A bigger haul

Torres is poised to take over the Richards' contract now. After that, he's bidding on Algiers as well. 

Contract negotiations will follow Tuesday’s selection. If they are successful, IV Waste will take over from Richard's in the new area on April 1.

At that point, Torres would control nearly three quarters of the city's 153,000 curbside waste and recycling pickups outside of the French Quarter and parts of the Central Business District — and that might not be all. On Wednesday, the same committee is scheduled to select a new hauler for Algiers, with more than 18,000 service locations.

IV Waste is also vying for that contract.

These are some of the biggest, most lucrative contracts the city lets to anyone and now Sidney is closer to collecting them all. So that's what he's won.  What do we get out of the deal?

The administration also allowed the contractors to cut service frequency in half, to once-per-week, to avoid disruptions in the future. The service cut is now permanent, since going back to twice-weekly pickups would further balloon what the city must pay.

Cantrell last year hinted that an increase in $24 monthly sanitation fees on water bills may eventually become necessary, despite the service cuts, since the fees don’t cover the costs. She has more recently dropped those hints, however, as outcry grows over rising taxes, insurance and other costs of living.

Over the long haul, what happens is you pay more and get less while one trash hauler hauls away more and more of the loot. 

Hello, and welcome to a fabulous New Year of blogging yellowly

Unfortunately this new year is still among the 2020s which, as we all know, are categorically bad. Anyway, I know I've been saying it is time to get the Yellow Blog back into running shape for a while and I know that every time Twitter starts to die, it seems like that is the time to crank it back up over here. But I really do mean it. Maybe this will finally be the thing that does it. 

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the character limit for tweets will increase from 280 to 4,000 characters early next month.

The feature, which was first proposed in December, is one of a number of changes to the social media platform that the tech billionaire plans to roll out over the coming months after purchasing it for $44 billion last October.

The increase in character length will be only the second time in Twitter’s 17-year history that it has changed the limit, having previously boosted the original 140 limit to 280 in 2017.

As the big social media sites have absorbed and siloed off the whole internet over the course of the past decade, so has Twitter eaten up more and more of my blog posts. That's mostly because I am incredibly lazy and it's easy to just tweet a half-baked thought out and let it go. But, when I'm doing it right, a blog post shouldn't be longer than one or two tweets anyway. Ideally, this is where the half-baked thoughts are supposed to go. 

But, also, this is supposed to be where I put stuff that I want to remember later. And a chronological, taggable, searchable web log of annotated bookmarks is far better for that purpose than the increasingly unreliable instant gratification machine currently being dismantled by a chaotic billionaire.  And if the tweet stretches out to blog post length anyway, (I just checked. So far this post isn't even over 2,000 characters.) it might as well be posted over here instead.  So this time, we mean it. We're gonna try and put the stuff that happens this year on the Yellow Blog so that it doesn't all blow by in a confusing haze this time. Besides, 2023 makes 20 years of posting here so we need to have a nice round archival number. 

I think what we'll do for a while is try to get at least one post up every day or so that collects some of those annotated bookmarks I mentioned. There are a couple of drafts of longer form writing that have been lingering for a while which I would like to finish but let's wade back into this a step at a time.

With that in mind, here is today's stuff I wrote down so I might remember it later. 

The Louisiana Democrats will need to find their own loser candidate for governor instead of borrowing a Republican loser

Late last year, there was a parlor game discussion going around trying to parse whether Dem-aligned power brokers and/or centrist establishment media would rally around a Bill Cassidy campaign for Governor in 2023. Cassidy is a "weird dude" and a perpetual darling of the Advocate editorial page. But that's not exactly an unassailable coalition to ride up against the Jeff Landry juggernaut. The last reporting we've seen has Landry wielding a $3 million war chest plus the official endorsement of the state Republican Party and multiple Super PACs all of which multiplies his fundraising capacity many times over. Anyway, Cassidy decided it wasn't worth it. Much better to sit around in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body doing nothing forever than to take on that headache. His fellow Senator John Kennedy (although he theoretically might have posed a stronger challenge to Landry) reached a similar conclusion last week.

When Bill said he wouldn't run, all of that speculation about Democrats and media picking a favorite Republican shifted over to Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser. For a long time it seemed like Billy and Jeff deserved each other.  For example, we know they both have a problem with librarians. Landry is on a typical "anti-woke" crusade to burn them all while Billy is retaliating against them for blowing the whistle on his corruption. Heck, since the day they were elected to their current positions, we've had them neck and neck in a pool to see which of the two would be the first one indicted and whose scandal would be the stupidest.  Maybe this is just a sign of the times, since despite the fact that each has had his share of doozies over this term, neither has yet landed in jail. Guess we should have bet the over.

And like any pair of like alpha dunces vying for the same space, Jeff and Billy clearly do not like each other.  Nungesser hasn't been shy about saying so. In December, Nungesser said that he had to run against Landry if Kennedy didn't because "Jeff is a bad person." That's was after a long summer of scrambling for endorsements and pre-announcing that he was planning to announce a candidacy.  

And yet, today, Billy says, nevermind all that. 

“But the worst pandemic in our lifetime and a series of devastating storms leaves me with unfinished business to bring tourism back to its peak performance, especially for the near 250,000 families who rely on this industry for their livelihoods. For that reason, and after much thought and prayer, I have decided to seek re-election to the Office of Lt. Governor"

Those devastating storms and the pandemic did not happen just this last month, though.  So who knows what really got Billy to back down? The upshot is the Democrats no longer have an easy way to just quietly sit out a Governor's election they had clearly been planning to just quietly sit out.  Can't wait to see what they come up with. They don't seem to be generating a lot of excitement these days, that's for sure. 

Ad-hoc garbage service

This Sunday morning, we were stunned to see a Richard's Disposal truck picking up on our block. Turns out they're dealing with a "backlog" maybe? What is going on here?

In a statement Monday night, Richard said the company is addressing the backlog with 70 additional personnel, pulling from crews in Baton Rouge and Jackson, Miss. Richard said he and the company "look forward to working cooperatively with the city council, mayor and all of city government to address the market conditions and other circumstances that affect timely trash collection,” according to the statement.

The statement did not address the administration's decision to turn over some routes to different contractors. 

Those "other contractors on some routes" is confusing. Apparently the city is juggling the routes that contractually belong to Richards among Waste Pro and IV Waste, the companies who recently took over Metro's territory. Now they're encroaching on Richards bit by bit as well. But it all seems to be happening according more to whim than a comprehensible scheme. 

Richard’s contract expires in March, 2024, though the city can terminate it for cause or "convenience," which essentially means it can be ended at the city's discretion. Officials have previously said they want to rebid the contract this year, but they have not laid out a time frame. 

Asked how long he expects his company to supplement Richard’s, Torres said officials had advised him “to be prepared to do it until they put it out to bid.”

Meanwhile, they're just making it up as they go. And paying a premium for it. 

My FNBC jury duty notice was sadly lost in the mail

 I didn't even get invited to the tailgate party.  Anyway, the trial is kicking off. 

A jury was seated Monday in the federal bank fraud trial of First NBC Bank founder Ashton Ryan, Jr., as lawyers readied for what is expected to be a weekslong trial probing the actions of Ryan, other executives and bank borrowers ahead of the institution's stunning 2017 collapse.

I have said many times there is probably a good book someone could put together centered around this bank collapse that might tell a broad story about the post-Katrina era of New Orleans politics, real estate, education, and non-profit corruption.  I don't really see this trial telling that whole story but... I may have liked to take a look at this list.

Lawyers involved in the case have said the prosecution's witness list initially was between 100 and 200, though it will call far fewer over the next few weeks. Witnesses are likely to include at least some of those who have taken guilty pleas in the case, including Gregory St. Angelo, the bank's former top lawyer.

Speaking of post-Katrina failures and corruption...

This is part of a series the T-P has been running about "changing streets" or some such. I think the idea here is to frame the massive displacement and dispossession New Orleanians have endured as just "inevitable progress" or whatever. But some of this stuff you can't gloss over. 

According to statistics from the New Orleans Data Center, since 2000, the area encompassing the Marigny, Bywater, St. Claude and St. Roch neighborhoods has gone from 61% Black and 32% White to 17% Black and 72% White. The number of households with annual income over $100,000 a year rose from 3% to 19%.

The article trots out familiar apologists CW Cannon and Rich Campanella to sigh and shrug but at least Cashauna Hill is here to point out that these aren't just natural forces at work. They are deliberate policy choices.  

Many of those pushed out crossed St. Claude Avenue, where the process continues today, said Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. 

Hill said population changes and demographic shifts are often inevitable, and said opposing gentrification does not mean opposing investment.

The problem, she said, is that the city’s leaders have consistently favored policies that encourage gentrification — pouring millions into Crescent Park and the Rampart-St. Claude streetcar line and failing to rein in short-term rentals — while neglecting policies that would prevent it — primarily funding affordable housing.

No need to catalog all of the atrocities right now. But I will point out that the City Planning Commission is once again this month rolling out yet another round of STR regulation that looks on track to once again favor wealth over residents.  We'll catch up on that later. But seeing this picture of where our neighborhoods are today, reminded me of this remark from Mitch Landrieu when he took office as mayor. 

In August, when Mayor Landrieu announced his plan for spending New Orleans’ hard-won recovery dollars he warned a famously tradition-bound city that the time had come for change. “It’s especially important that we stop thinking about rebuilding the city we were and start creating the city we want to become,” he said, echoing his inaugural address.

This is the city we chose to become.  

When the "cyberattack" eats your homework

Amazing story from over the weekend. Let's see if we can sum it up in under 4,000 characters. I think we can. 

So, to start with a cop shot a dog. Apparently this was not the first dog this cop shot either. Which is why the owners of the dog that was shot (the second dog) requested the Public Integrity Bureau file on the first shooting as documentation for their lawsuit against the city. The city agreed to hand over the document. Except  WHOOPS it turns out the city cannot actually produce it because it is locked away in the Iron Mountain. 

Document storage company Iron Mountain is withholding hundreds of boxes of files it is storing for the city of New Orleans because of an ongoing financial dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration, a City Hall spokesman confirms.

So, according to this report, the city hands over "hundreds of boxes" of public records (which departments and types of records is unknown although clearly NOPD is one) to a private contractor who can, apparently, hold them up for ransom in the (seemingly inevitable) event that the city falls behind on its bill.  That's very interesting! We'd love to know more about that situation. But, WHOOPS guess what. 

But there is no record of a contract to store old paper files for the NOPD or any other department. Iron Mountain’s local administrator, Robert Leamann, spoke to a reporter in early December and declined to provide information about the company’s scope of services for the city. He also said at the time he was unaware of a dispute with the city or the subpoena. After being sent a copy of the court records, he referred subsequent requests for comment to a corporate email address, which did not respond to multiple emails.

The company’s local attorneys, Kellen Matthew and Kathleen Cronin, also failed to respond to emails seeking comment.

Joseph could not say why the city purchasing office could not locate a contract with the company, but noted that all contracts and purchase orders contained in the city's BuySpeed and AFIN databases were lost in a 2019 cyber attack.

Oh man that "cyberattack" sure did a number on public records, huh. Man that is a shame that nobody can get anything from those databases. Unless, somebody... looks it it up and gives it to them... wait.. what? 

What?

Here are Buyspeed purchase orders the city pulled for @misaacstein last year. https://t.co/jffDInLBzN https://t.co/KuGGmE7HWD

— Charles Maldonado (@Maldonado_CB) January 9, 2023

Sometimes the cyber attacks and sometimes it doesn't, I guess. Just a mystery we'll never fully get a grip on. I wonder if it is going to attack those unwritten garbage contracts next.

Keep Doing What You're Doing

Honestly, I have no idea what Saints fans are so upset about this week. They're all ready to fire Dennis Allen after one season as Head Coach even though that one season was the greatest of his entire NFL career to date. In three prior seasons with the Raiders, the dude had never won more than 4 games. This year he won three whole games more than that. That's a 75 percent improvement! 

I'm never clear on what it is Saints fans are really after these days. We already won football in 2009 so there's no need to stress over that anymore. From that point until the time when the brutal criminal enterprise that is the NFL collapses under the weight of its own contradictions,  I just want to see as many interesting things happen as possible. A lot of interesting things happened to the Saints in 2022.  We listed some of them here. Whether those things are "good" or "bad" is really a matter of taste. 

All pro football teams are pretty evenly matched talentwise. Most games are decided according to a combination of dumb luck and which team is the least injured that week. Most of the jawing about whose fault that is or is not is just how fans have fun. NFL fans are basically conspiracy theory hobbyists constructing grand bullshit theories to draw certainties out of what is essentially unknowable. You feel a lot better about it all once you understand this.  Not everybody wins the Superbowl every year. Most teams, in fact, do not! Hopefully fans of the teams who do not don't see this as a complete waste of their time. How sad, that would be if they did. 

Anyway, I can't have strong feelings about Dennis Allen one way or the other.  He seems like a pretty boring middle-management guy. That's probably why he's risen to this particular point of mediocrity.  I definitely don't think the Saints got the most out of their offensive players this year. That seemed like a coaching issue to me. But, again, I'm just spinning theories like anybody else there. Whatever they do, I hope they don't bring those awful black helmets back.  I don't think those helped matters one bit.

Buying The Deed

I know we've talked previously about how the Bruno vs. Medley race is really all about Sidney Torres's "bloody" feud with the Motwanis.  At the time we wrote that, however, we could only find some $36,000 in campaign contributions to Medley through Torres's various business partners, family members and LLCs, like so..

More fun with finance reports. These are the first three entries on one judicial candidate's contributions. pic.twitter.com/4uA9gSxXrU

— skooks (@skooks) October 8, 2020

This was a real thing. We know because the Times-Picayune reported on it here.  Also whoever is responsible for putting out these DSA voter guides noticed as well. 

But, since that time, The Lens has found there is still more to it. 

The allegation involves a $100,000 loan that Medley received in September from IV Capital, a company owned by Sidney Torres — a local entrepreneur, outspoken opponent of Bruno and the primary benefactor of Medley’s campaign. The same day she took the loan, Medley issued a $85,000 loan to her own campaign. A week later, she donated another $15,000 to her campaign. The campaign report says the loans were from Medley herself, and do not mention Torres’ company.

That certainly escalates Torres's investment.  What, technically, is he supposed to be buying into there? Real estate, of course. 

The collateral Medley used for the loan is an investment property she owns on 4725 Baudin Street. The house is assessed at $204,000. And records from the city’s notarial archives show that Medley has taken out loans on it totalling $269,000. As a result, the Bruno campaign characterized IV Capital’s $100,000 as essentially an unsecured loan to Medley. It’s unclear how much she still owes on the property. One of the mortgages — for $119,000 _ dates to 2013. The other one, however — for $150,000 — was finalized just this year. 

Torres told The Lens that a private assessment valued the property at nearly $300,000, and that he personally thought the Mid-City double was worth even more. He also said that there was only $155,000 in debt attached to the house.

“I promise if she does not pay him back he will foreclose,” Litchfield said. “That’s what he does.”

Boss move for Sidney.  No matter what happens in this election now he comes out of this owning something.  That could be yet another house he can flip.  Or it could be a judge.

 

See also:  The Antigravity voter guide is out this week. Their write up also notes all of the above with regard to this race including the latest bit about the loan on the house.

Blood feud spills over

If you were watching that bizarre facsimile of what we are now calling NFL football on the TV last night, you may have noticed that one Civil District Court race has "gone negative," as they say.  Division F candidate Jennifer Medley ran an ad during the game that attacked incumbent Judge Chris Bruno for his "silver spoon" upbringing. This was, of course, contrasted with Medley's supposed meritocratic virtue.  Medley is, herself, the daughter of former Judge Lloyd Medley so it's a bit rich to be raising the issue of which candidate was born into what. Medley and Bruno, in fact, have had more TV ads running than just about any local candidates on the ballot this fall. It's a curious distinction for one among many judicial races on the slate.  We're now starting to learn what that's about.

It turns out that the ad we saw last night wasn't even the one Medley's people wanted to run.  Instead they had cued one up that accuses (apparently falsely accuses) Burno of having been a "deadbeat dad." But the campaign was enjoined from running the ad at the last minute because of the dubious nature of the accusation. 

The ad references a divorce case that began with a filing by his then-wife Kate Bruno in March 1995. It wasn't until 2009 that the child support question was settled with a consent judgment between the parties. In the meantime, according to an affidavit filed on Bruno's behalf by family law attorney Steven Lane, there wasn't a child support judgment or decree against him.

Bruno's own son filed an affidavit calling Medley's ad "blatantly false, malicious and insulting to him and his family." Both his parents had supported him financially, the son said.

More to the point, though, it also turns out the money to pay for all of this mudslinging comes from Sidney Torres. Here is why. 

One of Bruno’s lawyers questioned why Torres’ production company was involved in making the ad buy. The lawyer, Megan Kiefer, claimed that Torres is pouring “tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars” into Medley’s campaign to “exact some vengeance” on Bruno.

Bruno last year issued a ruling against Torres in a case involving the ownership of 500 Frenchmen Street, which houses the night club Vaso.

Recall that the Vaso dispute pitted Torres against the Motwanis in a clash of real estate weasels struggling for control of Frenchmen Street.  When the dispute flared up in 2018, Torres (probably taking some words out of context) publicly accused his opponents of making physical threats. 

Torres cited a voicemail he said was left on his agent’s phone, as well as a phone call that, according to a court filing by Torres, had Aaron Motwani saying that if Torres didn’t comply with demands, “It will get bloody.” Torres' attorneys, in the court filing, cited what they described as a call log Torres' agent wrote shortly after the call, as well as a recording of the voicemail.

“I want to ask nicely for you to call us back," Motwani says on the voicemail cited in court. "But if you want to handle it the other way, we can handle it the other way, too.”

Aaron Motwani said his voicemail was taken out of context and did not reference a threat of physical harm. He declined to be interviewed but sent a text message in response to questions about the calls.

“As far as the comments, about blood on the street, those comments are completely false and were completely taken out of context,” Motwani wrote in the text message. “I have never or would ever threaten harm in a matter that should be handled through the courts. It’s a distraction from the facts of this case.”

Eventually, Bruno ruled against Torres who, while calling it a "snake move," on the part of the Motwanis went on to promise, "this whole thing is basically not over."  And so now here he is funding Bruno's opponent.  And that's how the blood feuds between oligarchs spill over into your elections, and onto your TV.

Maybe they didn't hear it correctly through our masks

Pretty sure we've been saying de-fund the police, not re-fund the police. 

New Orleans City Council members agreed Thursday to ask voters to renew a sales tax that would pay off-duty New Orleans police officers to patrol the historic French Quarter.  

For the past five years, the 0.24% tax has paid state troopers to monitor that neighborhood. But the ballot language the council approved Thursday doesn't bind those troopers to that job, and members said the cash is better spent with the French Quarter Management District, whose supplemental police patrol program has been praised by residents and businesses. 

Under the program, off-duty NOPD officers use smart cars to navigate the Vieux Carre. Residents can use a mobile app to confidentially tell the task force about crimes in the area.

This is the cop app program created by Sidney Torres back in the day before he sold that idea to Fox television and then went on to bigger things as the star of his very own house flipping show. 

This week we learned that Sidney has taken his treppin' talents into the culinary world... during a pandemic... because certain kinds of wealth inoculate us against all sorts of risks, I guess.  Anyway, at least he didn't choose a cloyingly ironic name for the new... oh... 

Trep’s has been taking shape for months on property that was once an auto garage of the same name. As it’s progressed, neighborhood speculation about the plan here has swirled, thanks to the design and one high-profile partner in the project.

That would be Sidney Torres IV, the local celebrity entrepreneur and reality TV star.

Well alright.  Good to see Sidney is doing so well during the collapse of everything.

This round goes to Motwani

The epic clash of New Orleans Real Estate Dickheads playing out on Frenchmen Street is not over, though. At least according to Sidney it isn't.

Motwani said the deal with Vaso calls for the club to buy the building and sell part of it back to the Motwanis. The club, he said, will remain.

Torres said he plans to appeal Bruno’s ruling. “We’re not backing down because we feel the law is on our side,” he said. “This whole thing is basically not over.”

Torres described the Motwanis’ effort to acquire the building after losing out in the bidding as “a snake move.”

When he had the French Quarter garbage collection contract, Torres was known for the lemony scent he ordered spread through the city’s historic core. He said he planned to evict Vaso in part over unsanitary conditions, including rats.

That's weird, though, because you would think the "snakes" would be ideal for helping to clean out the rats. Also this article conforms to the legal mandate that any story about Sidney Torres must include the word, "lemony." I suppose it is here in order to set this up. 

“I’m very anal when it comes to cleanliness,” Torres said. “Right now (Vaso) doesn’t fit with what I own.”

In which case I think we should amend the rule to now require this quote be added to the conditions. 

Update: Of course if Sidney does miss out on Vaso and is still looking to take over bars, then Parasol's should be available soon.

You'll be able to get a roast beef po-boy at Parasol's Restaurant & Bar this weekend, but after Friday night, the bar at the classic Irish Channel neighborhood joint will be dry.

Parasol's proprietor Thea Hogan said that a city lawsuit over unpaid taxes has left her unable to renew Parasol's liquor license, which expires Saturday. She is working to get the bar back to normal, but when or how that will happen remains an open question.

There are a bunch of rumors going around but the basic story is the bar owes at least two years worth of back taxes for some reason.  Unless the debt is paid and the license reinstated within six months, the building could lose its non-conforming usage status. At that point, nobody will ever be able to operate a bar there ever again.  Because this is New Orleans where we love our neighborhood bars so much we are always trying to kill them.

Anyway so the rumors are a bunch of people are "lining up" to buy the bar and pay off the taxes so they can take over Parasol's. That sounds like a Sidney move to me. But then I don't know if a dingy corner bar really meets his cleanliness standards.

Maybe Sidney can buy it

Probably we shouldn't speak such things into being but Sidney has been running around scooping up iconic New Orleans properties as well as bars/music venues lately.  And, well, now it looks like the Dew Drop Inn is available.

Plans to redevelop the historic, dilapidated Dew Drop Inn building on Lasalle Street in Central City into a modern hotel, restaurant and music venue have officially been scrapped.

A deal had been in place late last year that would have seen the 80-year-old, predominantly Jim Crow-era music venue sold to a developer with plans to renovate the two-story, 10,000-square-foot space to include 15 hotel rooms, along with a restaurant, music venue and a museum dedicated to New Orleans music.


But that deal — to sell the space to Ryan Thomas and his company Peregrine Interests — fell through at the end of the year. In late April, the effort officially ended.

Back in 2015 then councilwoman LaToya Cantrell helped create a cultural overlay district intended to spur development along that stretch of LaSalle Street. 

The LaSalle Street overlay is designed to promote businesses catering to the cultural arts and live entertainment as well as hotels, similar to what was done on Freret Street. Adult-themed businesses and karaoke bars would not be permitted.

The main benefit of the proposal would be to pave the way for the redevelopment of the historic Dew Drop Inn into a boutique hotel and live music venue, Cantrell said.

No idea why karaoke is prohibited.  Maybe that's what killed the Dew Drop plans. In any case, the zoning overlay is still in place. So if somebody wants to invest in a live music club in that spot, the opportunity exists, theoretically.

BUT, speaking of opportunity, last week we mentioned this quirk in the way the Trump Administration is handling so-called "opportunity zones" now that makes them even more open to exploitation as scam tax shelters than they already were.  Is the Dew Drop in one of those? The way this is drawn it looks like it might be just the wrong side of the street. But I don't know how that boundary works, exactly. If so, it might make the land more valuable to "investors" as a vacant lot than anything else. 

 Not that this would deter Sidney from buying it one way or the other.

Drainage app

Forget about the fact that he wants to make a St. Roch market out of it for now and look at this.

Circle Food Store dates to the 1930s and was one of the country’s oldest African-American-owned groceries. It closed in October after sputtering through a final period of irregular hours when shoppers found increasingly bare shelves.

Before reopening, Torres said he wants to discuss the area's drainage issues with New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell's office. The store gained a spot in the national memory during Hurricane Katrina when an image began to circulate showing floodwaters reaching several feet up its signature arches

In 2015 Sidney bought a series of television ads complaining about crime in New Orleans.  The ads bought him a closed door meeting with then Mayor Landrieu and then Police Chief Michael Harrison. This, in turn, led to an oddball arrangement of  state troopers, "citizen patrols" and off duty NOPD details in the Quarter funded by a special sales tax, a slice of that famous Convention Center surplus, and some vehicles Torres donated. 

Also Sidney made an app for these patrols to use.. or not... it isn't clear how useful that was. But for Torres, it's the perception that matters more than anything else.  So in 2017 he bought a mayoral debate which, amazingly, most of the candidates agreed to participate in. Among those who did was now Mayor Cantrell who took the opportunity to loudly and confidently praise Sidney's app. Results matter, LaToya said, and according to her.. and little else.. Sidney's app "reduced crime." 

Now Sidney wants to meet with the mayor about drainage. Can't wait to see how that goes.

.

what

Been a little too busy to keep the yellow blog updated lately. That should be changing soon. But it's impossible to resist jumping in to just ask... what

Sidney Torres is the proud new owner of the building that housed an historic New Orleans grocery.

Torres, a real estate mogul and reality TV star, bought the Circle Food Store for $1.7 million as the store was put up for auction Thursday afternoon. He said before the auction that he intended to keep the store as a grocery.

No idea what level we've sunk to at this point.  But the NOligarchs are just picking properties up out of the bargain bin now.

Speaking of which, what do we make of this mess?

A golf driving range venue is being considered for Morial New Orleans Convention Center property, potentially a complement to a proposed hotel next to the facility.

The New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority, which oversees the state-owned convention center, was scheduled Tuesday (April 23) to ratify a letter of intent on a lease with Topgolf. The Dallas-based company operates nearly 50 similar facilities in the U.S., including one in Baton Rouge, and five international locations. The authority’s board meeting was canceled, with president Melvin Rodrigue in Baton Rouge earlier in the day to testify at a legislative committee meeting.

The Advocate story is a bit better here. It mentions Topgolf's rivalry with Drive Shack as well as the names of the local investors now enlisted on either side of it. Notice Joe Jaeger's odd position. 

Drive Shack's $29 million Howard Avenue project will occupy the site of the old Times-Picayune building, which is currently undergoing demolition.

The site was bought in 2016 by a consortium led by developer Joe Jaeger, with partners including Barry Kern of Mardi Gras World and developer Arnold Kirschman.

Jaeger is also involved in developing the Convention Center's $557.5 million Omni hotel project. A decision about that project is expected to be made this year.

The Convention Center is trying to get Jaeger to build them a hotel on land adjacent to an amusement project that will put them in competition with one he's trying to build elsewhere.  That's pretty messed up.  Maybe if the same 7 or 8 mega-millionaires didn't own all the important land in the city, this wouldn't happen. 

Update:  Aaand it looks like Jaeger's position was untenable. 

Joe Jaeger Jr., one of the owners of the property where a Drive Shack golf and entertainment complex was set for construction soon, said Thursday that the actions of the Convention Center had made it untenable for Drive Shack to move forward despite its lease for the site.

"It appears that the project is dead," said Jaeger. He said he is currently negotiating with Drive Shack about splitting the costs incurred so far and plans to let them out of their obligations.

"Holding their feet to the fire over the lease wouldn't be right. ... They've been duped by the leadership (of the Convention Center), and it's not fair, it's not right and I can't make them do something I don't believe in," Jaeger said in an interview.

Or to put it another way, it looks like the Convention Center put him in that position on purpose.  Which, again, is what happens when the city is governed according to the whims and resentments of its competing oligarchs.

Bensonville

The king is dead. Long live the queen. 

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson is purchasing the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, adding another piece of marquee downtown real estate to the growing portfolio of Benson-controlled buildings in the area.

The deal, which is set to close Friday, puts the Hyatt in local hands for the first time in its 43-year history and follows a multimillion-dollar renovation of the hotel that began in 2010. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but comparable recent hotel sales suggest the purchase price could be around $300 million.

Benson is buying the hotel along with two partners, longtime local developer Darryl Berger, whose interests via the Berger Co. include the Windsor Court, Omni Royal and Omni Riverfront hotels, and New Jersey-based hotel asset management firm Fulcrum Hospitality.

"My late husband Tom believed in reinvesting in our community, and that philosophy has made our city a better place," Benson said in a statement announcing the transaction. "Our investment in the Hyatt will continue that legacy."

She's got a point.  What better way to honor Tom's legacy than to buy something that.. for a brief time after Katrina, at least... had a big sign at the top of its tower that said, "YAT" 



Okay so technically it said, "Yatt." Don't spoil it.

Meanwhile, this must mean it's time to update the old NOligarchs map of downtown New Orleans. Let's see, Bensonville just needs to add a little notch there to acquire the Hyatt.  There we go. All better.



Actually the map needs a bit more work than that. These territories are far more overlapping than we can hope to represent in this crude rendering.  It doesn't consider figures like Darryl Berger who, in addition to partnering with Gayle on the Hyatt also is in on Jaeger's proposed convention center hotel as well as numerous properties all over the landscape.   Jaeger, meanwhile, is an investor, along with Barry Kern, in the project to demolish the vacant Times-Picayune building and replace it with a golf arcade. This venture is the cornerstone of what we have labeled Kernworld.

All of which is to say this map isn't a true tool for examining the way the major developers have carved up the city's most valuable real estate so much as it is a piece of conceptual art.  It could be more than that but I think we need to apply for a grant first.  The least we can do for now is extend Torreszonia to reflect Sidney's recent Frenchmen Street acquisitions. The rest of it will have to live as an unfinished project for now.

Anyway congratulations to Gayle. So, hey, as a person with a major interest in the Superdome and now also with the hotel/motel taxes that fund its upkeep, does she just write the check directly to herself now?

Lifestyle center

I don't really know what that is or how it is different from, say, a "healing center" other than to say one of those was dreamed up by Pres Kabacoff when he was gentrifying Bywater and this one is Sidney Torres on the Greenway.

A swath of undeveloped land just past Jefferson Davis Parkway offers one of the few blank slates left along the Greenway in Mid-City. It’s owner is real estate and waste management magnate Sidney Torres IV, whose property purchases along the Greenway include the land where Wrong Iron and the Edwards Communities apartments stand.

Torres has been contemplating what to do with that land. Now that Wrong Iron is open and busy, his vision for what he calls a “lifestyle center” is coming into sharper focus. In a series of recent interviews, Torres cautioned that plans for the site are extremely preliminary; he hasn’t talked to neighborhood groups about them or even vetted them to see if they conform to local zoning standards.

Also, bonus points for getting the phrase "blank slate" in there. It's not like that is freighted with all sorts of problematic implications or anything.  I don't know if Litten is deliberately trolling the readers with that or if he is just flattering Torres. It's probably the latter. Not that it matters. Either way he conveniently skips over details of the story that actually tells what Sidney is up to.

For one thing, nothing here addresses the fact that Sidney's development is subsidized in part by a $6 million PILOT agreement.

Late last year, Edwards Companies received a $6 million tax break from the Industrial Development Board in the form of a payment-in-lieu-of-tax program that reduces the company's property tax liability while construction continues. To obtain the break, the company agreed to offer 13 of its apartments at reduced rates to individuals who make about 30 percent of the area's median income.

Thirteen "affordable" (by a tricky definition) out of nearly 400 units is hardly anything to be proud of.  It certainly doesn't justify a shell game operation like PILOT which drains revenue away from public schools and services leaving poor and working class residents at a net welfare loss regardless of how "affordable" these 13 apartments might be.

What's worse, though, is Torres and his partners (Hicham Khodr and Joe Jaeger are also invested) actually had to have their arms twisted to even offer that much.  At one point they had proposed to buy their way out of the affordable set aside requirement altogether by paying into a "homeownership fund" presumably to help people buy homes far away from these apartments.  Then-councilmember Cantrell really liked this idea, in fact.

It's an important point to consider especially now that we've taken up the task of developing a citywide "inclusionary zoning" policy. One option discussed at a recent City Council meeting would be based on an "incentive" model that could end up looking very much like the scheme Torres has carved out for himself on the Greenway.  This mayor and City Council keep hoping they can combat the housing crisis by helping real estate oligarchs build nice things for rich people. Moving them away from that thought is going to be a heavy lift.

That lift is going to be all the more heavy if people like Torres don't have to answer any questions about this stuff.  Sidney is gonna be okay no matter what happens. 

The reason I’ve started looking at buying iconic bars and locations is because it’s a proven fact that when the economy goes to crap, people still go to drink. Iconic bars with iconic names, especially if you have a live music permit.

Maybe we need to start thinking about what the crap economy plan is for the rest of us.  Besides just drinking, that is. Maybe that's what the "lifestyle center" is for.

Offbeat has a noise complaint

Yes I know this is mostly a Torres story but here is the LOL.

Torres is not the only one upset about the noise Vaso generates. The club has become a headache for nearby businesses, including the local music scene publication. At its offices nearby, publisher Jan Ramsey said working on the weekends can be problematic when Vaso opens at 11 a.m. and keeps doors open, blasting music into the street.

While Ramsey said she considers herself a champion of musicians' rights and is sympathetic to the plight of artists affected by the eviction, she said Torres has a point about the club’s operating practices. She’s tried to get the club’s management to shut its doors but was told, “If we have to shut the doors, we might as well not even be open,” Ramsey said.

You never know who is a NIMBY until the thing comes to their own BY, I guess. 

Oh look we have a border clash

I know the old NOLigarchs map is due for some updates.  For a while there I thought I might have to extend Kabacoff's territory to Tulane Avenue. But that's now been occupied by the Israelis so we can forget about that.  Also there are other minor fiefdoms we can add when we get the time. But this is all our cartography budget can handle for now so this is what we have to go with.



We do need to point out also that the regions loosely defined on this map are not very strong on border security.  One Noligarch may in fact hold substantial amounts of valuable territory within the titular boundaries of another's domain. For example, look at all this stuff Joe Jaeger runs even though it isn't in what we've marked on our map as "Jaegerton"

As one might expect, in the world of international capital, borders are not always what they may seem.  Anyway, our map is not very nuanced.  One thing it does get right, however is the overlap and "disputed" designation of areas claimed by Motwani and by Torres.  Tensions there do continue to flare up, it seems.

Developer Sidney Torres IV has become embroiled in a legal battle with French Quarter real estate owners Kishore “Mike” and Aaron Motwani over Torres' purchase of 500 Frenchmen St., a key location in the Marigny’s busy nightclub district. In court filings, Torres claims a tenant of the building, the nightclub Vaso, is being used as a proxy through a lawsuit to win the Motwanis control of the building.

Now that Frenchmen is pretty firmly established as the new Bourbon Street as opposed to the sort of hipster anti-Bourbon Street it had been for a while, all of a sudden there is a land rush. Just a few weeks ago we learned that the Motwanis have taken ownership of the Praline Connection Restaurant which they have moved off of Frenchmen saying "“Locals couldn’t really get down here anymore." They are moving it to... get this... upper Decatur Street in the Quarter because... that would be.. less touristy?  Who knows. It's not clear to me who owns that building now so we need more information. But the Motwanis have a claim on what happens in multiple Frenchmen Street locations right now. That's interesting.

There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in this story, in fact.  To begin with we have what Torres wants us to believe is a threat, although his word is hardly to be taken at face value. Here's what he says happened anyway, which is pretty funny to think about. Note that Motwani doesn't deny he's being quoted pretty accurately whatever he may have meant.

Torres cited a voicemail he said was left on his agent’s phone, as well as a phone call that, according to a court filing by Torres, had Aaron Motwani saying that if Torres didn’t comply with demands, “It will get bloody.” Torres' attorneys, in the court filing, cited what they described as a call log Torres' agent wrote shortly after the call, as well as a recording of the voicemail.

“I want to ask nicely for you to call us back," Motwani says on the voicemail cited in court. "But if you want to handle it the other way, we can handle it the other way, too.”

Aaron Motwani said his voicemail was taken out of context and did not reference a threat of physical harm. He declined to be interviewed but sent a text message in response to questions about the calls.

So keep an eye on this. It could change the face of the map which, as we said, needs some revision anyway. Technically all of this is taking place in "Cummingsville"  according to our drawings.  Let's hope no other belligerents get drawn into the dispute.

Tiger Swan is definitely operating in Louisiana

Last summer, the private security firm infamous for harassing and spying on DAPL protesters last year in North Dakota  was denied a license to operate in Louisiana.  But you really don't have to be very clever to get around the rules here.

Not only is TigerSwan appealing the Louisiana denial, but a deposition given to the security board suggests the firm — operated by military special operations veterans of the war on terror — may have set up a front company in order to get around the licensing mess. TigerSwan did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

The same month that the board denied TigerSwan’s license application, a person named Lisa Smith rented office space in Lafayette, Louisiana. She registered her new company, LTSA, with the secretary of state’s office and submitted an application for a license with the private security board.

It's not like a private para-military security contractor has too much to worry about in Louisiana, anyway.  It's easy enough when your client already has the Governor on the payroll and that Governor is taking steps to expedite the entry of firms like yours into his state.  It helps also when the state legislature works quickly to provide a pretext for treating that client's opponents as criminals. 

House Bill 727 was introduced Monday. Louisiana law specifically prohibits trespassing at various sites known as critical infrastructure. Power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants, water treatment facilities, natural gas terminals and the like are already considered critical infrastructure. The new law would add pipelines and construction areas for critical infrastructure sites.

The bill also lays out penalties for people who damage such sites — one to 15 years in prison with a $10,000 fine or six to 20 years plus a $25,000 fine if the damage could threaten human life or disrupt site operations. Blowtorches, explosives and possibly firearms all could be used to damage pipelines, according to various sources.

Finally, it criminalizes “conspiracy” to commit trespass with up to a year behind bars. Conspiracy to commit damage would be punishable by one to 20 years and fines of up to $250,000, depending on whether the judge thinks the conspiracy would have threatened life or operations.

Major Thibault's Thought Crime against Pipelines bill passed unanimously out of committee last week and is scheduled for floor debate in the House on Thursday.   

Overall the environment for private policing of political opponents is growing richer in Louisiana, as it is elsewhere. The state Republican Party just named the owner of New Orleans Private Patrol as its new Chairman. Everyone in New Orleans knows about Sidney Torres's rising star and the outsized influence he and his PAC was able to exert on the recent municipal election.   And, of course, there is the current mayor and his fascination with cameras and "predictive policing" technology.  One thing I thought would have come up during the recent Palantir flap was Mitch's use of a private security firm to spy on monument supporters and opponents alike last year.  But somehow that's already under the rug.

It hasn't stopped him yet

Sidney Torres is being discouraged from "investing" in New Orleans.

Torres is now raising holy hell about the Board of Zoning Adjustment's decision to uphold the zoning violations, which would prevent Torres from holding events at the church in the future. In a Facebook post announcing a temporary restraining order Torres has obtained that prevents the city from enforcing the zoning ordinance, Torres accuses city officials of political retribution, noting that he was critical of Mayor Mitch Landrieu after the city's floods in July and August.

"You are treated differently, shut down abruptly for political payback," Torres said. "This is why some business operators and investors raise an eyebrow before coming to New Orleans."

It's difficult to name a "business operator and investor" in this city who has benefited more by the special treatment he's been able to purchase from politicians over the years than Sidney.  If someone is out to get him they're doing an exceptionally bad job of it.

Torah Torah Torres

Sidney should just go the full nine and have Late Capitalism declared a religion.  It's where the world has been headed for quite a while now anyway. The trep who gets the early jump on the grift is automatically Pope or something.

After last year’s renovations, The Monastery was given a permit to operate as a religious facility. Justin Schmidt, Torres’ attorney, told the board that at the time he and Safety and Permits Director Jared Munster had agreed that they wouldn’t debate what constitutes a religion.

The initial discussions seemed to envision the site being used mainly for religious-related events such as weddings and associated receptions.

But Munster said the actual events — which included a multi-day vampire-themed party and other balls and galas — have gone far beyond what had been represented. And advertising that paints the site as perfect for corporate events and conferences of up to 1,500 people further showed a lack of religious leanings, he said.

Voice Of The People

Sidney is finding the efficiencies and making the synergies happen through disruptive innovation as he often does.

In his post on Friday, Torres said little about why he eventually decided not to run but took aim at the city’s political establishment as he announced the creation of his PAC, “The Voice of the People.”

Already getting results. 

Charbonnet also calls for increased use of technology, including license plate readers, crime cameras and equipment that can detect gunfire and direct officers to the source. In addition, her plan calls for tracking NOPD vehicles and issuing officers cellphones whose GPS can be monitored to determine their location.

The proposal calls for better community policing and cites as an example the private patrols set up in the French Quarter by businessman Sidney Torres, who flirted with an entry into the mayor’s race for months before bowing out last week.

That is one strong Voice, Sidney has brought to bear. Seems like everybody who is anybody is listening. 

.@LaToyaForNOLA also calling for "smart phone app technology as is currently being utilized in the French Quarter to improve response times"

— Gambit (@The_Gambit) July 19, 2017

Congratulations to Sidney on hacking our democracy with his Voice.  How does he do it?

So many Charbonnets

If you are voting in District E you will have the opportunity to double down on Charbonnets this fall should you find that you are so inclined.

Meanwhile, seven new contenders jumped into City Council races Thursday, including a former interim District E council member, lawyer Ernest “Freddie” Charbonnet, who is seeking his old seat.

Charbonnet, a second cousin of Desiree Charbonnet, temporarily replaced Jon Johnson in 2012 after the latter resigned. Johnson pleaded guilty that year to conspiring to funnel federal rebuilding money, which was intended for a nonprofit he owned, to his unsuccessful 2007 campaign for state Senate.

Ernest Charbonnet unsuccessfully sought an at-large seat once his District E term was up and later a Juvenile Court judgeship.

If the Mitch model is any indication, it's important for a mayor to have lots and lots of cousins. It doesn't matter what they do or what sort of spectacle they make of themselves in the process so long as they're there to keep the universe in balance.

Anyway today, the key entertainment at the Clerk's office involves Frank Scurlock and Sidney Torres jockeying to see which of them gets to run out of the tunnel last. Yesterday we learned that Sidney has supposedly prepared a Happy video to go with the Sad one that got.. um.. "leaked."  Maybe we'll be blessed with that this afternoon some time. 

Failson privilege

This morning we read that yet another luxury hotel development is coming to a formerly modest New Orleans neighborhood. That's not likely to catch anyone's eye these days.  This bit did catch ours, though.

Kupperman's firm, 1507 Magazine LLC, has scheduled a July 17 community meeting to gather feedback about the project. The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Felicity Church, 1220 Felicity St.

Kupperman did not return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Kupperman was a co-founder of Dinner Lab, a New Orleans-based membership-driven catering and events business that expanded to more than two dozen cities before abruptly pulling the plug and filing for bankruptcy in 2016

Dinner Lab (once described as "the darling of the New Orleans entrepreneurial community,") was a scam that sucked up about $10 million in venture capital and roughly $3 million state tax credit subsidies before declaring bankruptcy and suddenly firing 30 people. Apparently somebody gave that guy some more money to burn through on this project. Historic renovations often qualify for tax credits too, you know.. .

Anyway, how is it that Kupperman keeps getting handed sacks of cash with which to do trendy but unsustainable things? Well, that's just Donald Trump's America, isn't it?  If you're already somebody, you're likely to stay somebody.  It's all about wealth accumulation through failsonnery. 

In April 2016, as Donald Trump was on the cusp of clinching the Republican nomination for the White House, he sold two luxury condos near Manhattan’s Central Park for less than half the price his company had said they were worth. The lucky buyer: Trump’s son, Eric.

Such family-friendly deals would normally incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in gift taxes.

But in this case, Trump appears unlikely to have been on the hook for anywhere near that, thanks to benefits only available to real estate developers.

Eric Trump bought the two condos on the two top floors of the Trump Parc East building at 100 Central Park South for $350,000 each. Trump Organization filings show that, as of February 2016 — two months before Trump sold the apartments to Eric — the condos were priced at $790,000 and $800,000. A similar one-bedroom condo on a lower floor at the same building sold for $690,000 in 2014.

The transactions illustrate the unique advantages that real estate developers like Trump have when passing down valuable assets between generations.

This ethos also explains Sidney Torres, by the way. Something to keep in mind when or if he starts putting up "his own" money for a mayoral campaign. 

So what do we reckon that was all about?

Last week we learned that KCP was suddenly "very seriously" considering getting into the mayoral race. She took the holiday to think it over. And then, just as suddenly, she wasn't so serious about it anymore.   What was that all about? It's possible that she just wanted to take one last look at her prospects one week before qualifying. These political types do like to have their egos stretched as often as possible.

But the timing here was a bit weird. Even the idea was strange. Not that KCP couldn't have been a strong contender,  but jumping into the race at this point would have landed her squarely on the toes of her "dear friend" and presumptive front runner, LaToya.  Why would she do that?

This morning WDSU reported on a pair of polls one of which was conducted for the Cantrell campaign. Peterson's name does not appear in the results.

In the Cantrell poll, 600 people from various backgrounds were polled. If the elections were held today, here's how things would break down:

Cantrell has 23 percent, Charbonnet is at 14 percent, businessman Sidney Torres received 13 percent, Bagneris is at 8 percent and New Orleans-based state Rep. Walt Leger is at 6 percent.

Notice neither Torres nor Leger is an announced candidate. Was this poll question open ended or were respondents provided a list of names to choose from? If it was the latter, why were Leger and Torres included but not Peterson?

Was KCP ever really serious about running? Or was she putting her name in the mix temporarily for some other purpose? We may never know the point of this exercise but it sure  was odd.  Meanwhile,  there's still plenty room for someone else to jump in. We realky could use a few more candidates here. But there's only a week left to find them.

By the way, the good news for KCP is her hypothetical campaign qualified her to participate in the first edition of Wheel Of Mayors which debuted during the second hiur of this week's Hunkerdowncast. You can catch that here, btw.