There was an S&WB that swallowed a fly

See, they swallowed the ordinance to replace the ordinance to fix the billing errors...

The ordinance, which replaces one passed in 2022, matches laws passed in the spring legislative session. The rules are aimed at stabilizing billing, long a source of public outrage, while the S&WB replaces underground meters with new “smart” meters that track usage in real time. 

“We are hoping to have this issue resolved forever," Council Vice President JP Morrell said Thursday.

(Forever! Okay) 

That means they needed the "smart meters" to fix the "wonky software" that was supposed to fix the "human errors"... 

Utility officials say the smart meters will eliminate the need for estimates, reduce human errors and replace wonky software, which have all been blamed for inaccuracies. Half the city’s 144,000 meters are set to be replaced by the end of this year, and the rest by the end of 2025.

(The smart metering is a dubious solution, though) 

By the end of 2022, there will be over 124 million smart meters installed in 78% of U.S. households, according to data released in April by the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Innovation. But less than 3% of today’s smart meters fulfill 2009 promises of customer savings and that must be prevented in the coming Energy Department-funded deployment, according to a September analysis by Mission:data Coalition.

“Utilities used federal and state funds to deploy smart meters and many explicitly promised to empower customers” to lower bills and earn rewards for supporting system peak demand reductions, said Mission:data President and analysis lead author Michael Murray. “The public policy failure is that utilities benefited from returns on capital expenditures and reduced operational costs but did not deliver those customer benefits,” he said.

Which is why they needed the contractor to fix... well, I guess, the continuing billing errors.

HGI will see a significant boost in compensation with its new role, a reflection of the higher volume of work it will perform, said Council member Joe Giarrusso, who sponsored the ordinance with Morrell. Its current contract is for $600,000, and the council voted Thursday to extend the contract through the end of next year with maximum compensation of $3.4 million.

Giarrusso said the council opted not to put the contract out to bid so the new appeal procedure could get up and running as quickly as possible.

Yes, yes, of course. Oh, also, they need a second contractor to fix the... wait, I think I'm lost here. 

The new billing ordinance prohibits estimated meter readings starting next year, and offers customers the option of receiving fixed bill amounts. It also mandates a contractor to hear all appeals and make bill adjustments the contractor deems necessary. A separate contractor will be hired to ensure bills are correctly sent in the first place.

Is that the mail? They need to pay a company to mail things for them?

How many private contractors should it take for a public agency to fulfill its basic administrative functions? The answer should be zero, right? This is just absurd. Nobody's bill will improve here. But some consulting companies will make a chunk of change off of the deal.  Seems to be the only thing that matters.

The Year of Cloying and Sniveling

Here's a story on reaction from local political leaders on their deliberate exclusion from the Governor's Sewerage and Water Board "task force." The councilmembers all correctly perceive that they and their constituents are being ignored in favor of interests from either out of town altogether, or at least from the very top rung of the class pecking order. Landry's appointments, for example, include a Trump administration hand-me-down,  Darryl Berger's nepo baby, the owner of a fracking company charged with hazardous waste violations, and a former Rex. Also Paul Rainwater is here because his name dictates it.

Landry announced his four picks on Wednesday. Chairing the task force will be Paul Rainwater, who once briefly ran the S&WB under former Mayor Mitch Landrieu and currently works as a lobbyist for Cornerstone Government Affairs. That firm represents the S&WB and the city. 

Landry also appointed Lynes "Poco" Sloss, who currently holds a seat on the S&WB, as well as real estate developer Ryan Berger and William Vanderbrook, a Metairie accountant who served as a campaign treasurer for former U.S. Sen. David Vitter.

Three other task force members hold important state jobs under Landry: Joe Donahue leads the Department of Transportation of Development; Gordon Dove chairs of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority; and Aurelia Giacometto is secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Paul Flower, chair of the New Orleans Business Council, said he will be that organization’s representative. The other six members have not been announced.

And, as we mentioned the other day, the remaining seats are appointed by organizations with no democratic accountability to the city and little to no interest in representing poor or working class people in any way.  The City Council is at least somewhat expected to do some of that, at least in theory. Which is one reason they've been cut out. They aren't happy about that. There are other more cynical reasons they've been excluded and there are other more cynical reasons they are complaining, but let's not focus on that right now. 

Instead, take a look at their comments, which are quite strong. In particular, see JP Morrell's thread here referencing the Council's ongoing efforts to exercise some oversight of its own. 

Council Vice President JP Morrell said in a series of social media posts that many of the organizations represented on the task force “hid” during the council’s sometimes-tense debates with the S&WB over recent reforms.

“The fact that SWB had a press release lauding this creation means the likelihood the task force will actually suggest fundamental changes in favor of ratepayers or legitimate critical review of S&WB’s performance is 0.0%,” Morrell said.

He's probably onto something there. Otherwise, why would the SWB leadership be so welcoming of the Governor's initiative? 

Some City Council members also lambasted the water board's lackluster response to Landry’s order Tuesday creating the task force, which skewered the utility for corruption, incompetence and dishonesty. The S&WB simply said it “welcomes the attention to our utility and our city’s critical needs.”

Council member Joe Giarrusso called that response “cloying and sniveling.”

“I was candidly surprised by the fact that the executive order is so over the top... and the Sewerage and Water Board seemed to say thank you, we'll take another lashing,” he said.

This isn't the first case of the city's administrative wing falling over itself to announce that it is "in alignment" with the new Governor's reactionary policies.  Expect the cloying and sniveling to continue apace.

Whose idea was it to do the Separate But Equal Blvd scheme?

In this story we find the Toussaints saying they were approached by Jared Brossett about considering it at least. In response, Jared says that's not what he wants. Either way both sides seem to agree they did discuss the idea.

Alison Toussaint said Brossett suggested in April that the stretch of Robert E. Lee in his district could have one name, while the part in neighboring council District A could have another.

Brossett on Friday evening disputed that, saying he called Alison Toussaint to say he did not support the idea of two names for one street.

Allen Toussaint, who died in 2015, lived on Robert E. Lee Boulevard in Gentilly.

Reginald Toussaint said he viewed the idea of a street with two names as one that not only crossed political boundaries, but racial ones as well.

“We're not going to be involved in a street that's split in half by color,” he said.

Joe Giarrusso is also mentioned in the story and he spent some time yesterday on social media also denying that he has proposed splitting the street to the Toussaints. 

We first read about this plan to segregate the name of what we now call Robert E Lee Blvd back in January.  This article seems to say it came either from the Street Renaming Commission itself or from comments or suggestions submitted to it. 

The commission has also received recommendations to divide some of the more prominent streets, picking different names depending on the neighborhood - an idea with significant racial overtones. For example, the commission’s current recommendation is to rename Robert E. Lee Boulevard for musician Allen Toussaint, but an alternative would call it Toussaint in the Black neighborhoods of Gentilly and Hibernia or Lake Boulevard in the majority-white areas of Lakeview.

I scanned the Commission's final report and found only two public comments suggesting a "Hibernia Blvd."  Both of them seem to favor that name for the entire length.  One suggests putting Toussaint's name on nearby Leon C Simon Blvd instead. But I don't see anything about dividing Robert E Lee between its Lakeview and Gentilly sections. Doesn't mean it's not in there. Just means I couldn't find it putting what I thought were good search terms into CTRL-F. 

The suggestion could have come from lots of different places. But the "split the baby" approach does sound like something somebody either working for or talking to a city councilperson would try.  And it isn't hard to believe that Brossett and/or Giarrusso or their staff , once having received such a suggestion, would then mention it to stakeholders in discussion just to feel them out even if, as Jared claims, they do not explicitly endorse the plan.  (Note: Giarrusso maintains that he has not spoken to the family at all about this.)

In any case, since, according to the Toussaints, this is clearly still being talked about by somebody we should probably keep asking who that is.

Nobody could have predicted.. nobody can predict... nobody will have predicted

Can you believe it? The City Council's STR regulations aren't actually clamping down on STRs.

Councilman Joseph Giarrusso had questions of his own on short-term rentals. He asked Smith whether the city had seen the “radical increase” in commercial permits that some short-term rental critics had feared would occur this fall. He specifically asked about Mid-City.

The new rules passed in August include a 25 percent cap on the number of units within large commercial buildings that could be used as Airbnbs. However, that will not apply to permits that are approved before Dec. 1. Some short-term rental critics urged the council to put a moratorium on new commercial permits until Dec. 1 to prevent a rush of applications meant to lock in rentals above the 25 percent cap.

“I wouldn’t use the word radical, but there has been an increase, especially in some of the commercial units that just came online,” Smith said. “We don’t expect that trend to continue.”

Smith was referring to a new gated community in Mid-City called 37Hundred Bienville. According to city data, all 20 of the luxury condos have commercial short term rental permits, which allow the owner to rent out the unit 365 days a year.

The permit holder for all 20 units is Hosteeva LLC, an international rental platform based in Metairie. A unit in the new development is advertised on their site at $142 a night.

According to city data, the number of active commercial short-term rental permits has increased by 331 since the new rules were passed by the City Council in August, up to a total of 1,371.

"We don't expect that trend to continue." Does that mean after December 1?  Because, sure, I guess. But it should have stopped before it began in August. It isn't just a problem with this site either.  The Charity Hospital deal also has "grandfathered" STRs over the new limits baked into it. Everybody knew this would happen. Even idiots like me knew it would happen.  Councilmembers certainly knew it would happen.  On the day the regulations were passed, people in the council chambers literally were chanting "Freeze commercial permits!" It's why Giarrusso even asks the question here.

People are shocked and all but I have no idea why that would be.  Remember, Council only came back to pass these insufficient rules because they were embarrassed that people had noticed how insufficient the last set of rules passed under Mitch had been. The current council members aren't stupid. Most of them were elected during a year when voters were mad about STRs so they want to at least look like they tried to do something about it. On the other hand, these politicians don't actually care if you have an affordable place to live. Ultimately, they all work for the real estate vampires.  Which is why the new rules have gaping loopholes in the zoning language in addition to this deliberately planned three month "gold rush" on grandfathering.

What's remarkable, though, is despite having obviously sold housing stressed New Orleanians out more than once, this Council still gets to play Good Cop during the city budget hearings. But only because it turns out the mayor is a more ham-fisted bad actor than they are.

Palmer, along with Councilwoman Helena Moreno, also once again questioned whether the city was properly allocating millions of tax dollars that are specifically earmarked for short-term rental enforcement.

“I’m talking about making sure that the money that’s coming in for enforcement is actually being used on enforcement,” Moreno said.

Monday’s meeting was part of the council’s annual budget process, which includes hearings on the proposed 2020 budget on a department by department basis. The council has until Dec. 1 to tweak and approve the budget. The Department of Safety and Permits — which is responsible for much of the city’s short-term rental enforcement efforts — was one of the five departments or agencies to present their budgets to the council on Monday.

As The Lens recently reported, Cantrell administration officials have gradually walked back plans for beefing up enforcement over the course of 2019. In March, Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño sent a memo to the council explaining that “in order to ensure the city is adequately staffed to handle Short-Term Rental Enforcement,” 16 new employees would be needed.

But now, the Department of Safety and Permits only plans to hire a quarter of that. According to the presentation from Safety and Permits Director Zach Smith, the department is adding four new employees to enforce the new, stricter short-term rental rules that the City Council passed this summer — two attorneys and two code enforcement inspectors.

The trick here is the mayor doesn't really want to do anti STR enforcement. She wants them to proliferate. This week, in fact, the mayor and her PAC are campaigning hard in favor of a local tax on Short Term Rentals on the November 16 ballot.  Just how much revenue that tax will produce is still a matter of dispute. And we've written plenty about how this part of the "Fair Sham" is as inadequate fiscally as it is damaging to the affordable housing supply. Most crucially, as the DSA election guide points out, the new tax enters the city into a Faustian bargain with exploitation.

Turning to short term rentals for revenue only further lets the elite off the hook while actively worsening conditions for cost-burdened workers. This tax would create a perverse incentive for the city to encourage STR growth to gain more tax revenue. In fact we are already seeing the effects of that.

Knowing what we know now about the failures of even the latest set of STR regulations, it isn't hard to imagine a future moment when City Council has to revisit the issue yet again. If the STR tax passes and we end up having to argue against a vital revenue source just to prevent our homes from becoming full-time hotels, it's all going to be a lot harder.  Your mayor and council members understand this now.  But rest assured they will have not difficulty affecting surprise later.

Legal non-conforming use

Looks like the "Residences du Barronne" are fine to remain operating in perpetuity.



Despite what headlines say are "stricter limits" on short term rentals, operations like the Hosteeva property pictured above that have been gutting neighborhoods like Central City, are going to be grandfathered in.

New applications for such “commercial” short-term rentals would be limited to 25% of the units in a single property. There had been a last-minute push by some council members to eliminate that cap, at least in certain areas of the city, but that effort was dropped before Thursday’s meeting.

However, city staffers said those limitations would not apply to existing short-term rental units. If a property is already more than 25% short-term rentals, the units above the cap would be considered legal nonconforming uses and can keep their licenses as long as there is not more than a six-month gap in their operations.

Because this Hosteeva fauxtel is technically zoned for mixed use, there's nothing anybody can do about it now. 

There's also nothing anybody can do to protect much of the surrounding area either. Everything below Euterpe street between St. Charles and OCH is mixed use as well. (That includes the Brown's Dairy site, by the way.)  The next four months are now open season on that whole area.

Some advocates and residents remain concerned about what will happen in commercial districts between now and Dec. 1, when the cap will become law. Buildings that exceed the cap before Dec. 1 will be grandfathered in because of the city’s non-conforming use laws. Residents like Jack Steward worry that big companies like Sonder will use the next four months to open commercial short-term rentals and beat the cap. 

“Is this going to be a gold mine rush to get your permits in before December 1st?” asked resident Jack Steward at Thursday’s meeting.

The council members responsible for structuring the process this way will tell you there's nothing anybody can do about that either. “We obviously don’t know the market will do but these have always been the rules on the books, " Safety and Permits Director Zachary Smith tells The Lens in that article. We're already aware that Safety and Permits thinks everybody is stupid.  But, come on.  

Anyway that's not really who to be mad at in this case. Instead it is these folks.

Councilwoman Kristin Palmer, who has led the charge to place more restrictions on short-term rental rules, proposed a 25 percent per-building cap. Council members Jason Williams, Helena Moreno and Joe Giarrusso had considered introducing an amendment to remove that cap. The proposed amendment, however, was never formally introduced, and the 25 percent cap passed.

 No need to introduce an amendment that you have to put your name on and own when you can finagle a back door alternative that keeps your friends nice and happy anyway.

"You are hurting this recovery and you need to stop it"

First, a correction.  Yesterday when we linked to this Advocate story about the dubious claim that Sewerage and Water Board has  $134 million in uncollected bills sitting out there, we mistakenly believed that issue had been raised by S&WB itself.  It turns out the point actually came from Councilman Giarrusso's staff.  We'll get to why that matters in a minute.  But first, there is this other thing that happened.  In an amusing follow-up to yesterday's story, the Advocate has cleverly decided to publish the mayor's feedback. 

Remember, LaToya has been working behind the scenes with the governor and the city's legislative delegation to land a sensitive deal with the city's tourism magnates over tax revenues.  The mayor has, correctly, asserted the money in question could be better applied to shoring up city infrastructure than its current purpose which is, basically, making the tourism magnates richer.

Unfortunately,  the deal currently reported to be in the works only takes the slightest, insufficient step toward that goal while largely preserving the untenable status quo.  It's not a long term solution. But brokering it does present the mayor an opportunity to make a superficial claim on a political "win" which, of course, is all she really cares about.

So she called in to say some things.

Those fragile negotiations could be imperiled if state officials do not believe the S&WB is doing all that it can to properly manage its own finances. That concern was explicitly voiced by an angry Cantrell, who called The Advocate late Tuesday afternoon to complain that reporting on the figures “could kill the deal.” 

 “What do you want to do, screw the city?” Cantrell asked in a phone call hours after the newspaper posted an online story about the questions over unpaid bills. “Is that what you want?”

“Who’s doing the work trying to get the money we need? Me,” she said. “It’s for the city. And it’s just that serious. You can play games if you want, but this is not the one. It’s not it.”

Now it doesn't look like Cantrell threatened to "cold cock" anybody, but plenty people heard some distinct Nagin echoes nonetheless.

Others of us heard some Trump too. But, as we've pointed out previously, Trump and Nagin exist in very much the same genre.  Harboring no true ideology beyond self-aggrandizement, this particular type of pol is always willing to tolerate any injustice and appease any wealthy toad so long as it suits the ego. And, of course, there is the hallmark reflexive lashing out at any and all criticism.  All of which is very much on brand for LaToya as well so it's hardly surprising to see it here. But, as amusing (or disconcerting.. I often confuse the two) as the spectacle is, there are still some questions that haven't been answered.

First, the $134 million clearly is not real. We already know S&WB can't send anyone an accurate bill.  Why assume that they can compile an accurate record of outstanding accounts?  McBride says here that they can't.  (Update:  NOLAdotcom also reports on the" murkiness" of the numbers here) Anyway, given all of this, why would Cantrell not dispute these numbers in her call to the Advocate?

Cantrell did not dispute the numbers — in fact, she credited her administration with already being aware of them — but said reporting on the figures promoted a “false narrative” that the S&WB could do without money she says it needs for the city's very survival.

"Credited her administration with already being aware of.." the numbers but not questioning them?  If the bogus number tells a "false narrative," maybe someone should get on that.  Cantrell sounds like she would prefer to sweep it all under the rug until it's too late for anyone to ask.  It makes sense when you remember this was the mayor who made everyone on her transition team sign non-disclosure agreements. Paranoid behavior just breeds more suspicion, though.  Why not just conduct the public business in public?

Which brings us to the next question.  It's not even the Advocate's reporters who brought this up in the first place. It was Councilman Giarrusso. Give him credit, at least, for asking the question in a public forum.  But, as you can see here, if anyone is promoting the "narrative" Cantrell is concerned about, it is him. 

Under questioning by Giarrusso at a Public Works Committee hearing Tuesday morning, S&WB Executive Director Ghassan Korban said he could not dispute the figures. But Korban added that it would take months to figure out how much was actually owed by customers and how much was the result of billing problems or other errors.

It was unclear how much of that money would turn out to be entirely uncollectable for those and other reasons, he said.

“The numbers that we learned today of $134 million possibly being owed to Sewerage &Water Board are eye-popping,” Giarrusso said after the meeting. “We want them to have the money they need to operate. But they’ve got to collect the money that’s owed to them.”

Did LaToya call up Giarrusso to yell at him too?  Maybe she did. We kind of hope so, anyway, since he does need a talking to. Not so much about the billing stuff but about this. 

Giarrusso said Thursday that rather than shutting off water to those who owe money, the S&WB should consider using devices that would limit the amount of water that could go to a customer. That would limit the water they get to what is needed for essential needs — such as drinking and cooking — while not providing enough for bathing or more extravagant uses like watering lawns.

What is he trying to screw the city? 

Ask forgiveness rather than permission

Or, in Entergy's case, I guess it's more like asking for forgiveness after having already gotten permission and then sinking a whole bunch of money before anybody might think to revoke that permission.  Something like that. 

Anyway it worked.

Moreno first announced the resolution to rescind approval for the plant on Jan. 17 as a response to the results of an independent counsel investigation that found that Entergy “knew or should have known” that one of its subcontractors were paying actors to support the plant at council meetings.

But late last month, Moreno walked back her call for a revote.

“New dynamics are in play which puts the city and the Council in a different position,” she said in a Jan. 30 press release. “The reason? Costs, specifically the significant costs that have already been incurred.”

It would be silly to think that this was every going to turn out any other way.  Still it's not the absolute worst thing that could happen. Much of the opposition to the plant is aspirational politics anyway. Yes, we want to stop using fossil fuels. Yes, we want to shut down gas fracking. Yes, we want to stop carbon energy producers from ripping our wetlands up with pipelines.  Would revoking this particular construction permit do any of that?  Nah.  But it's fine to take the opportunity to make that case... even if it doesn't result in any tangible action.

QOTD

Joe Giarrusso:

New Orleans City Council members had some surprising answers at a panel discussion hosted by the Bureau of Governmental Research last week when they were asked what they have been most surprised by in city government.

“People lie,” first-year Councilman Joe Giarrusso answered, explaining that developers have told him there was no neighborhood opposition to a project that he knew nearby residents were against.

Must have had a specific person or persons in mind there.  Shame he didn't say who. 

Budget Party Day One

It's been a few months now and I'm still not sure what to make of this Monatno guy.  I wasn't encouraged from what I had read of his time in Albuquerque where the first things that stood out were a penchant for downsizing and an interest in "predictive policing" algorithms. I was slightly more concerned when it looked like he was advocating stop and frisk cops as a revenue generating replacement for traffic cameras. But we really can't judge the CAO until we see what his budget proposal looks like. And that's what this month's city council hearings are all about.  So let's see what we've learned on day one.

The fissures between Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration and the New Orleans City Council became more evident as the two sides sparred over funding and revenues on Friday during the first hearing on next year’s budget.

Council members sharply criticized Cantrell’s inaugural spending plan, arguing it should have included more money for catch basin cleaning and questioning whether a proposal make traffic tickets more expensive bucked a trend locally and nationwide to move away from heft penalties for minor offenses.

Uh oh. That sounds like Montano's budget is going to prioritize writing more parking tickets over cleaning out storm drains. That can't possibly be right. In addition to being a retrograde and regressive means of using law enforcement power to extort money out of poor people, it's also incredibly  politically insensitive. 

Councilmembers were, rightfully skeptical. Their questions elicited strange responses, though. 

Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño said it’s possible the administration could shift more money to Public Works in the middle of next year, but that before he provides more money to the department he wants a more thorough review of its costs.

"I think a lot of these problems came from just throwing money at it and hope that it gets done," Montaño said.

"But money is a resource you need to solve a problem," Giarrusso said.

I'm starting to think Montano has a fundamental disagreement with councilmembers about what's going on here.  Giarrusso assumes the budget process is about allocating resources in ways that best meet the needs of the citizenry.  Montano derides that basic governmental function as "throwing money at" those needs.

This has all the look of that old "run government like a business" canard we thought we had finally thrown off when Ray Nagin's "business-oriented" administration proved out to be teeming with grifters. But here we are again.  Montano hasn't said this explicitly, but he sure sounds like he wants to spend money only when its purpose is to make money back. Councilmembers are correct to question these priorities.

Several council members said it was particularly tone deaf for the administration to leave the catch basin funding flat even as the department beefed up the number of parking enforcement officers who ticket illegally parked vehicles.

“It’s sending a bizarre message out there because I think the priority to the public has always been on the catch basin side,” Councilwoman Helena Moreno said.

Tone deaf.  It hasn't even been a year but that phrase does come up a lot in reference to the way this administration conducts itself.  I wonder how often we're going to use extortion as well. 

Another revenue plan announced at the meeting raised more eyebrows.

The budget projects the city will bring in $500,000 more from traffic tickets next year. That money would come from instructing New Orleans Police Department officers to issue tickets under state law, rather than the city ordinances that have lower fines.

So on Day One of the budget process we're already starting to confirm some of our worst concerns about the Cantrell governing philosophy.  Her CAO is hesitant to fund essential services and eager to use police powers to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of the citizen customer.  But, hey, it's only the beginning. Maybe things will look better when we start talking about crime cameras  

Only 17,000

Despite the loudly expressed objections of every city councilmember, editorial writer, and... well.. pretty much everybody in town, the Sewerage and Water Board is going to resume shutting off people's water next month. Probably they will start at Joe Giarrusso's house.

The announcement follows a letter the New Orleans City Council sent Friday, urging the Sewerage & Water Board "to reconsider its plan to shut off water until complete confidence in the (utility's) billing processes has been restored." The letter, which Councilman Joe Giarrusso penned, followed a day-long City Council meeting Tuesday at which all six council members present said they did not support resuming shut-offs.

"We understand that the (Sewerage & Water Board) has critical funding shortfalls and share the valid concern of increasing the agency's revenue," said Giarrusso, who chairs the City Council's public works committee. "Moreover, we understand the importance of increasing the fund balance and ensuring (Sewerage & Water Board) has the proper resources to serve the community."

Don't worry, though. This action will only affect about 17,000 people.

In its news release, the utility reiterated that shut-offs would only apply to the roughly 17,000 customers who have not formally disputed their bills and are more than 60 days late on unpaid balances totaling more $50. Those 17,000 customers mark about 12 percent of the city's roughly 136,000 customers and collectively owe more than $21.8 million, the news release states.

Thanks to S&WB's as yet unresolved issues with its billing software, many of these so-called delinquencies are just very confused residents trying to figure out what they actually even owe much less how to go about "formally disputing" it.  It's hard to imagine how shutting off service to that many people is going to accomplish.  Maybe they just want to bring the water pressure up a bit before the next boil order happens. 

Story time

Should be a hoot.

The Sewerage & Water Board is set for a second round of grilling by the New Orleans City Council on Tuesday (July 24), when a public works committee meets to continue discussion on the utility's billing system, unpaid bills and construction projects. The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. in City Council chambers.

The council committee is expected to seek a detailed rundown of how the Sewerage & Water Board addresses billing issues, including an overview of the entire billing process from when a meter is read or a bill is estimated to what triggers an administrative hearing on a disputed bill. The council is also expected to ask for information about how the Sewerage & Water Board's billing department is staffed and what training staff receiving in how to manage the utility's new billing software.

They also want to hear from you. At least, that is what this says.

Tune into @WWLAMFM today at 12:10 for a preview of tomorrow’s Public Works Committee Meeting. Have you received a bad bill? Come down to the council chamber tomorrow to tell your story. We’re getting started at 9:00 am.

— Joseph I. Giarrusso, III (@CmGiarrusso) July 23, 2018

Expecting to hear a few stemwinders in there. 

Are they going to try and privatize it?

Matt McBride has never been the most optimistic analyst. But, then, when it comes to flood water, a half full city is bad enough however you choose to look at it.  Anyway when you hire McBride to tell you how your system is doing, odds are he's going to say it's worse than you thought it was.

The Sewerage & Water Board's power system came "dangerously close to complete collapse" months before flooding last Aug. 5 revealed severe problems in the utility's power and drainage facilities, according to an engineer the city hired to assess those facilities. He also found water pressure dropped twice to "dangerously low levels ... without anyone noticing."

After reviewing activity logs from the Sewerage & Water Board's power station, engineer Matt McBride discovered all four of the utility's 25-cycle power turbines either failed or were already down during the five-day period last year from March 7-11. He emailed his assessment to a former top  city official on Sept. 29, 2017, amid emergency repair efforts by the utility to patch the aged power turbines.

McBride's findings, reported exclusively by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, offers startling new insight into the state of the Sewerage & Water Board's power generation system shortly before two summer deluges flooded the city in July and August.

"The events from March 7th forward are far worse than what has been publicly revealed," McBride emailed.

So that makes for fun reading on a Friday afternoon.  Toward the end there is a status report on the turbines. It says Number 1 is down currently and the long troubled Turbine Number 4 is being tested to see if it is suitable for "emergency use."  There are rumors that testing hasn't gone well but that isn't in the story so we'll wait to hear more.

Meanwhile, almost a full year after the bulk of its leadership was swept away in the wake of a flood, the Sewerage and Water Board has settled on a new director.

The board voted unanimously to hire Ghassan Korban over his fellow finalist, former New Orleans city attorney Avis Marie Russell, after an hour-long closed session.

Korban, 56, has been commissioner of the Milwaukee agency since 2011, a job that includes oversight of the Wisconsin city's water department. He has held various executive roles within that office over the past 31 years, a résumé that impressed city officials.

“What it boiled down to was the overall experience that Mr. Korban brings, but also, what our needs are right now in the city of New Orleans,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell shortly after the board’s vote.

That's right. She said, "boiled down to."  It's fine. For a while the interim director was a guy named Rainwater.  We live in a very bad TV show. Everybody knows this.  Anyway, apparently, Korban is a people person.

Duplessis, the utility president pro-tempore, added that not only did Korban's experience in utility services set him apart, but he also scored high marks in the "people portion" of the selection committee's criteria.

"...He had a sincere dedication to connecting with the people," Duplessis said, "not only looking inward in terms of our organization, making sure that we do right by employees and put them first, but also being that public face and talking to our citizens and making them very much a part of the process."

It's important that the new S&WB "do right by employees" given that they seem to have so much difficulty retaining them.

Amid calls for more staff, utility officials have acknowledged hiring managers have been taxed with daily and emergency responsibilities on top of scheduling interviews with job candidates and recommending who to hire. The July 13 hiring day should help managers plug many vacancies at once.

"This agency's greatest asset is our team and in order to work at our full capacity we need hardworking individuals to answer the call to serve their city," Jade Brown-Russell, the utility's acting executive director, said in a statement.

As of May 31, the Sewerage & Water Board's human resources department reported the utility had 534 total vacancies. Much of the staffing shortfall is traced to 463 newly budgeted positions added over the past two years, as well as the retirements, resignations or terminations of 395 employees since June 2016, according to the utility's news release. In all, the utility says 574 new employees were hired between June 2016 and April 2018.

It might help if the leadership over there wasn't so quick to blame their "greatest asset" when things go wrong. But contempt for workers is such a long standing tradition in New Orleans, the reflex is almost involuntary. When a botched cutover to a new software system threw the entire city's water bills into chaos, S&WB accused employees of laziness and incompetence saying they "never took to" the new system.  Employees told the  Times-Picayune  that S&WB management regularly belittled and intimidated staff rather than listen to their concerns. 

Amid calls for more follow-up training, former and current utility officials have declared the system itself, provided by Canadian firm Cogsdale Corp., is not the problem. They argue the problem rather traces to under-supported, short-staffed meter readers and billing personnel, some of whom they claim stayed loyal to the old billing system.

But two Sewerage & Water Board employees with direct knowledge of the utility's billing department and new billing system insist the software still has technical problems, particularly in how it estimates monthly water bills.

These employees agree follow-up training has been sorely lacking, but also say the initial training did not match up with real-world scenarios once the system launched in late 2016.

"It makes us seem like we're illiterate and don't know anything," one employee said. "That's not the case."

The classism embedded in the work culture of New Orleans is born of a deep and abiding racism. Every tossed off comment about incompetence or laziness resonates with echoes of vestigial racial hierarchies.  On the first day of my first job out of college, one of the first things my boss said to me was, "The problem with New Orleans is people here don't want to work." This wasn't an accusation directed at me, exactly. It was meant as more of a just-between-us-white-guys helpful hint. "Those kinds of people" of which there are a lot in New Orleans, need to be kept in line.  It's the deep internalization of these social presumptions that have made New Orleans a company town through and through. Only the boss is assumed to have any rights. Everyone else is probably trying to get away with something.

Hostility and suspicion directed at workers permeates everything. We confront it even when may not recognize it for what it is. It manifested itself last year in the scorn Saints fans displayed for the players' anthem protests. It also drove the obscene displays of reverence for their boss that came pouring out from every corner of the political and media establishment during his funeral. It is why "tourism leaders" and university presidents sit on every local municipal board and make decisions affecting the use of millions of dollars in public funds with little or no input from the workers whose exploitation produces that wealth.

These attitudes also color our relationship with public services such as those provided by the Sewerage and Water Board.  Which is why a basic provision like clean water is only understood in terms of its effect on profits.  It's why we're able to be so cruel and dismissive as to shut off service to rate payers victimized by the billing SNAFU. It might even be why Gambit didn't bother to give us an option in this poll for "They should never do that."

How well does LaToya Cantrell understand any of this?  Not very.  Her remarks at recent job fair had her using S&WB employees as kind of a human shield against public criticism.

"No longer will we tolerate disrespect as it relates to the Sewerage & Water Board," Cantrell said. "And I don't care where it comes from, because you all deserve respect every step of the way, and you have a mayor and you have leadership in place within the Sewerage & Water Board, again, to ensure that you succeed."

Cantrell's remarks follow a letter she sent May 24 to New Orleans City Councilman Joe Giarrusso, in response to a letter he had penned that referenced the utility's "terrible customer service, lack of transparency and poor efforts to engage the public." Cantrell, in her letter, chided the "demands and perceived tone" of Giarrusso's letter, calling it discouraging to the utility's staff and leadership morale.

"As we hold them to high standards, we must remember that neither the board members nor the (Sewerage & Water Board) employees are our enemies," Cantrell wrote. "It is incumbent upon us to work with them to benefit the people of our city."

As we've tried to show above, though, the "disrespect as it relates to Sewerage and Water Board" is coming from inside the house. It's management who isn't respecting the rank and file employees. LaToya is flattening the difference between the board and the employees in order to mischaracterize justifiable public criticism of the way the agency is run as an attack on the people with the least power to do anything about that. Leadership can abuse its charges however it wants. But criticism of leadership from outside is not allowed.

This kind of deliberate class blindness is a staple of Cantrell's political style. As she herself put it in her primary night speech last year, "I'm not talking about taking from the rich and giving to the poor and all that kind of crap." Indeed it is often her purpose to protect the rich from the poor by denying the existence of a conflict between the two.  LaToya defines her approach to housing policy, currently our city's hottest flashpoint of wealth inequality, as a search for "balance."  Her land use decisions as a council person frequently favored spot zone requests for short term rentals as well as incorporating the best "incentives" for developers and what she referred to as "the landlord community."

Cantrell supports these class distortions using a rhetoric peppered with Orwellian slogans and soft bullying phrases calculated to elicit fear and conformity.  #CityOfYes is, of course, the most famous of these but there is more. She's not using "It's got to be we" so much anymore but the spirit of that is still alive in her take on S&WB criticism. It ran throughout a chilling letter she sent to city employees during her first week in office. In that letter LaToya asked the employees not to think of her as a boss but as the head of a family.

First and foremost, I want you to know that you matter to me. We public servants have to stick together, and I think of each and every one of you as my family, because I care about each of you individually and I want you to know that you are seen, you are important, and you are recognized for your work serving our city.

Claudius:

And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son

Or even Mitch Landrieu's "One City One Voice" provides a more immediate comparison. Mitch was an egomaniacal bully too but it's LaToya's penchant for framing professional functions in terms of personal familial relationships that is most disturbing. It is an authoritarian tendency; less a genuine expression of affection than a demand for deference. 

And so the condescension drips from every pipe. Got a problem with your water bill?  Better watch your tone there, buddy.  Trying to figure out what's going on with all the road work? Here's a goddamn garden gnome to explain it to you like you are some kind of child. Which is why we're starting to get a little tired of asking questions at all. Like why is that just as the city has (finally) secured $2 billion from FEMA for infrastructure work that S&WB is "pressing pause" on a $114 million bond issue  that would get some of that work started? Maybe that's a stupid question. If it is, though, it would be nice to think we could get a straightforward answer instead of a huffy brush back or some sort of puppet show.

But, okay, at the risk of all of that, what do we suppose is going on here? 

The task force was created in a bill sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, a Lakeview Republican. It will be comprised of eight people — a member of the New Orleans City Council, a representative of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a representative of the Sewerage & Water Board, a representative of the Inspector General, plus engineering, business and tourism leaders — and is charged with examining whether the agency should continue to function.

“Over the last several years, many residents, business owners, and local officials have questioned whether the Sewerage and Water Board is the best entity to manage sewerage, water, and drainage facilities and services in the city of New Orleans,” Hilferty’s bill states. “Suggestions abound regarding the best management options for the city’s sewerage, water, and drainage facilities and services, including but not limited to public-private partnerships, granting control to the city, or allowing the Sewerage and Water Board to retain control.”

Maybe the gnome will weigh in later but this looks an awful lot like a first step toward privatization. If so, it's hardly a bolt from the blue. It's something that has been building for a while and, now, the pieces are in place at the city, state, and federal levels that could make it happen. Take a look at these parting comments from Mitch Landrieu  just before he left office.

While stopping short of endorsing specific plans, Landrieu suggested that the city's aging drainage system is too far gone for mere repairs. He also said incoming Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who takes office May 7, should put the effort at the top of her to-do list.

"This ought to take priority over every other thing we're doing in the city," Landrieu said.

Regardless of the exact form it takes, such an endeavor would be costly and difficult, and Landrieu warned that residents would likely have to foot the bill with little help from the state or federal government. But he cast the changes as essential to the city's survival and said that deciding on and funding such a plan should be of top concern.

Now that McBride's report is public we have a better understanding of what Mitch meant by "too far gone."  That "residents will have to foot the bill," is a little cryptic, though. Let's talk about that. Major infrastructure work, such as replacing an entire municipal drainage and water system, depends on federal support. This is true even when the federal government is in the hands of 19th Century robber barons as it is today.  When Mitch is saying residents will have to foot the bill this time, he means they will have to pay more of the bill than they previously would have been hit with.  He knows this because he's seen Trump's infrastructure plan.

The meagerness of the federal contribution — just $200 billion over ten years, or less than 0.1 percent of GDP over that period — was already clear from the State of the Union. Half of those funds are allocated to an Incentive Program intended to support surface transportation and airports, passenger rail, ports and waterways, flood control, water supply, hydropower, water resources, drinking water facilities, wastewater facilities, storm water facilities, and brownfield and Superfund sites. Just listing everything the President’s plan claims to address for a federal expenditure of just $100 billion makes the inadequacy of the plan obvious. But there’s more.

The Incentive Program requires states and localities to put up 80 percent of the cost of any project in order to get a federal match of 20 percent. This turns the traditional approach to infrastructure investment on its head. The federal government typically provides 80 percent of the funding for such projects. It is wishful thinking to imagine how cash-strapped states and cities — already on the hook for extensive local infrastructure spending — will be able to find new public sources of financing, especially now that the recent Republican-passed tax law has severely limited their ability to raise taxes to pay for such undertakings.

No, we won't be able to afford that on our own.  Which is where the essence of the Trump plan really comes into play. It's all about privatization.

Trump’s plan turns infrastructure investment on its head in another way as well. Traditionally, the selection of projects to be funded by the federal government emphasized benefits to the public. The administration’s plan weighs the ability to attract sources of funding outside the federal government at 70 percent when considering whether to support it; economic and social returns from the project count for just 5 percent. Federal funding will go to projects that are most attractive to private investors, rather than to those, like clean water, that meet the needs of communities.

Profitability of private investment is everything. The social benefit of building the infrastructure in the first place, counts for almost nothing. Public-private grifting is the order of the day. There isn't a lot the city can do about that. But we should at least demand that our elected leaders resist this piracy.  Unfortunately, given the way they talk about public-private partnerships, "balance" inducing tax incentives, and their flat-out dismissal of the role of class in politics, our elected leaders don't seem to be equipped to do that very well at the moment.

None of this is to say they're definitely going to privatize Sewerage and Water Board. The other finalist for Director was actually part of a group who tried that once and she didn't get the job. maybe that counts for something. Still it may take a fair amount of upticking in order to steer us away from this path we're on. Which is to say the "tone" may have to get worse before things get better.

Congratulations, Jared

You can say this is a story about deciding to run for office. But really it is a story about getting out of politics and into a job where you can just sit around collecting money all day. 

New Orleans Councilman Jared Brossett is officially running to be the next clerk of the Civil District Court.

Brossett has been eyeing the office since shortly after Dale Atkins, the former clerk, won a seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal in March. His plans have now been formalized, with a fundraiser for the campaign scheduled for July 10.

I'm not sure about how the timing plays out.  But I expect Brossett will take his new office shortly after the November election. After that, there will have to be another special election to fill his City Council seat.  Which means there will also be a period where District D is represented by an interim appointment.  Typically, the councilmembers are responsible for selecting the interim person. But the last time this came up, things got ugly and the mayor had to step in and name somebody. This council is still in its post-election unity afterglow where they like to talk about working as a team and whatnot so we're unlikely to see that happen this time around. Still, the choice of Brossett's replacement deserves attention. It could have a determining affect on the city's short term rental policy.

Just to catch up quickly on where we are with that, recall that about a month ago the council, at Kristin Palmer's urging, passed an Interim Zoning District measure which imposes a temporary moratorium on the issuance of one specific type of STR license. This would be the "Temporary STR License" that allows whole home rentals for 90 days in certain areas.  The IZD isn't an immediate ban on their operation, though. Currently active Temporary licenses can remain in use until whenever each individual license expires. And even then, the "pause" as it's been described in the press is just a for-now thing until we get the result of a study due sometime in the fall.

Meanwhile the Commercial licenses are still being issued. These allow unlimited use of property as permanent hotels in areas zoned for commercial and mixed-use.  That zoning terminology sounds restrictive, but actually it covers a lot of the city.  So even under the terms of Palmer's IZD, the most intense kind of STR activity continues to go unchecked. Also, the big players in hospitality are starting to get into the business now. 

The need for a different kind of experience is what prompted Marriott International to enter the vacation rental market dominated by Airbnb, CEO Arne Sorenson told CNBC on Monday.

Formulated with groups in mind, Marriott announced a six-month pilot program in April, in partnership with London-based home rental management company Hostmaker, which does still work with other services, including Airbnb and Home Away.

So, even though Palmer got a fair amount of credit in the media for proposing the IZD, it's not clear that's actually a step toward reining in short term rentals.  In fact, it's possible that, by the time all of this has run its course, the "paused" STRs will be back in play without having missed much business. But all of this will depend on what the council decides to do once they get their new report back from the planning commission. 

As I've stated previously, all of this looks suspiciously like a delay tactic. The further in time we get from last year's election cycle, the friendlier the political environment is likely to be for the pro-STR side. When politicians aren't immediately concerned with being held accountable to voters, the more likely they are to listen to friends and donors.

Already if you listen closely enough you can hear them trying to walk back the anti STR sentiment a bit. We already know LaToya likes to talk about "balance" above all else. Recently, I've heard  Giarrusso and Palmer  express similar sentiments regarding their empathy toward landlords and developers as well as their belief that STR revenue can fund affordable housing in other ways. At a recent Mid City Neighborhood Association meeting on the subject, Giarrusso mentioned the money STR license fees pay into the Neighborhood Housing Improvement Fund established by the city to subsidize developers who might build more affordable housing.   However the JPNSI report found that the money collected all of last year by those fees could probably build just one house.

There are other signs that momentum is already fading. Cyndi Nguyen almost voted against Palmer's "pause" because she is worried about some landlords who she thinks are "the little guy." Jarvis Deberry recently wrote about  HousingNOLA's Andreanicia Morris and her seeming fatigue with the STR issue. 

Morris, executive director of the affordable housing advocacy group HousingNOLA, confesses to being exhausted with all the emphasis on Airbnb. "The problem with the short-term rental debate," she said during an interview in Mid City June 7, "is the energy it takes up."  Expensive housing in New Orleans is an old problem, not a new one, Morris says, and there's a problem in talking about the more recent phenomenon of short-term rentals as if without them, things would automatically be good for renters and homebuyers. 

If even the housing advocates are starting to back off now, how can we expect councilmembers to stay after the STR lobby six or nine months from now? Which brings us back to Jared Brossett's decision to retire from politics and get into the business of sitting around collecting money as Clerk of Court. Up to this point, Brossett was the only member of the council with a consistent anti-STR voting record. If he's no longer around by the time the next important vote on the matter comes around, what happens then?  I'm not optimistic that this is going to end well. I don't think it's going especially well now.

Oh by the way, if you want to submit comments to the City Planning Commission in writing for use in their study the deadline is September 4. In the meantime there is a public hearing coming up on July 10 where you can go yell at them in person. I don't know what the going rate is for paid actors right now but we'll try to get that sorted out in time if we can.

Tone deaf

New boss goes to old boss in record time. 

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is raising concerns about the City Council's "tone" and "demands" made in a letter to the Sewerage & Water Board shortly after the council took office on May 7.

Cantrell sent the May 24 letter to City Councilman Joe Giarrusso, who issued the original letter after obtaining signatures from all of his fellow council members. In Giarrusso's original 10-page letter, he criticized the embattled agency for "terrible customer service, lack of transparency and poor efforts to engage the public," which he said has led to "severe mistrust."

It's impressive, in a way.  But we shouldn't be too much surprised given what we know about LaToya by now. Giarrusso's response is subtle (gotta watch that tone, you know) but he gets the point across. 

The letter serves as a snapshot of Cantrell's transition from the City Council to the city's highest office, a position that often requires defending the actions of city employees or acting swiftly to correct them. After several city neighborhoods flooded Aug. 5, former Mayor Mitch Landrieu began dismantling the Sewerage & Water Board's executive team, which had relayed misinformation to the public about the state of the city's drainage system.

Giarrusso said he understands the position the mayor is in now. Although she acknowledged in the letter that as a council member she had "the same frustrations over lack of information and transparency," Giarrusso said she now "wants to stand up for her people."

"While all that is understandable, our job is making sure we're getting these reports and that we're asking questions," Giarrusso said. And, he added, "The questions we're asking are questions we're getting from our constituents."

Another way of putting that is, there just isn't a whole lot of there there regarding Cantrell's political motivation.  What does she believe in?  What was her campaign for mayor about? Apart from the proliferation of empty cliches like "spreading the love," I mean.  All politicians are ciphers to some degree, but she seems to have a special capacity for hollowness. That can be a useful talent during campaign season.  But it also can lead to a rudderless and ultimately conservative governing style.

If your campaign has not articulated a cause beyond merely putting one individual into office, then the agenda for executing that office is going to hew closely to the status quo. If your raison d'etre in politics is all about "finding balance, "rather than implementing a program based on well-defined principles, then that is an inherently conservative position.   You're basically just going along to get along. And typically that means getting along with entrenched power.

And this is exactly how you end up with tone deaf actions like trying to hire a public safety official who enabled the Danziger cover-up and then blaming the community for its own "upticked" response. Or the similarly tone deaf empowering of a panel of Confederate sympathizers to decide the fate of Confederate monuments.  Or today where we see this tone deaf and defensive response to the "tone" of the City Council's criticism.

Giarrusso points out that she shared in these criticisms and in their tone right up until only a few months ago. But nothing has changed between that time and now except for the personal circumstances of LaToya Cantrell. In other words, LaToya is concerned only with the who rather than the why of power.  She is the person making the appointments therefore they need to be defended against even the slightest perception of a critical tone. These are "her people" now and she wants to stand up for them. 

When you elect a mayor solely on the strength of her own personal brand instead of any particular belief in anything, then personal loyalty is going to be the beginning and end of that mayor's public policy.  Get ready for four more years of tone deaf tone policing. 

"Vocal minority"

Eric Bay is getting real close to saying anti-STR activists are "paid actors" here.

Eric Bay, president of the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity, a local group short-term rental supporters, said in an interview Wednesday that he's concerned the council is acting at the behest of a small group of New Orleans residents opposed to short-term rentals. He estimates that as many as 1,000 permits renewals will be denied when they expire between May and August.

"To have this knee-jerk reaction without properly studying real-time, independent data and statistics is simply bad policy, and a blatant attempt to appease a vocal minority," Bay said. He also said he's concerned the city hasn't properly warned short-term rental operators, saying, "the city is not informing license-holders that actions are being taken against their right and privilege."

Don't worry, I'm sure he'll get there eventually.

Anyway, we're coming off a municipal election where voters consistently said affordable housing was at or near the top of their list of concerns. A majority of the new council believes, at least for now, that the impetus to tighten STR regulations was part of the mandate that won them their seats. But maybe if ANP continues to hammer at this "vocal minority" characterization all summer, eventually some of these elected people will start to buy it.

Also, Jared Brossett has been a reliable anti-STR vote in the past.  Seems like his addition would cement the "veto-proof majority" brought up here.  Where is he on this motion?

According to a City Council agenda released ahead of their Thursday (May 24) meeting, Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer has already convinced three of her fellow council members to co-author the proposal, indicating their support. Those four council members -- Palmer, Jason Williams, Joe Giarrusso and Jay Banks -- constitute the majority needed for approval of the ordinance.

One additional vote will make a veto-proof majority, though Mayor LaToya Cantrell hasn't weighed in on the matter.

Pressing pause again

Who knew that when LaToya found that "pause" button during the Riley flap that she'd be starting a new rhetorical trend?

The New Orleans City Council could vote this week to temporarily halt the issuance of new licenses for short-term rentals of entire homes and bar the renewal of those licenses in residential areas until it decides whether to overhaul the long-term rules that legalized such rentals last year.

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, who returned to the council this month after a four-year absence, has drafted a measure to “push pause” on some short-term rental licenses and plans to put it to a council vote Thursday.

Or maybe it's just that shutting things down "until we figure out what is going on" is a standard move in the Trump era. Either way, it looks like that's what we're doing. Sort of.

What Palmer is proposing here is an Interim Zoning District that freezes the issuance of certain types of STR licenses in certain areas for a certain period of time. Because those licenses don't expire all at once,  though,  this means that many or possibly most of them will continue to operate through a substantial part of the "pause" period. In other words, don't expect this action to suddenly shut down every Airbnb on your block.

Meanwhile she's effectively pushing back the timeline on getting to a more permanent solution. The other part of the motion extends the scope of a "study" aimed at revising the STR ordinance thus also delaying the possibility of action from the summer on back toward the end of the year.

There is a risk that such a delay moves us further from the political mandate on this issue generated by the recent elections and thus dampens momentum toward the tougher restrictions voters clearly demanded. One would hope that momentum could carry through but it is concerning to read that some councilmembers are already starting to talk more about "balance" and acceptance of things that "aren't going away" while speaking in support of this measure.

“We understand that there are competing interests here,” said Councilman Joe Giarrusso, one of the co-sponsors. “We’re trying to balance something here that we know is not going away with making sure that quality of life for people who live here is at its highest.”

It would be a shame if that "pause" turns out to be a prelude to a full stop. But don't discount the possibility that that's where we are headed.

Coffee klatch Avengers assemble

You can still do this sort of thing in Orleans Parish.  In Jefferson, you are likely to be filmed by a P.I. and/or Sheriff's deputy.

For the past three months, a CC’s Coffee House on Esplanade Avenue has served as a sort of satellite City Hall office for an hour or so every Tuesday morning.

It started out as a way for newly elected members of the New Orleans City Council to get to know one another and to swap advice as they built up their staffs and prepared to take office.

As the weeks passed, the coffee klatch evolved into a series of sessions to develop policies and sketch out strategies.

Maybe the JP approach is better. Looks like a lot of business got done at these meetings. Should there be a public record? 

They’ve even divvied up areas of emphasis, based on the special needs of their districts or their areas of expertise.

Moreno, who is taking over the at-large seat long held by Councilwoman Stacy Head, is taking the lead on criminal justice initiatives, along with issues related to the budget and ensuring that City Hall departments and revenue collection are run efficiently.

Nguyen, whose District E includes large swaths of undeveloped and underdeveloped land in New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward, will focus on economic development.

Banks, who will represent Central City and the Central Business, Warehouse and Lower Garden districts as the District B member, will spearhead efforts on community development.

Giarrusso, whose District A includes Lakeview, Carrollton and some Mid-City neighborhoods hit hard by last year’s flooding, will be the point man on public works, including the Sewerage & Water Board.

Palmer, the District C member who represents Algiers, the French Quarter, Treme and Marigny as she returns to the council after four years away, will focus on transportation issues.

Each character has his or her own special abilities. Just like in the comics. Or maybe Jason Williams had the better analogy.

Councilman Jason Williams: I truly feel honored to work with this group. I think it’s an A team.

— Jessica Williams (@jwilliamsNOLA) May 7, 2018

Well, okay, maybe not THE A Team but they do sound like a team.  But don't let that fool you. We're not going in for that One City One Voice business anymore.  This time it's more like two voices at the most. 

Though the two councils that served alongside Mayor Mitch Landrieu had their own initiatives and successes, they tended to follow the administration’s lead on many issues.

By contrast, the incoming council members said they expect to be, as Banks put it, “an equal participant in governance” with new Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

“We obviously want the administration to be successful,” Giarrusso said. “But at the same time, we realize we are a co-equal branch of government, and we are going to operate that way.”

Banks added: “I think we will have the kind of council where the lines in the sand won’t be about individual (personalities), they’ll be issue-oriented. We will not be adversarial, but it will also not be a rubber stamp. I think this council is going to take its responsibility very seriously as one of the three branches of government.”

That's all well and good until Mayor Thanos collects all the stones. Then maybe we won't feel so good.  Until then, though, say hi to the new team. Action figures are still being manufactured. They're trying to get Joe Giarrusso's socks just right.

sock game pic.twitter.com/TjayNksGha

— skooks (@skooks) May 7, 2018

Newcomers (and oldcomers)

The headline to this Advocate article says "three newcomers" are running for City Council. But the term must be loosely interpreted when the so-called newcomers include Joe Giarrusso III,  scion of a well known political family, Eric Johnson, described as, "a former aide to Jim Singleton, a longtime leader of the BOLD organization" and Drew Ward who has been something of a political gadfly for the better part of a decade. In fact, Ward ran for council against Susan Guidry in 2014 in a campaign that will be remembered more for an unfortunate Twitter outburst than anything else.

This time around, Ward hopes to be remembered for a radical sounding idea.

Among other changes, he envisions a municipal assembly of 50 or more citizens that would have the final say on major decisions, rather than the mayor or the City Council. The council would still exist but only to draft proposals that the municipal group would approve or reject. Such a change could help eliminate corruption, he said.

Not likely to get that off the ground. But given the way high profile council meetings can devolve into shouty theater during public comment, maybe it would be fun to let more people shout from the other side of the dais for a while.

There's also some "will he or won't he" talk in there about Seth Bloom and Jay Banks but I think that's been mentioned previously.   The real big local political news this week concerns our latest run of our incredibly stupid and wildly unreliable Twitter poll of the mayor's race.

We began running these along with an early look at the mayoral field back in January. The methodology is this.  I put out a bunch of names in two separate twitter polls. (There are more candidates than can fit in one.)  Respondents are trusted to pick whichever of the eight they like although there is technically nothing stopping them from voting for one from each "heat."  This is obviously a terrible way to go about gathering data. So we're planning to do it all year.

The polls themselves are here. But I prefer to further muck things up by lumping the final results together in one big list as though this were a single ballot. This week, I think it might be fun to list each candidate in reverse order of the number of votes  received.

Michael Bagneris 1 vote (2%)

The judge hasn't been much in the news lately beyond just confirming that he is definitely running. So far the quiet campaign isn't doing much for his numbers in our fake poll. 

Jason Williams 3 votes (6%)

The Councilman-At-Large, to his great credit, was a vocal participant in a recent protest against Donald Trump's travel ban. 

Williams stood at the center of the rally as several speakers talked about their personal experiences with immigration policy and expressed solidarity with immigrants worldwide before it was his turn to speak.

“I’m here because many of your demands were things that I have worked on and pushed with Chief Harrison and with the Congress of Day Laborers before Donald Trump was ever in office,” he said. “Now more than ever, I think it’s really clear we can see how rights can be eroded.”

Williams said even though the new administration has only been in office for a few days, Trump’s intentions to make the country more racist, xenophobic, and homophobic have already become clear.

“We are not going to allow him to push progress back,” Williams said of Trump. “I say to Donald Trump, I say to Mr. Bannon, not on my watch, not in my city, not in my country.”

Recently, though, the rumors tend to suggest that Williams is more interested in becoming D.A. than mayor.  If that's the case, he may skip out on the mayor's race and run At-Large again to bide his time.

Karen Carter Peterson 4 votes (8%)

Another candidacy of which the rumors are running colder as of late. KCP is busy in Baton Rouge this week which is a shame because she may not appear in any parades this weekend.  And Jeremy Alford writes that she's not ready to give up chairmanship of the state Democratic Party just yet and is in fact looking to move up in the national party structure.  That doesn't necessarily exclude her from the mayor's race but it does make it sound like she has other priorities.

Latoya(!) Cantrell 6 votes (13%)

Latoya and her (but not really her) billboard appear to be all in. This week, she's fielding ladder complaints. A couple of years ago, Cantrell convened a Mardi Gras task force that was supposed to solve the ladder problem.  It hasn't. 

Sidney Torres 6 votes (13%)

Sidney's been busy debuting TV shows and writing letters to the editor lately. No reason to believe he isn't seriously considering getting in the race if the field shakes out favorably for him.

Walt Leger 6 votes (13%)

Like everyone else here, Walt is dropping hints.

Leger said Monday evening that he was not going to run for State Treasurer but had “another” race in mind. Like State Sen. J.P. Morrell, also a prospective candidate, Leger is focused on the upcoming special legislative session.  

In the meantime, he'll probably be too busy in Baton Rouge to comment further. Same goes for... 

JP Morrell 7 votes (15%)

Do you ever check out JP's podcast? It's pretty interesting.  Last week, during a talk with WWLTV crime analyst Jeff Asher about, well, a bunch of things, Morrell floated the idea of an elected Chief Of Police. Now that is a fascinating prospect.  Can't even imagine how many bad Twitter polls we'd have to take to figure that out.

"Matt" 13 votes (28%)

Well now this is a surprise, right? You see there was this guy at the MaCCNO meeting I attended last week named Matt. He introduced himself to the group, "Hi I'm Matt and I'm actually running for mayor."  Didn't give his last name. That seems like a mistake. He went on to talk about "community policing" for a few minutes. Anyway, I have almost no idea who he is but I threw him in the poll for kicks.  Consider his frontrunner status an indication of just how wide open the field is at this point.

Not polled in this round: State Senator Troy Carter, who appears to be telling people he is running. Also outgoing US Attorney Ken Polite is said to be interested. We'll throw them in the next poll if there's room.