupancy taxes equal to 10 percent of gross revenues and 4 percent of other revenues until the bond debt is repaid — roughly 40 years.

In the first year, the hotel is projected to generate almost $57 million in revenue from rooms — making that rebate worth about $5.7 million, according to financial documents that were included in the developers' proposal. It is projected to generate about $44 million in food and beverage sales, making that rebate worth almost $1.8 million.

The group is also seeking a break on property taxes, under an arrangement that will see the hotel owned by a nonprofit

Now we could go on our usual harangue here about how, yet again, the public money generated by the hotel/motel tax isn't going to fund badly needed infrastructure projects in the city, or to benefit any of the wage earners who actually make that revenue possible in the first place but is instead being shoveled into the pockets of the NOligarchs.  But that is just the standard way we go about things.

So let's skip it for now and recall instead that Joe Jaeger, along with tons of help from the Advocate in the form of serial news features, editorials, and an especially flattering in-depth profile by Tyler Bridges here, just got finished leading a personal crusade against a Harrah's deal he and they swore up and down was a shady abuse of political power.  It is by sheer coincidence, of course, that that would have put a competing (and likely unionized) hotel right down the street from his publicly subidized development.

Don't expect too many questions about this, though. 

Who is minding the store?

You know what they say. Mayors are like starting quarterbacks. If you have two, you really don't have any. Okay they don't actually say that about mayors. But it sort of does apply to the city's current situation as it relates to the legislative session. Who is in charge? Is anybody?

"Bills are running really fast," said state Rep. Helena Moreno, a New Orleans Democrat who will be leaving her seat to become an at-large City Council member on May 7. "It's toward the end of a shortened session where you'll see a lot more action. I think it leads to people not being able to catch a bill. People really have to be on their toes this session and keep monitoring what's happening."

Moreno said the Landrieu administration typically briefs lawmakers about the administration's bill package, and provides them with a list of legislation they're supporting. That didn't happen this year, so legislators have been mostly on their own in filing bills that could affect the city.

This article also says LaToya cancelled a Monday news conference where she was expecting to outline her priorities, assuming she has them.  Also, ha ha, I had forgotten about this.

The mayor-elect had previously announced that state Rep. Neil Abramson would be her point person in the Legislature, raising eyebrows among elected officials who have sparred, sometimes bitterly, with Abramson.

As far as we can tell, Neil's big priority the past few years has been punting all the budget questions to a constitutional convention... as well as, probably, getting himself elected to the state senate, but that's not important right now.  What is important is nobody seems to know who is advising Cantrell's transition team with regard to the legislative agenda.  We're pretty sure it isn't Derrick Shepherd.   Maybe it's the Business Council.

Cantrell has had a far longer transition than Landrieu because of a one-time-only quirk in the election schedule that was approved by voters in 2014.

The $194,000 is only a snapshot of her overall intake; she plans to release at least one more financial report for her “Forward Together New Orleans” transition fund before she takes office May 7.

The transition’s single biggest donor from mid-December to mid-February was the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region, which gave $50,000.

Update:  Turns out she supports this one bill. Sort of.

New Orleans Mayor-elect LaToya Cantrell came to the House Administration of Criminal Justice committee meeting where both pieces of legislation were considered.  Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, spoke in favor of the legislation at the committee hearing.

Cantrell said she backs the legislation, but wants to more review of the details of the project that Harrah's has laid out. She refused to say what portions of the casino's plan may need more scrutiny.

 

Whoah

The Teamsters and Unite Here appear to have successfully organized hotel and food service workers at Harrah's.

Have been negotiating for 6 months now.  Who knew?

Also.. 

New Orleans' paltry union presence makes it an outlier in the American tourism economy, (Unite Here's Scott) Cooper said.

In Las Vegas, for example, 90 percent of the major hotels use organized labor, he said. In New York, union density runs about 70-80 percent in he hospitality industry.

Whether Harrah's is the first of many or a one-off will be up to the workers of the city, Cooper said.