Animals in the news

Congratulations to Scrim. Far and away the number one local hero of 2024. 

Zoning, code enforcement, permitting and other prosaic municipal matters could wait. The first order of business at Thursday’s City Council meeting was to acknowledge the civic contributions of a runaway dog named Scrim, who became a furry New Orleans folk hero.

As Council Vice President JP Morrell put it, Scrim “really did exemplify the resilience that is New Orleans.”

The good feelings didn't last too long, though, as councilmembers almost immediately broke into a territorial dispute over bragging rights. 

Lesli Harris laughingly said that “this is like one of my most exciting council days ever,” before she laid claim to Scrim as “the official mascot of District B.”

District A Council Member Joe Giarrusso, however, immediately contended that Scrim’s territory had extended into his jurisdiction as well.

We're gonna have to see his voter ID. Or, failing that, maybe his "municipal ID."

This article also says the dog was presented with, " a framed proclamation and a sack of dog goodies."  When I bust out of jail and take two bullets while out on the lam for 6 months, City Council better give me a dang medal.

Anyway, everybody loves Scrim. We even dedicated our Jack-O-Lantern this year in his honor. Look at this good boy.

 

Meanwhile, turning our attention the wild animal kingdom, the New Orleans menagerie of oligarchs has been (slightly) rearranged.

Michael Sawaya, the president of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, will succeed Ron Forman as president and CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute, New Orleans’ cherished collection of parks, museums and environmental attractions.

A 40-year-veteran of the hospitality industry, Sawaya, 64, was chosen as Audubon’s new leader on Wednesday by the Audubon Nature Institute board of directors. His selection follows a six-month search that attracted nearly 500 candidates from around the country.

They went on a nationwide safari to find the heir to Ron Forman's grift. What are the odds that the guy they were looking for was here all along!

And, hey, look at the price they got.  

In his new role, which begins Jan. 1, Sawaya will earn $525,000 a year in salary and benefits, according to Audubon officials. That’s far less than Forman’s $800,000 annual compensation package but more than the nearly $433,000 Sawaya made at the Convention Center in 2023, according to a legislative audit.

The "non-profit" zoo that is heavily subsidized with public funds will now be paying its CEO only half a million dollars instead of nearly a million.  Personally, I still hope they feed them all to Valerio.

Finally,  speaking of big cats ,in order to get around being shitty to one tiger, Governor Landry is forcing LSU to go out and get a whole burner tiger. Unsurprisingly the source is disreputable.

The owner of a live Bengal tiger slated to appear at the LSU-Alabama game Saturday has a history of having his big cats escape as the result of employee errors. 

The university and Gov. Jeff Landry’s office won’t say who would be responsible for any accidents involving Omar Bradley, a 1.5-year-old tiger that’s being transported from Florida for the game. Landry and Surgeon General Ralph Abraham have pushed to return a live mascot to the sidelines of Tiger Stadium.    

After the Illuminator confirmed that a live tiger will appear in Baton Rouge at the LSU-Alabama game on Saturday, WBRZ reported that the tiger is being supplied by Mitchel Kalmanson, who has a long history of federal citations for mistreating animals.

Sounds pretty exciting. Can't wait to see how that goes. It's good of Governor Landry to take time away from his busy work throwing more children in jail and making poor people pay higher taxes to focus on this. Are we sure he knows what he's doing, though?  

Landry’s initial request was for LSU to bring its own live tiger mascot, Mike VII, to games. Previous tigers have attended LSU football games, most recently Mike VI in 2015. LSU announced it was discontinuing this tradition when it adopted Mike VII in 2017 out of humane concerns. 

Landry did not attend LSU but claims to be a lifelong LSU football fan. 

“Our hope is that maybe we can get this tiger to roar a couple of times, and that’ll indicate how many touchdowns we’ll have, and it’ll be more than Alabama,” Landry said Friday in an interview with Fox News. 

Previous Mikes have been provoked to roaring by beating on his cage and taunting from the costumed Mike the Tiger mascot, a practice LSU discontinued.

Who is this for? Which piece of shit Landry donor is pushing this hard to bring back an animal cruelty ritual we all finally moved past a decade ago? Even if you buy into this far enough to be all, "yay the tradition is back!" and are totally cool with the cruelty of it, how do you not still see it as a slap in the face to our beautiful boy Mike VII?

We'll see if the cheer squad wants to be involved in all that this time around.  If not, maybe the Governor could get in the cage and try poking the tiger with a stick or something. 

I hope they at least buy Valerio something nice

You may have seen a few of these signs adorning the lawns of the nicer Uptown homes this month

Here is a shocker for you.  It turns out that all of the differently branded editorial voices belonging to the Georges Media Empire Holding Company are in agreement about how everyone should vote in an election. All of the Georgeses want you to approve the Audubon millage on Saturday's ballot. The Georges-Advocate says Audubon has "done a smart thing" in lumping City Park and a pair of city agencies in with their new tax proposal. The Georges-Advocate-Gambit says some nonsense about how it overcomes "a piecemeal approach" to parks management. The Times-Georges-DotCom says it's "a smart way to maximize tax dollars."

The Mayor and her friends have also dumped several hundred thousand dollars into an all out advertising blitz in favor of the new tax. According to campaign finance filings,  the pro-tax  PAC "Together For Parks Alliance" had spent over $180,000 through March. The report for April isn't out yet. The PAC had about $35,000 on hand to start the month.  Judging from the explosion of mailers and ads on local TV and social media, I'd guess they will have spent something close to $250,000 by the time it's all over.   That's a lot to dump into a single ballot measure. They could have bought one "nurse, teacher, or first responder" a whole condo for that.

We've already talked about this in terms of the hypocrisy of the elites in the Audubon adjacent fundraising clubs who think they run the city. But, okay, what is it they're actually asking voters to do? The Georgeses opinionators all say we're being asked to "renew" existing millages.  But this isn't really what's happening.  The proposed millage is, in fact, a whole new tax that replaces three current millages set to expire two years from now. The Georgeses also tell us that Audubon is graciously redistributing its current revenues in order to "share" something with less well funded entities. That isn't quite right either.

Here is the Assessor's sheet of current dedicated millages in Orleans Parish.

Audubon has two millages set to expire in 2021. One of them (labeled "Audubon Park Zoo" here) is .32 mils and meant to supplement operations and capital improvements at the privately owned and operated facility.  The other one, labeled "Aquarium" for 2.99 mils was specifically dedicated to finance the construction of the Aquarium sometime way back in the 1900s. The bonds serviced by those funds are set to be paid off when the millage expires. In other words that tax has paid for what it was meant to pay for. It's just money that has been going directly to the bank for thirty years. Nobody will actually miss it when it's gone.

Audubon's spokesperson admits as much in this article. 

Although Audubon would lose more than $4 million a year in tax money, Dietz said it will be able to absorb most of that blow when it finishes paying off the bonds that financed building of the aquarium in 2021.

"Most" of the $4 million loss in expiring tax revenue could be "absorbed" when the debt is retired. Makes sense since that's what it was for. This is further corroborated today by a person on Twitter who informs us that Audubon has been spending approximately $3.8 million a year on debt service. If they were to come back in a couple of years and ask to renew their expiring .32 mils, that looks like it would cover the difference just fine. We could argue further about whether they're entitled to that, even. But it doesn't matter because what they're asking for is a brand new tax altogether.


The new tax is 6.31 mils. This figure is derived by combining the .32 Audubon base millage with what had been the 2.99 mils dedicated to bond financing. In order to sell the public on the deal, another 3.00 mils is added to match the amount currently shared by NORD and Parks and Parkways.  The three entities then divide up the total in a way that allows each to take a little bit of what had been the Aquarium debt fund. City Park is also cut in a share.

Critically, though, for Audubon this means a dramatic increase from .32 mils for discretionary stuff  UP to 1.95. The Parks and NORD millages expire in 2021. They could be renewed, or even increased, at that point. There is no need to tie the future of those mils to Audubon other than to provide Audubon with an excuse to bump up their own funds. The claim that Audubon is actually giving something up in order to "share" with the other parties is just a shell game.  The Georges papers certainly know this.  It's a shame they have three "brands" available with which to broadcast their lies about it. 

There's also something perverse in the idea that Mayor Cantrell, who is supposed to be leading a fight for a "fair share" of tax revenues currently enjoyed by the tourism industry would promote this plan to hold our public parks and recreation departments hostage to the greedy interests of Ron Forman's commercial tourist attractions.  But that's the standard procedure around here.  There's no such thing as a public good if it doesn't first trickle down through the usual network of oligarchs.

Just as we're finishing up this post it looks like the new plan has passed by an overwhelming margin.

And that's what having a quarter million dollars to throw around on a single ballot question will buy you.  As long as we keep funneling public money right back up into the hands of the well-to-do, there's sure to be more where that came from. 

Mary Shelley's Ron Forman's Monster

It is my greatest regret of the year that I didn't have time to finish typing up an overlong post to preview this Saints' season.  It ended up, like so many of these big ideas I never have time to develop anymore, getting thrown up at the last minute as a bare bones twitter thread.  This is a thing that happens a lot and I'm starting to think I need a word to describe it.  FailTweets isn't really adequate since every tweet is a kind of failure in the first place.

Anyway I said the Saints would win 10 games. That's still looking like a good bet.  But I didn't get to tell the story I wanted to tell in the unfinished post. I'm keeping the draft because I think it's an important story which may come up again later. It is a story about Valerio. That tragic hero of this summer's incident at Audubon already has my vote for New Orleanian of 2018 for a number of reasons I'll be happy to go into when the time comes. The point, for now, is I think about him a lot.



I posted that photo of my little gourd tribute to our boy and his fallen animal comrades to social sites last night.  It didn't take long for people to recognize the image.  Its creator certainly got it anyway.

Never thought a graphic of mine (In this case, the escaped Audubon Zoo jaguar’s killing spree in July) would be turned into a jack-o’-lantern. My work here is done. Happy Halloween, y’all. (H/T  @skooks) pic.twitter.com/0q1qsb7UGI

— Dan Swenson (@NolaGraphicsGuy) October 31, 2018

But, while there was obviously some humor intended in the reference, I noticed some reactions from people who inferred a gratuitous or even exploitative vibe there.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  There is a natural humor in Valerio's story, for sure. But humor is closely related to tragedy, subversion, and catharsis. All of these are part of the story.  They are also elements of horror which is why this is a Halloween story.

Valerio's story is a story about doomed resistance. It is about the hubris of our attempt to tame the natural world.  It is about the thin, uncomfortable line that exists between order and chaos; particularly when that order is built on suppressed injustices. It is a tragedy born of righteous defiance gone awry.  There are themes present which hint at the inescapable consequences of colonialism, of the despoiling commodification of nature, and of the capitalist exploitation that drives it all. To contemplate the tragic horror of Valerio and his (I hesitate to use the word victims. Really they are all victims) we are forced to question our own role in its creation. The scariest monster stories aren't really about monsters.

Well, Happy Halloween. Here are some pictures I took this year at the St. Charles Avenue Skeleton House and later at the Magazine Street "Ghost Manor" Clever stuff but I didn't see any jaguar pumpkins.

The woke white supremacy war memorial

A couple of weeks ago, Ron Forman announced a new scheme for convincing voters to dedicate public money toward the maintenance of his six figure salary.  It involves holding all of the city's parks and recreation facilities hostage.

The ballot issue being discussed would provide brand new tax revenue for City Park, the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission, the city’s Department of Parks and Parkways, and the Trust for Public Land, the group behind the Lafitte Greenway.

It also would keep tax dollars flowing to the Audubon Nature Institute, a nonprofit which operates the Audubon Zoo, Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Park and several other nature-based attractions for the Audubon Commission, a city agency.

An Audubon spokeswoman would not discuss how much money the agencies might seek or when they hope to put the issue before voters, but she said details will be released soon.

"We are in the process of creating a robust engagement plan to inform the community about the partnership ... and will have more information in the weeks ahead," Lauren Messina Conrad said.

That is some heavy word choice from Conrad.  You know who else had a "robust" plan to inform the community? The Times-Picayune.

It's fine to ask New Orleanians to boost funding for public parks. But a better deal for everyone would get us to a place where those same public funds aren't also supporting the social and political activities of the elite brunch clubs who sit on the boards of Audubon, City Park, and the Trust for Public Land.   And they certainly shouldn't be purposed in ways that help those individuals compound their wealth.  But Mayor Cantrell doesn't seem like she cares about any of that.  All that matters to her is that everybody gets along.  And since a lot of these rich people are friends and allies of hers, it's nice to see them all do well together. She really had to tip her hat to that.

"A lot of people felt like, 'Money is going to Audubon, and we don't know how they are benefiting or not,' " Cantrell said at a luncheon Thursday at City Park. "This time around, I really have to tip my hat to Mr. Forman, because he is rethinking and being creative as the taxes come up for renewal."

But Forman isn't the only prominent Uptown political donor thinking creatively.  Frank Stewart also has an idea.  

A pair of men who opposed the toppling of Gen. Robert E. Lee's statue from Lee Circle want New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell to replace the Confederate general with a plaza dedicated to a range of U.S. military and associated organizations.

And, apparently undeterred by the year and a half that has passed since Lee was taken from his pedestal, their plan calls for returning the focus of the St. Charles Avenue traffic circle to the man who led the Confederacy’s armies in Virginia with a series of plaques largely dedicated to his biography.

While the idea of a war memorial itself seems formulated to win broad support — the proposal specifies new statues should feature figures of diverse races and genders and include dedications to the troops of many wars, their families and even the Red Cross — the reintroduction of plaques lauding Lee would be a controversial move.

Stewart and Charles Marsala want to bring Lee back.  Only this time they want to do it "inclusively." According to this logic, anyone who objects to the Lee monument must also hate the troops of diverse races and genders.  It's the woke way to commemorate white supremacy. 

Cantrell hasn't publicly tipped her hat to this idea yet. But it's very much in the same spirit of what Forman is proposing. And, remember, the mayor said several months back she would be working with monument supporters like Stewart to come up with something that will make them happy. 

As for resurrecting the fallen monuments, Cantrell she said she’d support the group's intentions but also made it clear where she thinks the city’s responsibility ends.

“My plan is to work with those who care about them and come up with a plan that I could support,” she said. “And they will pay for it.”

That bit about how "they will pay for it" bears watching also. Particularly since they're going to install this on thing in a public space. And especially particularly if Forman's creative funding plan for those public spaces goes through. 

Whither Ron Forman's big expensive video board?

Oh look we're "pressing pause" on something again.

New Orleans officials are pressing pause on plans to demolish and rebuild the Canal Street ferry terminal, having dramatically underestimated construction costs.

Though the Regional Transit Authority budgeted $14 million for the first phase of the terminal project, the lowest bid for the work came in at $26.6 million, forcing the agency back to the drawing board.

Officials said they will come up with a new, more affordable design over the next few months. And the terminal, initially on track to be razed in September, will instead be bulldozed by this time next year.

It's the phrase of the year. Off the top of my head I can recall LaToya wanted to "press pause" on her appointment of Warren Riley to Homeland Security. Kristin Palmer said she wanted to "press pause" on short term rental licenses. Sewerage and Water Board recently recently hit the "pause button" on a bond sale. Can we please press pause on pressing pause for a while? I think we have hit the quota.

Anyway, this pause is kind of a surprise. At least to me it is.  The whole course of this ferry re-fit has looked like spending more money on providing worse service. Why (sorry) press pause on that now? The explanation in the article has it that difficulties arising from the location of the construction site and the timing of the project caused the price to go up.  Also they go out of their way to say it is definitely not Audubon's fault.

The higher cost estimate does not factor in the addition of the $7.3 million bridge, a project that is being managed separately by the Audubon Institute.

That implies Audubon was paying for the bridge. I don't think that's true but I could be wrong. This says the city was planning to pay for it out of "(Hurricane) Katrina insurance proceeds that were unobligated." And this says that Audubon had asked to spend $2 million of that on a "video board" which Forman later said they wanted in order to "'dress up' the bridge with 'artwork, lighting or whatever it is.'" We have no idea whether or not that's ever going to be part of the plan now. We do like what Kristin Palmer has to say about that, though. 

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, one of the most vocal proponents of adding the pedestrian bridge, said the agency should consider simply renovating the old terminal rather than rebuilding it. She said the focus should be on helping commuters rather than building something that might impress tourists.

“I’m not so concerned about the tourists having a pretty vista,” Palmer said. “I am more concerned, quite frankly, about getting people to work.”

Meanwhile, Forman has plenty of other ways to suck money out of the city via the riverfront as Audubon has a cooperative endeavor agreement to operate whatever they do with the Esplanade wharf area. Walter Isaacson says there's gonna be some sort of music venue there. He also says he made that up. 

Isaacson tells Gambit he doesn’t know what the plans are and was pointing to the park project as an example of the city’s vision of tourism expansion, with the wharf turning into something “like Crescent Park or the Moonwalk or other public parks, where there’s venues for art and music and tourism.” As for its specific use as a music venue, “I obviously don’t know for sure, because there have been no hearings or proposals on it,” he said.

We were supposed to hear more about that at a City Council committee hearing today. No word on how that went yet.  More to come after the pause, I guess.

Update: Here is where the money is supposed to come from to develop the new park. 

The deal between Audubon and the city calls for the nonprofit to develop the site as a park and raise $15 million for its development.

So far, Audubon has put together $13 million: $9 million from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center; $2 million from New Orleans & Co., the city's rebranded convention and visitors bureau; and $2 million from Audubon itself.

The port is expected to help raise the remaining $2 million from private sources.

They don't know what it's going to look like yet but they say there will be "significant public input" before that happens so be on the lookout for some 10 AM meetings on a random Wednesday or whatever in the future.

Upperdate: Another point from that article is that the neighborhood associations are already worried about the "disruptive" effects of an event venue like what Isaacson described in that Time piece.  As a footnote to that issue we can look back at last year's election  season when both candidates for mayor talked up the possibility of such an amenity specifically for its revenue generating potential so we'll see how that goes.

Uppestdate: This morning, the Advocate has edited the lede to their article about the ferries from "New Orleans officials are pressing pause.." to "New Orleans officials are going back to the drawing board.." probably in order to gaslight the readership.

Something something Ponzi something

This is a touchy conversation to have in New Orleans. It comes too close to threatening a perpetual scam run by some Very Important people.

“Audubon Institute is not a park; it’s a large organization that runs a park,” said Mike Moffitt, a former commissioner of City Park. “It seems to me very confusing to have funding so broadly distributed, because it doesn’t get any focus. If the city needs to fund insectariums and aquariums and other projects, then they should fund them, but they shouldn’t fund them thinking they’re funding a park.”

The need for funding drives initiatives for park leaders to create “amusements” that charge admission, the panelists said, but every new amusement takes away from land that was previously open to the public, a concept described as “We pave our parks in order to save them.” Debra Howell of Save Audubon Park said that these projects often end up losing money anyway, and become part of the larger system that needs financial support, rather than contributing to it.

“Every new facility loses money rather than raises money, and the next thing you hear is yet another plan for a new facility,” Howell said. “At some point when does it become obvious that none of these new facilities are going to raise money?”

The "next facility" is the fundraising pitch that keeps everything going. When your non-profit launches a new campaign to the donor base, it's helpful to say you're raising the money for a shiny new thing. That works better than just begging for money to stay afloat.   It's sort of like the way firms like Uber leverage piles of venture capital to hide their massively unprofitable business models. Which is why Ron Forman can pull down a six figure salary running a public-private "non profit."

Of course, a park is not a start-up. It is a public resource. It isn't supposed to turn a profit. But because we like to pretend that everything is better if it is run like a business through "public-private-partnerships" we create all sorts of byzantine opportunities for socialites and oligarchs to pass public money around to each other.

Justin Kray of “City Park for Everyone” noted that City Park is also likely to begin looking for tax support from voters, and that he too thinks a single citywide system would be a better approach. He noted that while individual parks such as Audubon and City Park have conducted surveys of their users, he’s not aware of any survey of recreation of the entire city.

“We’re continuing to perpetuate bad solutions to a problem that’s structural about how parks are funded,” Kray said. “I’d like to contemplate a future where we have a unified parks governance and operational strategy citywide. All these things are related, and the health of the city is in large part related to the health of the parks system.”

Ideally, all of this would fall under one unified NORD/Parks and Parkways department with its own dedicated funding and a mandate to provide free open and equal access to facilities in each and every neighborhood.  But that would be horning in on too many rackets.

"Artwork, lighting or whatever it is"

Ron Forman doesn't sound so sure what the video board was even about here.  But he does make it sound like there might end up being a roof on the ferry walkway after all so that's nice.

Speaking Monday, the Audubon Nature Institute president and CEO Ron Forman acknowledged that the Audubon had requested up to $2 million to "dress up" the bridge with "artwork, lighting or whatever it is." He said that Audubon initially did not want the bridge next to its $200 million aquarium, and that any bridge design should complement the aquarium's aesthetics.

As for a roof, Forman and Manning left the door open Monday night for the bridge to have some sort of overhead covering.

"I don't think there's any reason it can't be covered," Forman said.

Or, at least, it can be covered in some way. 

It all moves in a circle

I think I see the problem here.

NOJO Chairman Ron Forman, the broadly respected head of the Audubon Institute, told WWL-TV on May 12 that the NOJO board had agreed to pay all of the Library Foundation money back, as soon as they can raise the money from private donors.

Brown said none of that money has arrived yet, but he is working to craft a written agreement with Forman and NOJO as soon as possible to memorialize the Jazz Orchestra's commitment to pay back the money and so the Library Foundation can budget for a specific amount.

Just a stab in the dark here but it seems like if NOJO could raise the money through only its own donors, they never would have had to raid the library foundation in the first place. Also, there is the problem of this being a small town where the pool of possible donors to any of these non-profits is pretty tight.  Odds are if you're giving to one, you are at least getting pitched to by all of the others.

Sometimes you end up in one of these funny situations where the organization you are donating to this year needs your money to pay back what it stole from the one you gave to last year.  And the odds are Ron Forman is on both boards anyway so that saves a lot of work. It's very convenient.

"Third Fortune 500 Company"

Here's a report from NOLA.com on the salaries of New Orleans's leading non-profit CEOs.

A look at tax records for more than 230 nonprofits in New Orleans shows compensation for CEOs and other top-paid employees varies widely depending on the sector and size of the organization. In general, the larger the organization is and the more national in scope its peer group, the bigger its paychecks are.

At least 17 nonprofit executives in New Orleans make more than $300,000 a year, including three who were paid more than $500,000 for the year, according to a NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune analysis of the latest IRS filings available and Guidestar.org reports.

The report comes with a handy search tool in case you're looking for something that isn't in the slideshow.  Here are the top "earners."



What really jumps out at you here is the money thrown around by organizations in direct receipt of public money like Audubon or the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Also the Sugar Bowl seems to do pretty well thanks to its partnership with NOCVB and the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District where we find the great bulk of our hotel/motel tax revenue directed. Add to that the fact that the Sugar Bowl exists at all thanks to the unpaid labor of college athletes risking their health for these ghouls and you start to wonder how some people sleep at night. (On stacks of cash, yes, I know.)

And then there is the NOCVB itself. Look how modest they are. 

In emailed statements, board members for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said CEO Stephen Perry and his team manage a giant economic engine that markets the city through three domestic travel offices and five overseas, amounting to, as businessman and board member Greg Rusovich put it, "what is virtually Louisiana's third Fortune 500 company."

The board reached Perry's $439,840 compensation in 2014 by looking at what his peers were paid in 10 competing U.S. cities. The board then took the average of the five lowest paid executives.

See? Perry's half a million dollars a year is actually "low" by their definition. And for all that great work he does non-profiting off of our low wage economy (Minus 2,400 hospitality jobs over the past twelve months!)  you have to admit we're getting a real bargain there.

The hilarious thing is NOLA.com spends hardly any space in this report talking about the public investment in building these individual fortunes. All we get, really, is this one paragraph about Perry's compensation.

Where the money comes from is also a concern. New Orleans' hotel tax is a key source of funding for the board. Steve Pettus, board treasurer and managing partner at Dickie Brennan & Co., said board rules specifically stipulate CEO pay must be funded by private sector dollars.

Money being fungible and all, though, this is pretty meaningless.What it means, in practice, is that once NOCVB has finished leveraging public money away from public service and into the pockets of hoteliers, marketers, developers, etc., they can pay the CEO out of the kickbacks they receive in donations.

Not just Mayfield

I know I sound like a broken record at this point. But I want to flag this month's Antigravity for what is, as far as I can tell, the first article written about this fiasco that really goes after the point.

While the conflict of interest between NOJO and the Library Foundation has particularly far-reaching implications, unfortunately Mayfield’s decisions were made within the context of increasingly common public-private funding structures, whose actions take place outside the public eye. Consider the Audubon Nature Institute. While public money funds the Audubon Commission, the Audubon Zoo and its associated parks, the Audubon Nature Institute is a private nonprofit which runs the Audubon Commission, and its financial records are not available to the public. Nonprofits are exempt from financial disclosure laws even if they run on public money. The Institute recently received scrutiny for attempting to enter an exclusive contract with the Sazerac Company, who would then be the only alcohol vendor permitted to sell in a new sports development intended for the Fly. The Sazerac Company is run by Paul Fine and Jeffrey Goldring, who are both on the board of the Audubon Nature Institute. The implications of this contract strengthened an already firm public stance against further developing this public green space. By the time The Advocate, NOLA.com, and WWL-TV had covered the backroom deal with the Sazerac Company, any remaining enthusiasm for the sports complex fizzled, and the project was derailed. However, public disclosure laws, which do not require board members to declare financial interests, remain unchanged.

The Audubon Nature Institute also uses public funds to pay the $500,000 plus salary of its Director, Ron Forman. Forman has been at the center of New Orleans business and politics for decades. In the past he headed the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District Board, and in 2006 ran for Mayor. Incidentally, he was also Chairman of NOJO’s board and on the board of the Library Foundation (along with his son, Dan Forman) when Hammer’s story broke last year. In a May 2016 WWL-TV interview, Forman emphasized the “complexity” of the issue, and insisted that any improperly spent money would be repaid, though he defended the use of library money for the Jazz Market. When he was asked about whether the board majority of he, his son, and Mayfield and Markham could have made some dubious decisions in handing over the reins to Mayfield, Forman became defensive and questioned the “values and ethics” of the accusation.

We want to point and shout at the one with the $1400 breakfast, but the problem is far more widespread and ingrained than that.

Fly swatted

From the looks of things the swells won't be using The Fly to pass money to each other after all.

According to a report by WWL-TV, the controversial project that would have built a soccer stadium at the Uptown 'Fly' near Audubon Park is dead for now, according to one of the project's main supporters.

John Payne, who designed the project, told WWL that the complex was “just too divisive an issue.”

Payne will return more than $4 million in donations to the project’s supporters, which include Drew Brees and Tom Benson, WWL reported.

This is the second public reversal for Ron Forman in recent years. His scheme to boost property taxes supporting his very profitable "nonprofit" zookeeping empire was shot down by voters in 2014. He's still got millions of dollars and all the powerful friends a guy could want, though, so don't feel too bad. 

Also, the Club of Oligarchs will be back sooner or later with another, probably worse, idea.  They usually get what they want. Thus, the entitled fits they throw on the rare occasions when they do not.

The "ethics" of insulting The Club

How dare you, sir!

There’s another issue that Forman has not addressed over the last 10 months. His son Dan was on the Library Foundation board with Mayfield and Markham when they changed the charity’s mission and began sending six times as much money to the Jazz Orchestra as it granted to the city’s library system. Ron Forman bristled when asked if he was concerned with how that looked.

“You’re going into an area where I’m questioning your values and ethics in what you’re asking,” he said. "There’s no conflict in any of those areas and I have no problem at all in what role my son serves as a volunteer, the role I serve as a volunteer. None of us gets paid a penny.”

State records show Dan Forman signed the official Library Foundation resolution changing its articles of incorporation to expand its mission beyond just supporting public libraries. The younger Forman told WWL-TV last year that Mayfield told him the resolution was about adding more members to the foundation board. He also said he didn’t remember voting as a board to pay the Jazz Orchestra “that amount.”

The ethics-fu is strong at The Club. Who are we, without membership, to question the mysteries of their ways?

It's all one swell little club

You know, as much as New Orleans cultivates and promotes an image of itself as a bustling, forward-looking hub of innovation, the "volunteer entrepreneurs" who run that scene sure do seem to be the same tight little circle of people passing around the "public-private" funds.

The NOJO audit, performed by an independent accounting firm, found material weaknesses and significant deficiencies in the nonprofit's accounting -- including wide use of a NOJO debit card without supporting documentation, poor record keeping for revenue from tour groups and patrons at a bar NOJO runs and hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to Mayfield without a written agreement for his services.

The audit comes as the New Orleans Public Library Foundation continues to seek recovery of the money Mayfield and partner Ronald Markham transferred between 2012 and 2014. They changed the Library Foundation’s articles of incorporation to expand its mission beyond simply supporting the city’s public library system, passed resolutions granting themselves special powers to make unilateral financial decisions and immediately began sending money to the NOJO, which paid them each six-figure annual salaries.

The money – given to the Library Foundation by donors to support the libraries – instead went to help build a $10 million NOJO headquarters, jazz club, bar and community space called the People’s Health New Orleans Jazz Market. Markham stood by the use of the money, saying it would provide much-needed library-style services in Central City and would offer access to some of the city library’s jazz collection.

NOJO’s board is led by Ron Forman, the head of the Audubon Institute and city Audubon Commission, and Forman promised last May to pay the entire amount back. But discussion of a formal agreement to pay the money back last summer never materialized. And recently, NOJO appeared to balk, insisting that its own legal review determined the money had been properly spent.

Oh look Ron Forman is here. Ron Forman is fresh off the LSED board where he oversaw Tom Benson's lease. Benson is giving money to Forman's friends at the Carrollton Boosters so they, along with Forman's Audubon Institute, can turn a park into a profit center.   Ronald Markham, late of the Library Foundation, is also on the Audubon Institute board.  Remember, though, these are the 'treps and visionaries who love to accuse the rest of us of being "provincial." So know your place before you speak ill of them.

Fenced out

Last week when we brought up this mess at The Fly, I was certain there wouldn't be anything anybody could do to interfere with Ron Forman and Tom Benson and their various friends in the Uptown clubs doing whatever they want with the open space along the riverfront.  I might have been wrong about that.

Adrienne Petrosini, representing the Save the Fly movement, requested Thursday (March 3) that the City Council consider creating an interim zoning district for The Fly, which would require any development on the property to earn City Planning Commission and council approval.

The council voted to receive the request and forward it to its Community Development Committee, which can consider the creation of an interim zoning district.    

The Boosters want to fence off a large space currently open to the public and build a new soccer field which, unlike the open soccer fields that already exist there, they can collect rent and concession sales from operating. Open public shared space shouldn't be fenced in for private profit like that.  It's good to see the City Council at least take this principle into consideration.

On the other hand, maybe they don't really care.

The city’s new fence, which will enclose the parking lots that extend along Calliope Street from St. Charles Avenue to South Rampart Street in the Central Business District, will force out dozens of homeless people, some of whom were camped there on Wednesday. The city plans on having it up by mid-April.

Reopening the parking lots, which have been chained off since 2012, also is designed to provide relief in a neighborhood where parking spaces are in high demand. And turning them into managed, paid parking facilities, as the city plans, also is expected to bring new revenue for the city.

Before the city closed the area to parking in 2012 to combat homeless encampments, the lots were under the state’s jurisdiction, and parking was free.

The New Orleans Building Corp. plans to ask for bids from would-be lot managers this spring. Officials said revenue estimates won’t be available until after an operator is chosen.

“Because of the limited number of on-street parking spaces available, returning this area to commerce will decrease traffic congestion and increase accessibility, which will ultimately improve commerce,” said Cedric Grant, the Building Corp.’s acting chief executive officer and the Sewerage & Water Board’s executive director.

"Returning" previously free parking "to commerce," says Grant. Good lord.  He's not wrong, though. Parking is a booming business in New Orleans these days.   Maybe the Carrollton Boosters can be persuaded to trade their current racket for this one.  It's worked out well for the Landrieus, after all.
 

The Fly is Chinatown

A few weeks ago we played our annual flag football game out at The Fly. Sadly for fans of the legendary Vibrio Vulnificus Football Club, things did not go especially well for our heroes. The previously undefeated Vibrios were done in by a lack of preparation combined with just plain being a bunch of old dudes.  Given the week of soreness immediately following the game, there isn't a single one of us who would blame the recently cut [CORRECTION soon to be cut] Marques Colston if he just decided to call it a career.

Still it was a nice day for it. Sunday afternoon at The Fly is quite busy with families and neighbors, picnickers and soccer players, or just anyone there to hang out. Ron Forman says he needs to fence a big part of it off, though. 

Plans for a soccer complex at the The Fly are on hold, as backers hold talks with opponents of the $4 million project.

The Carrollton Boosters, a youth sports nonprofit seeking to build the complex on the Riverview section of Audubon park, already has approval for the project from the Audubon Commission, but the group has agreed not to begin construction until it has heard the public's concerns, said Ron Forman, head of the Audubon Nature Institute.

"It's a short term pause to see input on how we can improve the project," Forman said in a phone interview Tuesday (Feb. 23).

The Audubon Commission is the public body that manages the park for the city of New Orleans and is vested with decision making power over the park. The Audubon Nature Institute, a private nonprofit partner, serves as the commission's staff.

To visitors on any given Sunday, it isn't clear what amenities these "improvements" would provide that don't already exist. There are already soccer fields.  Stupor Bowl 3 made use of one of them with no difficulty. There's already adequate parking. Even though there were lots of people using the fields, we didn't have to pay a rental fee because the space was not made scarce by fencing.  We brought plenty of beer so we didn't have to buy concessions from anyone.  This is different from what Forman and the Boosters are envisioning. 

The commission approved a cooperative endeavor agreement last spring with Carrollton Boosters, granting them the right to develop the soccer complex on Audubon land. Under the agreement, the Carrollton Boosters are vested with managerial authority over the complex and entitled to any revenue it produces from concessions and rentals.

The plans call for a full-sized soccer field, to be in enclosed by a fence, bleachers, a press box, a new concessions building, a playground and two parking lots. The 2.5 acre field would be the only area not open to the public at all times, but the full footprint of the project would occupy more than six acres, a sizable chunk of the 40-acre riverfront park. A large swath of the park is already dedicated to a cluster of baseball diamonds and a trio of soccer fields.

So that seems unnecessary.... for anyone who doesn't stand to make a little money off of the deal, anyway.  Naturally some folks who do not were upset. 

A group of New Orleans residents are banding together to oppose a plan that would expand sports facilities on The Fly in Audubon Park and put the new facilities under the control of a private booster club.

"There has been a lot of concern over what is being considered the taking over of the only wide, green space on the river," said Bill Ives, one of the development's opponents. "We think it should be preserved as a unique resource. There are many places in the city where a sports complex can go."

An online petition opposing the development had 3,800 signatures Monday evening (Feb. 15).

The most contentious part of the new development is the conversion of 2.5 acres of open green space into a tournament-grade soccer field and parking lots. The new facility would be placed under the management of Carrollton Boosters, which is footing the project's $4 million price tag.

Okay wait  a minute. That's not exactly correct.  Technically it may be okay to say the Boosters are "footing the $4 million." But, really, most of it is coming from Tom Benson. 

The $4 million price-tag for the project is being footed by the booster club, which solicited donations from foundations and wealthy individuals, including Saints owner Tom Benson and Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

It should be worth noting that Benson's donation benefits not only his friends in the Boosters but also Ron Forman. In recent years, Forman sat on the board of the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District which is the public entity directly responsible for overseeing Benson's extraordinarily favorable lease on the Superdome and adjacent properties.

Who should we turn to in order to report this obviously inappropriate political kickback? What about our friends at the Bureau of Governmental Research?  They're always keen to weigh in on stuff that seems fishy.  Who is over there we could talk to? Let's ask Treasurer J. Storey Charbonnet. He ought to know how to follow the money for us. Certainly shouldn't be any problem for him also sitting on the Carrollton Boosters board of directors the way he does.  Charbonnet happens to be an Audubon Institute commissioner on top of that so, you know,  connections all over the place. When the reporters check back in on the story I really think this is the guy to talk to.

Probably you see where this is going. Probably you're about to say, "But Jeffrey, we can't rely on Charbonnet or his friends at BGR to offer us an unbiased analysis of Forman and Benson's shuffling of money back and forth. These organizations are all just different combinations of the same elites covering for each other."

Well you had better hold your horses there, bub. Stacy Head says that kind of talk is out of line.

Councilman James Gray and Councilwoman Stacy Head, however, argued that more space is needed for organized youth recreation.

Head blasted some speakers for attacks on members of the commission and the booster club, saying that claims of profiteering from the project or elitism in the organization were out of line.

Maybe we should just listen to Stacy. After all, everyone knows the work done by our city's elite organizations and non profits is always strictly "Pro Bono Publico"

“The generosity of those donating to such a worthy cause has been tremendous as the Pro Bono Publico Foundation hits this $1 million milestone,” said Foundation Chairman Storey Charbonnet. “We’ve seen continued annual growth in contributions to help invest in our community’s future by promoting a strong educational environment for children.”

The grants exemplify PBPF’s drive to assure that all of New Orleans’ children have access to excellent schools. Ninety-three percent of New Orleans students now attend public charter schools. These schools, and organizations supporting their important work, have been the focus of PBPF’s investment, as well as the commitment of dozens of Rex members serving on their boards.

The Pro Bono Publico Foundation was formed by members of the Rex Organization as New Orleans recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Foundation giving, in its ninth grant cycle since 2007, now totals $4.4 million in cumulative cash contributions to schools.

Forget about it, yall. The Fly is Chinatown.

Is this one of John Kennedy's "400 budget cuts"?

Bobby Jindal's insanely stupid deal with Tom Benson.

Legislators on the House Appropriations Committee lost some of their spirit for their New Orleans Saints this week when they learned the state is paying owner Tom Benson almost $2 million more than the market value of 323,000 square feet of space the state leases in Benson Tower, including an entire floor that’s unoccupied.

The News-Star reports many freshmen lawmakers learned about the cost for the first time this week as they grapple with budget cuts that could cripple higher education and health care.

“It was shocking to me,” said state Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, who also owns a home in Shreveport. “To have 24,000 square feet that’s unoccupied? I don’t know of anybody in DeSoto or Caddo or Sabine parishes who has a house that big. It makes no sense.”

But hey like any good solid trickle-down plan, it all comes back in the form of philanthropy money gifted to Ron Forman's con-profit and its continued appropriation of public space for privatized uses. 

The Carrollton Boosters, a nonprofit children’s sports group, intends to build a $4 million sports complex there, thanks to an agreement with the Audubon Commission, the public arm of the Audubon Nature Institute, and to donations from Tom and Gayle Benson, Drew Brees’ family and Louisiana-based companies like Tabasco and Iberia Bank.

The proposed development, which has been referred to in city documents as the Benson & Brees Soccer Complex, would accommodate soccer, football, kickball and lacrosse. It would include new restrooms, a concession stand, a new playground and $250,000 in landscaping, according to Audubon officials.

Audubon board and staff members, as well as supporters of the boosters club, have heralded the project as a way to expand sports opportunities for New Orleans children, providing a much-needed field for a growing organization that has served local children for more than 75 years.

Since the proposed development became public, however, it has ignited protests from residents who denounce the project as turning over public land to a private, though nonprofit, organization, and who say too little of the green space by the river will be left for those who just want to meander by the river or picnic on the grass.

Is anyone going to point out, also, that Forman sits on the LSED board which, technically, oversees Benson's lease?  How is this "donation" in any way appropriate? 

Does Ron Forman still make six figures?

Can't imagine he's come back down off of that $700,000 in the past year. 

Are Audubon's attractions and service free and open to the taxpayers who provide Ron Forman's six figure salary?  No?

Well guess what. 

Unicorns

James Gill on the Continue Paying  Ron Forman Six Figures For Some Reason millage:

A portion of the increased tax revenue will be earmarked for ANI’s Species Survival Center in Algiers, where we are told the bongo and the okapi are among the animals to be bred. There could be baby unicorns running around there for all we know, because the public is not allowed in.

We know the ANI does a bang-up job though. Anyone who can afford the admission prices will be full of praise for the zoo, the aquarium and all its other attractions.

Taxpayers, who are generally loath to trust their elected officials with a dime, may well decide on Saturday to give the ANI, a private nonprofit, a multimillion-dollar free rein for half a century. That the proposal has not been laughed off the ballot is testimony to the high esteem in which the ANI and its hard-charging president, Ron Forman, are held. Chances of passage are boosted because Forman fans are well-organized and motivated and this is an off-election.

Good to see the tide slowly turn against this thing among the commentariat at least.  (See also Courreges here.)  It will undoubtedly pass anyway, though. 

Missile gap

Ron Forman says we are in danger of losing an arms race.

If it doesn’t pass, Forman warns, New Orleans will inevitably be eclipsed in a kind of tourism arms race by destinations that continue to invest in bigger and better facilities. “We would probably hang on a few years, but eventually, we would decline and not be the attraction we are today,” he said.

Uh oh. Can't afford to fall behind just at the moment that we're all pretending to restart the whole Cold War.  How can we not meet the challenge of Vladimir Putin's aggressive zoological exploits?

In preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, Vladimir Putin visited a Persian leopard sanctuary when suddenly a six-month-old cub attacked two journalists. Known for his action in the face of danger, Putin leaped into the fray like an agile cat and subdued the cub by calmly cuddling with it. The journalist suffered minor feline-related injuries. According to the BBC, after the heroic event, Putin said, “I like animals, it seems I have a feeling for them.”

The Persian leopard went extinct in the Caucasus region of Russia in 1970. In 2009, Russia established a captive breeding program in Sochi National Park in order to reintroduce the leopards in the wild. Putin visited the park in an attempt to demonstrate the positive environmental impact of the Olympic Games, which environmentalists have decried as damaging habitats.

Putin is no stranger to the animal kingdom. In 2008, he assisted a group of scientists in tracking and tagging an Amur Tiger. In a similar 2010 expedition, he put a tracking collar on a polar bear. Putin has also ridden horses shirtless, wrestled dogs in the snow, stood next to undisturbed reindeer and flown a flock of Siberian cranes to winter habitats in a glider.

Obviously something has to be done. As luck would have it, Ron Forman is ready to do something... he's not telling you exactly what. But he does know that the best thing to do in any national security crisis is to throw money at it first and ask questions later... way later.

Unlike the last time Forman asked taxpayers for money — back in 1986 to build the aquarium — there has been little public discussion of what the institute plans to do with the extra cash. And that’s despite plenty of time for debate: Audubon’s existing millages won’t expire until 2021 and 2022.

What’s more, the ballot question arrives as City Hall grapples with how to pay for a seemingly endless list of other priorities: a local jail in need of reform, an understaffed police force, public schools that could always use more support and many others.

As much as the Audubon Nature Institute serves as a public resource and tourism draw, it is also a private entity that charges for access to its attractions, pays more than half a dozen executives six-figure salaries and has rarely faced the kind of scrutiny other agencies do over how it allots public dollars.

And, of course, now is not the time to start applying any such scrutiny to the well-compensated executives of this publicly subsidized non-profit. We've got an arms race to win. 

Existing or future

Just show Ron Forman the money. He'll come up with some excuse for having it eventually.

The Audubon Commission, which controls Audubon Zoo, Audubon Park, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and other local parks and facilities, is asking voters to renew two millages, totaling 4.20 mills, for 50 years. The taxes currently bring in about $11.9 million a year for “acquiring, constructing, improving, maintaining or operating” existing or future museums or parks.

The Audubon Institute is a taxpayer subsidized nonprofit.  Sort of  like the NFL is.