"Has attempted"

Is that what they've been doing?

This year, Louisiana state legislators could consider bills that could bring tighter regulation and enforcement to the state’s short-term rental industry.

New Orleans housing advocates say the proposed bills are a step in the right direction in controlling an industry they claim negatively impacts housing stock and affordability for residents by taking homes and apartments off the long-term market and renting them to tourists.

For nearly a decade, the city of New Orleans has attempted to regulate the short-term rental industry through a myriad of local ordinances. The regulations, which have largely focused on short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods, apply to properties that are listed on platforms like Airbnb and VRBO. Airbnb and short-term rental operators have struck back, repeatedly challenging the city’s permitting rules in court, and New Orleans City Council President JP Morrell has subsequently threatened to ban short-term rentals altogether.

As someone who has watched closely each of these "attempts," I guess it's marginally fair to call them attempts "to regulate." But that's not the same as saying they have been in any way good faith attempts at limiting or even mitigating the harm STR rent seeking has done to life in the city. Rather, the city has simply continued to tweak at Mitch Landrieu's original framework for legitimizing (and drawing revenue from) the practice of converting houses to hotels that has gutted New Orleans's most culturally significant neighborhoods during the period of hyper-exploitation some have cynically termed a "recovery" from Hurricane Katrina. 

 

Predictably, this strategy tended to leave people unsatisfied. So much so that, occasionally, City Council has been moved to take on the appearance of trying to do something about it. They never get it right, though. Now state lawmakers are trying their hand at it.  The above article references bills by Barbara Carpenter, Royce Duplessis and Stephanie Hilferty. Carpenter's bill is intended to grant municipalities clearer authority to impose regulations. Royce's bill would allow neighbors to sue operators of unlicensed STRs in their area. Hilferty's bill raises the maximum tax rate that the city can collect.

 

Royce's is the most aggressive here. According to this article, there are as many as 3100 unlicensed STRs currently operating in New Orleans. But JP Morrell keeps promising city council will affect an outright ban on STRs in Orleans Parish someday.  Should we hold our breath? Or do we have bigger worries on the horizon?  According to that same article, for example. 

At the same time, there are signs that demand for rooms — whether in short term rentals or traditional hotels — has been softening. As of last week, there had been about 13.6% fewer short term rental bookings during Jazz Fest than there were by the same time last year, according to AirDNA. 

Tourism groups are expecting a drop-off in hotel stays as well. New Orleans and Co. is expecting hotel occupancy to be between 72% and 89% each night during Jazz Fest this year, based on a survey of hotels that collectively have about 26,000 rooms in and around downtown and the French Quarter. Last year, the occupancy rates were between about 84% and 95%. Hotel bookings were up during Mardi Gras, when occupancy reached 95%. But at the same time, short term rental units were booked for about 8.5% fewer nights, according to AirDNA.

Usually when we talk about Airbnb, the immediate problem is nobody actually lives here anymore.  Now, come to find out, nobody actually tourisms here anymore either. 

Fitting way for all of this to end

Over a decade of struggle to protect what's left of New Orleans's neighborhoods from having the life sucked out of them by Airbnb; all of the research, the planning commission studies, the overheated social media debate, the marathon city council meetings, the good times, the bad times, the shit times; is about to be brought to an abrupt end on Monday in the state legislature. 

Just as cities and parishes across Louisiana such as New Orleans, Lafayette, and St. Tammany Parish have been ramping up their enforcement of short-term rentals, HB 591 would make AirBnB immune to important oversight. Rep. Lyon’s bill, which will be heard in House Commerce Committee Monday morning, would destroy local government’s abilities to enforce city regulations, which are critical to ensure bad actors cannot continue to illegally operate short-term rentals in our neighborhoods.

Jeff Landry says he wants the city to "operate like Charleston." Charleston is one of the fastest gentrifying cities in America, thanks, in large part, to the conversion of neighborhoods into clusters of vacation rentals. 

New Orleans, as we all know, has already been bled nearly to death by the phenomenon. And, yet, every turn in the long saga has left us with some hope that we'd finally get our local electeds to listen to us even a little bit. The most recent twist found a judge (after an extended delay) finally upholding the current version of our not quite restrictive enough ordinances. But since then, nothing has happened because 1) the administration has neither the capacity nor the inclination to enforce the rules and 2) the landlords are appealing the ruling anyway. In the meantime, it's back to business as usual.  Nobody actually lives here. The rent is too damn high. And homes continue to become hotels while city leadership looks the other way.  

And now comes Marrero Democrat Rodney Lyons with the Deus Ex Machina, a bill that finally takes the entire question off of the desk of anyone in local government.  You can bet that they're all hoping Lyons's bill passes for that reason alone. It makes their lives a lot easier if all they have to do is say they feel bad that you got evicted and no one expects them to do anything about it anymore.

The rent is too damn high

The median individual income in New Orleans is about $27,000.   That almost gets you somewhere to live comfortably... but not quite. 

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A new report released by the real estate marketplace website Zillow says people who want to rent a home in New Orleans need to bring in over $64,000 a year.

The information was released in a January 2024 report from Zillow.

The “income to afford rent” is a new statistic published by Zillow Research. It measures the minimum household income needed to afford typical rent in metro areas across the country.

"Typical rent," according to this Zillow survey in New Orleans is $1600.  Can the typical New Orleanian actually afford that?  Not really, but that isn't who we waste our housing stock on anymore. It's too valuable for that. Which is why the court battle over, even the very mild ("reasonable" in their telling) City Council restrictions on short term rentals, is never going to end. 

Lemelle's ruling is not a guarantee the new rules will survive, however, since plaintiffs' lawyer Dawn Wheelahan said she will appeal. But it will allow Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration to once again ramp up enforcement. The rules have been suspended over the last five months since Lemelle granted the plaintiffs, who are largely out-of-state owners of short-term rentals, a temporary injunction.

The last appellate ruling that struck down the earlier law came two years after the district court's initial ruling.

This isn't to say the city is any particular hurry to resume enforcement in the meantime. There's too much money at stake for landlords. They won't say it that way, of course. Instead they'll say gobbledygook. 

The city's next steps were not clear as of Wednesday afternoon.

"The Department of Safety and Permits is currently working with the Law Department to understand the full implications of the judgment and chart a path forward. The department will be releasing additional guidance for the public on enforcement and licensing very soon," spokesperson John Lawson said.

The court-ordered halt on enforcement has spurred a rise in non-permitted rentals in residential areas, where they outnumbered those with permits by about six to one earlier this month. Council members JP Morrell and Joe Giarrusso urged the administration to quickly resume enforcement.

Just gonna drag their feet until the next appeal garners a new injunction. Then nobody has to do anything until the next ruling. And even then maybe not.  

In the meantime, the rent is too damn high.

Not In Freddie's Backyard

It's difficult to know where, in New Orleans, Freddie King even wants people to be able to afford their rent.  We already know he doesn't want them in the parts of the city he's reserved for tourists in their Airnbnbs. Now, come to find out, he doesn't want them moving to the outskirts either. At least, not too close to the gated community he lives in, anyway. 

The intensifying fight has been brewing since the spring of 2022, when Zhang’s design team submitted its development proposal to the Planning Commission for the 17-acre wooded plot Zhang acquired the previous year. The land, while undeveloped, is already zoned to allow for multifamily development, but public hearings are still required as part of the permitting process.

English Turn residents, whose ranks include some notable names in politics and business, came out in force against the project at the first meeting in August 2022. King then moved to freeze the permitting process by introducing the interim zoning district, which is considered an emergency measure to strike zoning rules in any geographical area and replace them with temporary rules.

In this case, the measure prohibited multifamily development to allow the Planning Commission to study the impacts the development would have on drainage, roads and emergency services. 

King removed his name from the motion and chose not to vote on it to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. However, he did vote to uphold the measure in subsequent votes and he drafted the final ordinance implementing the temporary construction ban, which was approved by the council in March 2023.

Also, speaking of the STR rules, we had been expecting an "imminent" ruling from the judge considering the most recent version of the regulations. (The version that Freddie already torpedoed with his loophole.) But that was in December. And still nothing. Maybe the judge is waiting until after Jazzfest.

The best bet is nothing will fundamentally change

It's been over a decade.That's a whole lot of holding out hope that our political leadership plans to do something about the exploitative violence of short term rental proliferation as soon as "the data comes in" or "the stakeholders"have their say, or a judge tells them what to do.

It's not clear when Lemelle might rule, or how he might come down. But more changes for the city's rules could be ahead. City Council leaders have threatened to pass an outright ban on residential short-term rentals if the latest law is ruled unconstitutional.

An ordinance to impose a ban was introduced by the council’s at-large members, Helena Moreno and JP Morrell, in September, within a week of Lemelle's restraining order. It has been repeatedly deferred as Lemelle has presided over hearings over the fall and winter.

The council members have said little about the proposal since introducing it. They declined comment for this article.

Blossom and others want more clarity on what comes next.

“They threatened to do this really big thing and haven’t said anything since they threatened to do it — or promised to do it, depending on who you are — and nobody knows what to expect,” said Blossom, who supports the ban. “Are they going to follow through? Are they going to back down?”

The "really big thing" should have happened 15 years ago.  There comes a time when we have to understand these politicians all work for the landlords. If we want something big to happen, we aren't going to have their help getting it done.

Commercial STRs in the queue now

After a decade of dealing with this, we have reached the point now where City Councilmembers can no longer pretend they do not understand the problem. But they can still pretend they are trying to do something about it. Until they don't. 

The New Orleans City Council on Thursday took another step to rein in short-term rental permits in commercial areas, passing a temporary ban along some busy corridors abutting residential neighborhoods.

The motion, which passed unanimously, aims to close a loophole that critics say lets investors build what are essentially hotel suites next door to full-time residents. It prohibits renewal for a more than one quarter of the New Orleans' 1,200 commercial short-term permits, although permitting officials said they will make exceptions for those issued within the past six months.

It's the same process as what is happening now with residential STRs.  The new regs will inevitably grandfather in everything that currently exists and create new language by which the problem can continue to expand even as councilmembers claim to be "reining it in." Then in another couple of years we will "discover" that the new system is still bad and tweak it some more.. but grandfather in the next batch, of course. Repeat forever. Or at least until nobody actually lives here. 

A parade of picture books

So I'm on Day 10 of COVID protocols today.  According to the medical science practitioners I've consulted this means that I'm basically, pretty much, almost, okay-ish.  I know I'm among the last people on Earth to have encountered it at this point but it's been an experience. Even when you have all the shots and stuff, this is not a fun thing to get. There's a couple days of knock-you-on-your-ass fever followed by a lot of sniffling and coughing. Then you just don't have any energy for a few days. And finally, when you think it's almost through, there's a knock-you-on-your-ass migraine that sends you back to bed for a day.  In the meantime, also, your spouse tests positive and begins a similar cycle so you can sing this in a round if you like. 

The other thing that happens, inevitably, is Mardi Gras comes along right in the middle of all this. That's been disappointing for us. We were hoping this year would get us back into something like our pre-COVID pattern of cooking and hosting friends on (at least some) parade nights.  But we're not going to be able to do that now.  In a way, though, this is what Carnival is about; understanding we are all subjects to an impenetrable chaos and adjusting accordingly.  And that's what I've been doing.  Stepping out when and where I can to catch whatever vibe is there and then begging off to recover for the coming marathon.  I feel like that is paying off.  I'm definitely better now than I was. And medical science says by this point I'm probably not contagious anymore either so I'm trying to trust that as well.  Cautiously, though. 

Last night I went out by myself with the chair, the camera, and a couple of diet cokes.  They pull a sign at the front of this parade that says, "Carnival Begins When Babylon Rolls" so, really, it's as if I hadn't missed anything. 

Babylon's floats always look amazing. Their theme this year was Wonders of the World or some such. I think this float was the Hanging Gardens. 

People don't like to hear this but the Chaos floats also always look good. Sure, their content can go in some unpleasant directions. This year there was a Hunter Biden laptop float, a float that depicted Paul Pelosi drunk driving, and a particularly racist float about Ron DeSantis sending immigrants to New York.  On the other hand, when they come off the right wing cable news schtick and do something local, they can nail it. 

This one, for example, was about local developer Joe Jaeger and the various troubled properties he currently holds, including the Jung Hotel, the defunct Poland Ave Naval Station, and, of course the crumbling Plaza Tower. 

The linked article above says the Plaza Tower is now up for sale. 

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Developer Joe Jaeger has decided to give up efforts to bring one of New Orleans’ tallest buildings back into commerce, opting instead to try selling the deteriorating Plaza Tower, a City of New Orleans spokesman confirmed Tuesday night (Feb. 14).

Jaeger told the New Orleans Advocate he was “disappointed” to be giving up on the 44-story tower at 1001 Howard Ave. But Jaeger has owned the vacant skyscraper since 2014 with little progress and come under fire as it has fallen into a hazardous state of disrepair.

Jaeger has enlisted the real estate advisory and brokerage firm HREC (Hospitality Real Estate Counselors) to help find a buyer for the property, though no asking price has yet been listed.

A spokesman for Mayor LaToya Cantrell said City Hall hailed Jaeger’s decision and was eager to find a new steward for the property.

“The city is eager to be a co-investor with any development team that can bring this potentially catalytic project back into commerce, including Mr. Jaeger,” city spokesman John Lawson told Fox 8. “What the city has made clear is that we will not continue to let the property languish.”

The city still can't wait to "co-invest."  I'm sure we're all very confident in that prospect. It's sad to see the city use that language, though. Because it is true that whatever transaction takes place will involve a lot of public money.  In a better world, that would mean the public should have a real stake in how that property is used and for whose benefit. What the Cantrell spokespeople actually mean, though, is they are happy to just give our money away to help their rich friends do land deals. 

With the protective netting shored up, Jaeger’s real estate agent Lenny Wormser says he’s confident of a sale soon.

“If you take advantage of the tax credit, you could almost buy the building for free because of tax credits of up to $25 or $30 million,” said Lenny Wormser, with HREC Investments.

You could get it for free! What are you waiting for?  Okay well, what would you do with it? Let's ask the "experts."  Or maybe let's not ask them because, Jesus! 

Real estate experts say the building could be a natural for Air BnBs, especially since the city has been encountering resistance from residential areas that don’t want them in their neighborhoods.

“It’s got the best views in the city of New Orleans because there’s a five-story height limit in the warehouse district. No one will ever block those views and you have the Superdome,” said Wormser.

The Downtown Development District is eager to see a new buyer come in and restore this long-vacant property and rejuvenate a section of the CBD that needs a lift by utilizing new incentives which are now before congress.

“We’re working with legislators in hopes of Congress passing a ‘revitalizing downtown bill,’ which would provide tax credits for these developments,” said DDD Public Policy Director Alexis Kyman.

Downtown real estate is hot, with several new buildings recently constructed and rapidly filling up.

With state and federal tax credits amounting to nearly 40% of construction costs, Wormser is confident that a new buyer can put together a package that would help restore this long-blighted property and make it an asset in a section of the CBD that they believe is ripe for redevelopment.

Trapolin says Air BnB development could be a big part of the Plaza Tower’s future. He says the return on investment for such properties is nearly double what you can get if you rebuild as apartments.

Terrific, more public subsidies for these guys.  Also the specific thing we are putting our money in to help them do is make "nearly double" what they would make building housing while turning downtown New Orleans into a tourist sacrifice zone. 

The huge impact of the so-called sharing economy on the tourism sector is currently a well-recognized reality [29,30,31,32]. Beyond the effect on other activities (such as automobile transport or tourist guide services), the phenomenon with the highest economic, social, and spatial impact doubtless corresponds to the rapid and massive expansion of housing rentals for use by tourists supplied via online platforms (Airbnb, HomeAway, Housetrip, etc). Indeed, it can be stated that it has become the decisive phenomenon in the functional transformation of central zones of the world’s major cities, which have shifted from being residential and commercial to becoming spaces devoted to tourist lodgings with higher intensity depending on the tourist attractions present in each city. 

The fundamental moral issue here, as always, is a city belongs to its people. There is no section of it that we are obligated to sacrifice to rent seeking leeches just so that they can turn it into a theme park. This is especially germane when public money is subsidizing the development.  There has to be public benefit.  Downtown is a neighborhood. The French Quarter is a neighborhood.  Residents come first in neighborhoods.  If you want Disneyworld, go to Disneyworld.

There's a clear line of division happening here between people who want to live in a healthy community and the monsters who want to suck the profits out of the land.  After Mardi Gras is over, the people  who style themselves our "representatives" on the City Council will, once again, consider the city's regulatory regime around these issues.  Let's all watch which side of that division they choose to place themselves on. Sounds exciting. 

Anyway, where were we?  Oh yeah, it's Mardi Gras and we're trying to watch some parades. When I planted my chair and sat my pathetic COVID ridden grandpa self down last night, I wasn't sure how long I'd be there. It's chaos weather season now and the temperature just dropped 30 degrees overnight. When that happens they always called for rain.  I was afraid Irma Thomas might be forced to sing the hits while riding in the Muses shoe.  Turns out, though, she wasn't. 

The rain did come, though.  But it was polite enough to wait until after we found out who this year's Dead Rock Star was.  (It was Jam Master Jay) After that I figured I could go on in and rest. 

Before that, though, I was delighted to watch a parade about picture books. 

This is something of an area of expertise for me. Would you like to see a thread of favorite picture books of 2021 curated by me?  What about one from 2022 that is even longer?  The point is, I read a lot of these. Some of the classic titles riffed on by Muses are among my favorites as well. Here's Mo Willems's famous Pigeon, for example. 

The Very Hungry Councilpillar, here, is supposed to be the City Council "eating into" the mayor's authority over city budget and staffing matters. Pretty clever.

I don't care for the way Muses lets its business class MSNBC brain get in the way of having an actual thought sometimes. This take on 'The Day The Crayons Quit' (really good book, by the way) got into some embarrassing "Third Way" can't we all be purple nonsense. 

But, it's the little things that you still have to appreciate. I like the "#LookAtThisFuckingFloat" touch on this roadwork float. 

All in all, pretty neat.  And even though I'm not going at it hard, it's still possible to catch a bit of a vibe out there. Tonight I'm going to try and approximate the normal rituals and make a pot of jambalaya before walking out.  We'll see how it goes.

Jaeger vs Sonder

They've been fighting for a while over Jaeger's decision to back out of leases he'd granted them on some of his hotels.  It's worse now, though, because (according to Jaeger's new lawsuit) Sonder has also ruined the Jung. Apparently even the visionaries have difficulty predicting sometimes. 

It seemed like an ideal arrangement. At the time, Sonder New Orleans’ general manager Peter Bowen referred to Jaeger as a “visionary.”

Four years later, and after dozens of scathing online reviews, the deal has soured.

In a lawsuit filed last week, Jaeger asserts that Sonder has damaged the Jung’s reputation and value, costing him untold millions of dollars in lost revenue, by failing to address critiques on the Sonder website describing dirty guest rooms, soiled linens, stained furniture and public safety issues, including gun battles on the property.

Anyway so some of the worst people in New Orleans are fighting over the scraps of the mess they've left us again. Nothing new, there. 

And since this is a story about Sonder, we should mention also that, yes, we are aware the city council is about fail once again to effectively rein in short term rentals.  So brace yourselves to watch those rip through the neighborhoods one more time. It's the only thing that can happen anymore. Capital is like water in our gilded age town. Unbounded, it finds its own level and wipes people out in the flood.  Nothing new there, either. 

On the other hand, today's story does offer us a new insight as to the effect STRs have on hotels. 

While it’s too soon to draw conclusions about the specifics in either court case, industry analysts say the disputes illustrate the challenges that can arise when hotel owners and short-term rental operators try to marry their interests amid a changing New Orleans tourism landscape.

"This points to some of the pitfalls of these arrangements and also for the need to have stricter regulations of short-term rental operators around safety codes," said Lenny Wormser, executive vice president of HREC Investment Advisors.

The problem, Wormser said, is that platforms such as Sonder do not have the on-site staff of trained employees who can tend to guests expecting an experience similar to that of a hotel.

"Short-term rental people really do not pay attention to the guest services, the guest satisfaction as much as they should," he said. "You potentially end up with a degradation of the property and after three or four years; nobody wants to stay there."

Turns out short term rentals not only make neighborhoods shittier by turning apartments into poorly maintained hotel rooms, they also make hotels shittier by turning them into poorly maintained apartments.  Neat.

Definitely feeling this vibe

I think it's because I'm nearly the same age as Atrios but this throwaway bit about not always having the juice to make a blog post every time something happens does hit home a little. Although I think for me it's less about feeling like I have to have something interesting to say and more about being exhausted that the same things keep happening over and over regardless of what we say about them. 

Still, the reason I put stuff here is so I'll remember what happened... even if the temptation to fade blissfully away into oblivion is stronger every time a new city council trots out yet another draconian ban on neighborhood bars because of a crime panic, to pick one example.  The same stuff keeps happening in cycles. But every time it comes around again, things are one degree shittier than they were the last time. The rent is a bit higher, the land is a bit lower relative to the sea, the cops and cameras are a bit more aggressive, the mayor is a bit stupider and meaner. The usual things, except moreso every time. And no one is coming to help. 

Anyway, for some reason I still have this compulsion to take notes. And so that's what I'm still doing.  For instance, if Billy Nungesser says this and I don't write it down somewhere, how will I know it happened?

At Washington Mardi Gras, @BillyNungesser reiterates that @AGJeffLandry is "not a good person."

"He personally reported me to the FBI three times." #lalege #lagov

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) January 25, 2023

 

Similarly...

Watch @mayorcantrell defiant response to a reporter's question on allegations she had an affair with the head of her security detail. "accused of sleeping with half the city of New Orleans, both genders and all pronouns. I'm known as Teedy sometimes and Teddy other times." pic.twitter.com/j8QZ8TepV3

— Down For Whatever (@emersonspop) January 25, 2023

When all you have is a hammer

There sure is a lot of violence in New Orleans lately. What could possibly be causing it? Nobody seems to know. 

HousingNOLA Executive Director Andreanicia Morris told WDSU, "The first two failing grades were a warning of things to come when you look at what's happening with inflation, housing is at the core of the crisis."

The report says the city of New Orleans has seen the median rent price rise to $1,082 while the median income for the city decreased by almost $4,000 since 2019.

HousingNOLA also said that 30% of homeowners pay more than 30% of their income toward housing.

"More than half the people who live here can't afford to actually live here," Morris said. 

Must be some kind of "cultural" issue. Maybe there's a bad video game or something. Someone should really look into it, though. Because maybe if we knew what the problem was, we would know how to address it. Or at the very least we would know how not to go about exacerbating it. 

A deputy constable and a property manager were shot Wednesday while serving an eviction notice at an apartment complex in the West Lake Forest area of New Orleans, authorities said.

So until someone can come up with a reason this sort of thing happens, we won't be able to come up with an effective policy response to keep it from happening in the future. Until then, I guess we'll just keep going with what we know. 

Police had received an anonymous tip that the suspect in the shooting that injured a deputy constable and a property manager in the Lake Forest area of New Orleans was in Mid-City, Officer Reese Harper confirmed. After shutting down several blocks of Canal Street and locking down multiple nearby schools, authorities detained the suspect after a brief standoff. Nobody was injured in the apprehension.

A massive police presence snarled traffic as police searched behind a house in the 3200 block of Iberville Street and used a megaphone to try and convince a man to come out of a backyard with his hands raised.

Give it another fifteen years, I guess

Joseph Bouie's very mild attempt at giving the Orleans Parish School Board a little bit more of a direct legislative instruction to do its ostensible job overseeing public schools in New Orleans has failed. 

Senate Bill 404 by state Sen. Joe Bouie, D-New Orleans, would have amended Act 91 — the law that returned the charter schools in the Recovery School District to the Orleans Parish School Board — to give the School Board the power to decide what freedoms charter operators should have. As it stands, decisions such as faculty and staff hires, what students learn and how they learn it are all left to individual charter operators. 

Despite its death, the bill and surrounding debate lay bare the tensions that still exist between pro-charter groups and those who see the system as an experiment that worsens inequalities in public education. 

In an interview this week, Bouie said he senses momentum building among residents and families for a change to the public school system, despite the bill's failure. 

“It was a hard sell legislatively, but the community’s response is getting stronger and stronger,” Bouie said. “All that support was really the result of the last 15 years, and what our communities know as the state-sponsored educational experiment.

Not sure we've got another 15 years to "build momentum."   The very idea that all children have a right to public education is fading. It's not clear there how much longer there will even be a school system here.  

Applications to enroll in NOLA Public Schools district charter schools — including new students and those seeking transfers — dropped by nearly 30 percent between the 2019-2020 school year and the 2021-2022 school year, according to a report presented to the Orleans Public School Board on Thursday. While some of that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the upcoming school year has seen a slight recovery, officials and experts believe the overall trend will be downward in the coming years, following a slow-down in the city’s population growth over the past decade, and a more recent decline in the past few years. 

School board members heard the report on declining enrollment at their Thursday night meeting, part of a process NOLA Public Schools officials have called “right-sizing” the district, which could include more closures and consolidations of city charter schools.

It's easy to say that enrollment is declining because nobody actually lives here anymore.  

Declining public school enrollment comes as the city has experienced slower population growth over the past several years. 

After New Orleans’ massive post-Katrina loss of residents, the population grew quickly in the early part of the last decade. Yearly Census estimates put the city at well over 390,000 residents, up from 343,000 in the 2010 Census. But that growth slowed as the city approached the 2020 Census. And New Orleans’ official 2020 Census count was about 384,000, 

Reid noted that a slower rate of people moving to New Orleans and lower birth rates have come as the city has become significantly less affordable for families, noting that housing prices have “increased incredibly” in the last five years.

But, then, it's just as important to understand the denial of core public services, such as a functioning school system, is a key contributor to that phenomenon.  No doubt the "right sizing" of the district will provide opportunities to sell off property to real estate investors. So we can build more nice things for rich people. Where nobody actually lives.  

Been watching them play this game for.. well, for over 15 years now. We know how it goes.

Aggressive

Out of state investment firm becomes absentee landlord to local apartment building.  You won't believe what happens next. 

Passco Companies, of Irvine, California, said it bought the 330-unit complex and its 500-space parking lot — which is now known as Canal 1535 — primarily because of its proximity to the burgeoning biomedical district in that part of the city.

"We found it to be a great market for job growth and migration with all the education and healthcare employers moving in," said Stacy Stemens, a senior vice president at Passco. "That's who's renting there and the rents are aggressive."

Units in the nine-story building average just over 900 square feet and rents have shot up amid a nationwide shortage of rental properties.

Stemens said that as leases turn over, rents that were about $1,500 to $3,500 a month are now averaging between $2,500 and $5,500 for the one- and two-bedroom units. In the New Orleans area, rents have increased by 8% in the six months ending in April, contributing to what fair-housing advocates say is an escalating affordable-housing crisis.

Actually, the consequences are very much intended

Despite the Planning Commission's 6-2 vote against, there is little reason to believe that City Council won't turn around and just approve this "accessory dwelling" scheme anyway. No doubt, someone will argue with a straight face that this has something to do with "affordable housing" that seems to be what Kathleen Lunn is saying here.

Commissioner Kathleen Lunn voted for Wednesday's accessory dwelling proposal, while acknowledging it would lead to “unintended consequences” involving short-term rentals. She said zoning laws throttle multifamily development to an “outrageous” degree; only about 5% of New Orleans' land is zoned for multifamily housing, according to a Planning Commission staff report.

“There is no question that we need to incrementally begin to address how this city serves people who actually do live and work here,” Lunn said.

Now I know we all love to hear them "incrementally begin to address" something. But this argument doesn't make any sense.  The housing crisis in New Orleans is not merely a supply problem caused by restrictive zoning. It's a structural problem of a real estate market dominated by asset speculation, corporate power, and a relentless profit incentive that runs counter to the principle of housing as a human right. 

In that context the only possible purpose of this proposal is to create more STRs. 

Staff recommended banning short-term rentals in accessory units. But Commissioner Robert Steeg said he feared the ban would be on paper only, given the Cantrell administration’s failure to enforce short-term rental regulations. Even the accessory units dedicated to long-term tenants would do little to address the affordable housing crisis, as most would require new construction, Steeg said.

“That’s going to lead to construction costs, and that’s going to lead developers - or individuals - to rent at the highest rates they can rent for,” Steeg said.

This is not an affordable housing measure. It is a plan to allow the growing STR market to exploit new territory as New Orleans returns to "normal" now that we've been told to stop caring about the pandemic. And for the Cantrell administration, "normal" means maximizing profits for tourism and real estate investors. The "unintended consequences" are very much the intended consequences.

Will we ever Make It Right?

We have to say it's a remarkable trip the City of New Orleans has been on with short term rentals for the better part of the last decade only to end up right back where we started. We've been through years and years of hearings, hotly debated regulations that don't work, hotly debated revisions to those regulations that continue to not work, at one point we even decided to go the whole nine and turn enforcement responsibility over to an industry profiteer.  A whole lot of things have happened. But also nothing has changed.  This article says it's "inexplicable" but is it?  

With New Orleans' spring tourism season in full swing, the Cantrell administration’s stated plan to crack down on illegal short-term rentals is inexplicably stalled, leaving scofflaw operators to freely list unpermitted rentals on Airbnb and other online booking platforms.

Pinning down just how many unpermitted rentals are available is nigh impossible, but data provided by the technology firm Granicus, combined with City Hall's short-term rental registry, suggests they outnumber legitimate ones at least 3 to 1.

There's probably a very simple explanation, actually. Helena Moreno seems pretty close to getting it right here. 

Council member Helena Moreno said she is baffled by the administration’s flagging enforcement efforts. 

 “With the lack of enforcement and slow-walking of accountability measures, it makes me wonder whether this is purposeful,” Moreno said.

It's hard not to think that. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why the city would be leaving so much money on the table. As Moreno also points out, the city has somehow never managed to give anyone a straight answer as to how much money it actually collects in fees and fines under the current STR enforcement regime. Strange behavior for an administration that has been otherwise diligent in chasing down drivers ticketed by its robots or shutting down any street parade or music venue not able to pay the premium fees. We know the city wants to collect its money.  It's just particular about who actually has to pay. 

Now I'm not honestly recommending that any normal person with actual things to do tries this, but, for those who really must, you can view last Wednesday's meeting of the city revenue estimating conference here.  Watching these meetings one gets a (rather grim) feel for what this administration's ideas are about the city's economy and who it is supposed to serve. For example, during a discussion on employment numbers, Gilbert Montano briefly references the "Great Resignation" to signal his sympathy with the "people don't want to work" myth popular among bosses these days. (Actually the labor participation rate is nearly back to pre-pandemic status now. But that isn't going to stop the ownership class from demanding we continue to shred what's left of the social safety net just in case any workers out there feel even the slightest hope.) At the REC, the Cantrell administration generally sound like they are the corporate board of a big hotel. Almost all of the metrics highlighted in their presentation are based on how well the tourism business is going; how many visitors fly in and out, how many hotel rooms are occupied, etc.  The first time I saw LaToya Cantrell speak publicly about short term rentals her comments were already very much shaped by a hospitality management mindset. Even while she assented to the point that they may be raising housing costs, she basically looked past that to assert that New Orleans is a "destination city" and that STRs are a source of revenue.

But Cantrell is "the mayor right now" and somehow all that revenue isn't finding its way into city coffers. Property values are up, rents are way way way up,  but according to city projections, property tax revenue is down slightly.  At the meeting, much of the discussion about that centered on assessor Erroll Williams. In September, Williams granted across the board breaks to property owners following Hurricane Ida.  The fact that Williams's office has apparently granted some invalid corporate exemptions was also mentioned. 

Near the end of 2020, three local government agencies denied tax breaks for planned improvements to the Folgers coffee plants in New Orleans East. But only now, more than a year later, has the assessor put the properties onto the tax rolls, making the company liable for $5.1 million in real estate levies.

Assessor Erroll Williams blames the Louisiana Department of Economic Development for the delay. That agency blames Williams.

That T-P story details circular arguments from the assessor and from LED about who is supposed to inform whom about ITEP denials. But, I dunno, I think one thing an assessor might do in a case like this  is call somebody and ask?

Williams said his office was following its standard practice: Don't put properties on the rolls while their applications for tax breaks are still pending. He said his office asked the state about Folgers in February because the state database did not yet show the tax breaks were denied and he had received no formal paperwork from any agency saying a decision on the breaks had been made.

"This office hasn’t gotten a letter from the School Board, city of New Orleans or the Sheriff’s Office that they’ve decided to vote the contract down, so I can’t put a taxpayer on the rolls based on what I read in the newspaper," Williams said.

The status was not changed to “denied” until March, at which point Williams said his staff began working to put the properties on the tax rolls.

The state agency said it “does not notify local taxing authorities about the actions of local government entities involved in the ITEP application review process. Questions about when and how the exemption is applied at the local level are best directed to each local taxing authority.”

Hard to believe these people can't all get together and talk one way or another. This just isn't that big a town.  Especially now that nobody actually lives here. Who can afford to, anyway?

Anyway, not to give the REC any more work to do but it turns out there are other places to dig for lost property tax money if they're feeling hard up. 

In total, Make It Right owes $14,972.81 in back taxes and fines, which are added to a property’s tax bill once they become delinquent. Most of that debt was accumulated in 2021, when the foundation failed to pay taxes on any one of its properties. And It’s possible that number will grow even higher for unpaid 2022 taxes, which are due today, March 31. 

According to the city’s online tax records database, the foundation owes $9,493 in 2022 property taxes. But The Lens was unable to confirm that the foundation has not paid that down. It appears that the city’s digital property tax records haven’t been updated to show whether property owners have yet paid their 2022 taxes. Officials did not respond to questions about the group’s 2022 property taxes.

Or maybe this is another thing where they've got to wait on Erroll to update the spreadsheet. 

One last point about the REC. Montano et al are still being extremely cautious with their use of the American Rescue Plan dollars by projecting it out over the course of a five year hypothetical revenue gap instead of applying it toward the addressing the city's numerous critical human services and infrastructure needs. (Notice how they are not shy about throwing that money at police as fast as they can, however.)  Back in August, we wrote more about how this administration's ideological conservatism informs its approach to budgeting.   On Wednesday, the projections we saw did not account for the next tranche of ARP dollars promised to cities because there was still talk in Washington about clawing those funds back in the next spending authorization.  As of this writing, though, it looks like that money is still coming.

Under the emerging deal, Mr. Romney, said, most of the $10 billion would be repurposed from the $1.9 trillion pandemic law Democrats muscled through without Republican support last March. But direct funds for state and local governments would likely not be touched, after Democrats balked at this money being clawed back. Mr. Romney said negotiators had discussed taking back some funding from a program that allowed states to give grants to local businesses.

That's pretty good news. But it could be better.  The way it looks right now the primary benefit of the federal bailout is it allows the city to keep letting wealthy property owners slide on their responsibility at the current rate. Without it, they'd still do that, of course. But they'd have to crack down even harder on the poor than they currently do to make up the difference.

Talk about inflation

The price of everything is going up up up.  I mean, look how much it costs the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee to buy just one city court clerkship these days. 

Lisa Ray Diggs is, without question, the establishment candidate for this position. She’s the chair of the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee and cites endorsements by Mayor LaToya Cantrell, every member of the City Council, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, and numerous other local politicians, including Lombard, who she’s vying to replace.

She’s also raised fairly substantial funds for the election, according to campaign finance records, including more than $8,600 in contributions and a $20,000 interest-free loan she made to her own campaign. Those funds, her filings say, have helped pay for a $4,711.77 “billboard,” more than $6,000 worth of “signs & stakes,” and thousands of dollars more spent on vague campaign-related costs including “campaign management services” and “campaign consulting services” and “strategic campaign services.” The campaign paid $2,500 to an organization called Grassroots Solutions NOLA just for “campaign finance reporting,” according to those very campaign finance reports. That’s not a service we see many campaigns paying for, especially at that price.

All the candidates in that race look to be running on similar platforms. Although it also looks like they've mostly cribbed from Jordan Bridges's proposal to digitize records so you can make up your mind which candidate is most committed to that idea.  Anyway, City Court handles evictions. It's always helpful to have someone in charge there who actually cares about people who need housing.  Do any of these folks care about that?  Hard to say.

Gotta get NHIF back on the ballot

Will have more to say about this if I ever get that elections post done. But this shouldn't have been allowed to happen. 

For decades, tax proceeds went to the city’s Neighborhood Housing Improvement Fund, or NHIF, which has been used in recent years for emergency rental assistance, repairing storm damage, assisting first time home buyers and incentivizing new housing developments.

It was a narrow defeat. With 50.8 percent of voters casting “no” ballots, the margin was fewer than 1,000 votes. And already, some are calling for another vote to restart the tax.

Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, argued that support for the NHIF remains high in New Orleans, and that the renewal’s defeat could be largely blamed on the extremely low profile nature of the race, and the near total lack of institutional support from government officials. 

“No one put any resources into educating the public on the fund and what it’s accomplished,” Hill said. “The NHIF has always had broad support whenever it’s been polled. But it’s also clear that many people had no idea that the NHIF was on the ballot, even in the weeks before the election. So it suggests that this very disappointing result was about a lack of education.”

The only PR effort that made any impact at all was BGR's absurdly conservative opposition which got broadcast all over town more or less unchallenged. That argument is what Andreanecia Morris is referring to at the end of this article. 

But Morris also argued that the focus on accountability was partially due to a deeply ingrained bias that makes people particularly suspicious of government spending on affordable housing.

She argued that similar issues can be found throughout city government, but that some people’s deep-seated association of affordable housing with corruption and crime put much greater scrutiny on housing programs. 

“Why does housing get this fake purity test?” she said. “Please name for me a pot of money that’s perfectly managed.”

The failure to renew this millage will result in a reduction in revenue for the housing fund from $12.9 million to $3.1 million in 2022 according to the city budget projection.  The Lens notes that source of that $3.1 isn't clearly indicated. However, we do know that it relies now on fees collected from short term rental licensing which, in addition to being a difficult figure to get a handle on, is also builds in a perverse incentive for funding affordable housing by allowing STRs to proliferate.  

So it's imperative that we figure out a way to get an affordable housing millage back on the ballot. It is not at all clear that the incoming city council will be interested in doing something like that, though. But maybe that's something else to save for an election recap.

The rent is too damn due

We've hit another first of the month again. There's one every month!  But this one has been the most first of the month that has yet firsted since pandemic crisis began.  And it has gotten dark.

NEW ORLEANS — Deputies with the First and Second City Courts of New Orleans will be required to get a coronavirus vaccination. Constable Edwin M. Shorty Jr. has mandated all commissioned deputies must be vaccinated as COVID-19 case counts are rising with the spread of the delta variant. All full-time and reserve deputies must meet this vaccination mandate by Aug. 16, the constable said.

Officials said vaccination rates among law enforcement entities are high, but it has not been mandatory in the past. The mandate will ensure SCC deputies are not leaving the public at risk when performing duties of the department and ensuring their personal safety, according to the constable. The use of personal protective equipment will also be mandated while remaining socially distanced when possible and minimizing interactions with other employees or the public when possible.

Shorty said he expects the courts to be at capacity in the coming weeks. He says that we are not out of the woods of the pandemic, and will make sure all CDC guidelines are followed in addition to the mandatory vaccination decision.

What duties will the constables and the courts be performing that will have them "at capacity in the coming weeks?"

Second City Court handles eviction cases for Algiers and the West Bank of Orleans Parish. This decision comes after the federal eviction moratorium expired over the weekend. First City Court officials confirm that all East Bank deputy constables for Orleans Parish are fully vaccinated, and any new deputy constable will be required to vaccinate as well.

Perhaps when the constables go about their busy work evicting people, they could bring some vaccines with them.  It's about time we get a bona-fide door-to-door vax program going in this city that actually reaches the most vulnerable.  Of course this would be the way it happens. 

Evictions are  not just about to spike in New Orleans. They're about to spike nationwide. Some parts of the nation will be spiking harder than others, though. You will not be surprised to see which they are.  The maps in this NYT opinion piece by Sema K. Sgaier and Aaron Dibner-Dunlap show how many renters are behind and how far behind they are on rent in each US county or parish. 

Just the other night someone reminded us, as the South goes, so too goes the nation. The South is not going well at the moment. In Orleans Parish (which, despite much contrary popular myth making, is located in the South) 19.6% of renters currently owe back rent according to numbers cited in that NYT article. The average amount owed is $3,187. Sgaier and Dibner-Dunlap write that state and local governments "can prevent this rental crisis from becoming a homelessness crisis" by speeding up distribution of Emergency Rental Assistance funds made available by the stimulus package known as the American Rescue Plan passed earlier this year by Congress.  But we already know that isn't going to be enough. 

As of last Thursday, the Times-Picayune reported the City of New Orleans had already run through $18 million of the $52 million in rental assistance that has so far been distributed for the entire state processing only 5,000 of 16,000 applications. The state has another $87 million to disperse but it's not clear how that gets divided. That total will still not be sufficient to meet the need so, no matter what, everyone will be waiting on the feds to release the second tranche of ARP funds. But, as we will see, that tranche may not arrive at all. 

Meanwhile, we learn by that same T-P article there are approximately 400 evictions cases queued up to file as soon as the moratorium ends.  This story says 58 were filed on Monday. Which is a very bad time for that to happen because it follows right on the heels of this.

Louisiana residents will no longer receive an extra $300 a week on top of the state’s maximum $247 benefit. The state will also pull out of federal programs that provided jobless aid to self-employed workers and gig workers and allowed people to get jobless benefits past the 26-week state cap.

The benefits were made available by Congress until Labor Day, but Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, ordered Louisiana to stop accepting the federal payments effective July 31 in exchange for support from GOP lawmakers and business groups for a permanent $28 hike to the state’s weekly unemployment benefits, beginning in six months.

The move spells the end to jobless aid for nearly 86,000 residents who make their living as self-employed contractors, musicians, tour guides or gig workers. Another 65,000 residents who have exceeded the state’s 26-week-long limit on unemployment benefits will also get the boot, according to data from the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

For the 35,000 residents who will remain on unemployment rolls, weekly checks will be cut in half – as Louisiana joins 25 Republican-led states that have rejected the $300 supplemental payments under pressure from business groups who argue the payments are discouraging employees from returning to work. 

Is that $300 pittance discouraging people from returning to their demeaning and dangerous service jobs in the middle of a fourth wave COVID spike? So far there isn't any solid evidence that cutting those benefits has sent them all rushing back. 

So far, early data suggests that cutting the benefits given to Americans who lost their jobs during the covid-19 pandemic has not led to a big pickup in hiring. The 20 states that reduced benefits in June had the same pace of hiring as the mostly Democrat-led states that kept the extra $300-a-week unemployment payments in place, according to state-level data from the Labor Department. Survey data from the Census Bureau and Gusto’s small-business payroll data show similar results. 

Many economists and business owners say other issues such as health concerns, child-care problems and workers reassessing their career choices appear to be larger factors keeping them home.

The same week that the governor is cutting off the $300 is also the week the landlord wants that $3,000 average back rent or thousands of people are going to be be put out. Hard to imagine they're all jumping on one of those $8 or $10 an hour jobs so they can hope not to get sick before figuring out the math isn't gonna work.  What are people supposed to do?

For much of the past week, the President's message has been that he isn't supposed to do anything. Last week, he insisted that a month old Supreme Court ruling prevented him extending the moratorium without congressional action. On Friday, as congressional leaders were giving up trying to take that action and punting the problem back to him, Biden turned the blame onto governors and mayors saying in this statement, "there can be no excuse for any state or locality not accelerating funds to landlords and tenants who have been hurt during this pandemic." Biden's statement also contained a passive aggressive suggestion that the mayors and governors, "should also be aware that there is no legal barrier to moratorium at the state and local level." 

Neither John Bel Edwards nor LaToya Cantrell has imposed or even spoken in favor of a local moratorium on evictions. Maybe they didn't think Biden was talking to them.  We've already mentioned they seem to be doing an adequate (relatively speaking.. not objectively great) job of spending the rental assistance money so he probably wasn't talking to them about that either. And it's true there are states doing a much worse job. For example, Florida, under the psychopathic governorship of Ron DeSantis, has withheld 98% of its allotted rental assistance funds in what we have to assume is an act of deliberate cruelty. 

Having said all that, we should point out that governors and mayors (not just DeSantis types) are nonetheless reluctant to spend their stimulus funds. Partially this is because Joe Biden and the bi-partisan infrastructure deal making its way through Congress now is about to yank a bunch of it back.  That has already become an issue in New Orleans city government as the Cantrell administration discussed its plans to spend its stimulus funds with the City Council last week.

But officials said they are resisting the urge to spend the windfall immediately to supplement the $633 million budget for 2021. They recommend the money be stretched out until revenue improves. That’s particularly crucial because the forecast calls for the lost revenue from 2020 to total more than $290 million by 2025 -- more than City Hall has received so far from the stimulus, codified in the American Rescue Plan.

“Even if we’re using that ARP money, we could still end up in a deficit,” City Council member Helena Moreno said.

City officials are nervously eying negotiations over President Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan. While such a plan would likely mean more federal money for New Orleans, city officials worry that Congress might cancel the second stimulus payments to cities and counties to help pay for infrastructure.

They aren't at all wrong to be worried. That's exactly what the current version of the infrastructure bill is set to do. And that's not really even the worst of it. The infrastructure bill is best understood as a privatization bill.  The American Prospect's David Dayen explains in this breakdown. He actually thinks it's been improved in the latest negotiation. I'm less encouraged and will explain in a bit. Here is what Dayen has to say.

The revenue offsets did change quite a bit. We knew about Republicans ditching the tax enforcement piece. But there was a big victory here for progressives. A few weeks ago, it looked as if much of the bill would be financed by selling off public assets and allowing investment firms long-term concessions of roads and water and power systems and whatever else they could land. The privatization agenda was extremely dangerous, and in my view enough to oppose the effort entirely.

But it has mostly vanished in this new version. After significant pushback from the left, a good deal of the privatization schemes are gone. That was an important show of force.

There is $100 million in “asset concession incentive” grants to help cities establish public-private partnerships (P3s). Some larger transportation projects will also be required to evaluate a P3 option, to ensure it’s given “a fair shot.” Tipping the scales to P3s is bad news, and these measures give them a foot in the door. But there was talk that the overall bill would save up to $100 billion by offloading the investment to P3s, which would really have been a fire sale. This is definitely more minor.

It's clear that someone in Gilbert Montano's office keeps a close eye on these developments. Not only has the city been anticipating the ARP claw backs from the very beginning of the infrastructure negotiations, they've also started the ball rolling on a "framework" for the privatization component of the bill as well.

Anyway, Dayen's description of the reduced emphasis on privatization is too optimistic. These changes he is describing are just the fluid argument over how to write the bill. The purpose remains the same. To put it plainly, public-private-partnerships (P3s) are privatization. Just putting them into the process this way practically guarantees they will get implemented through the regular corrupt local patronage networks. And the way New Orleans spends public money is especially suited to just that kind of arrangement.

A good little book to check out on this topic is Aaron Schneider's Renew Orleans?: Globalized Development and Worker Resistance after Katrina (2018) There, we find an analysis of the city budget based on the processes and institutions in place during the late 00s, which haven't changed a whole lot since then. The big takeaway is there's a lot of activity that goes on "off the books."  A quick excerpt summarizing this point:

The most important finding of this simple comparison (of New Orleans finances to those of similarly sized and situated cities) was that New Orleans taxes not too far below what is to be expected but has far fewer revenues and even lower expenditures. Taxes were only $7 million less than predicted by the model, but revenues were approximately $100 million lower and expenditures were almost $250 million lower than expected. New Orleans appears to tax its citizens the same but undertake less public action than other cities. 

A reasonable explanation is the proliferation of satellite entities, many of which are off-budget, difficult to monitor, and undertake significant fiscal action in the form of revenues, expenditures, and accumulation of assets. To explore these entities, data were drawn from 2007 and 2008, gathering information from city budget documents, Louisiana Legislative Auditor reports, and accounting documents collected directly from some entities. City budget totals include revenues and outlays by some boards, commissions, and public-benefit corporations, as they are considered component units of city government, and therefore government accounting practices require them to be included in the city's comprehensive financial report. Not all entities are so considered, however, and they vary in the degree to which their accounts appear in the public record. Some provide comprehensive financial reports to the Legislative Auditor's Office, others keep accounts according to government accounting standards but do not report them anywhere, and still others do not keep accounts in any easily comparable fashion. 

What this says in so many words is that New Orleans is crawling with public private partnerships and conceded public assets already. The city is run through an impenetrable network of semi privatized commissions and non profits who operate with almost zero public transparency. Schneider's analysis in fact shows this is actually the largest sector for public expenditures.

Take for example tourism promotion agencies like the mostly private New Orleans and Company seen here preparing to spend millions of dollars in public money on an ad campaign encouraging more people to travel and gather here during a pandemic.  Back in February, NO and CO's head Stephen Perry sent out an inflammatory email to agency clients wherein he blamed local COVID victims for preventing the cabal of tourism owners from making money. Here we see the Convention Center arguing over how to spread half a billion public dollars around to contractors and cronies to renovate and expand its facilities and develop whole new "entertainment district" for private profit while hundreds of New Orleanians are about to be evicted.  And still the Cantrell Administration insists the city gets its #fairshare from these agencies.  Maybe this is because dispersing public money through private conduits and expecting it to trickle down is precisely their idea of "fair."

It's important to understand this context because when you see administrators claim there are multi-year deficits which obligate them to hold back federal relief funds rather than use them to help people now,  you have to question where they actually intend those funds to go.  People are going to be evicted on August 1, 2021  October 3, 2021... actually the moratorium doesn't cover everyone and evictions have been ongoing this entire time. What good does it do them if we are hiding money away until 2025?

The administration is considering setting aside whatever money it might need for the latest 2025 estimates first and then work backward, only adding to next year’s plan at the end, Montaño said. 

Given that we know the city is preparing to implement the privatizing functions of the infrastructure bill, and given that Montano is arguing here that the City Council should butt out of his budget process, we have to conclude that the purpose is to consolidate as much of the pub-private patronage power through the mayor's office as possible.  At least that is one way to read this "efficiencies gained through the pandemic process," comment.

“It’s easiest to go back to the way you were and its easiest to go back to normal, but I’m not willing to lose the efficiencies we gained through this pandemic process,” he said. He added that the council reopening the process “takes away executive authority. The mayor gets to propose what we’re putting in the budget, not an agency director.”

Actually that's pretty much just a naked admission.  It would also explain why the same administration expressing concern over the ARP claw backs is simultaneously promoting the passage of the bill that will make them happen.  They don't care if there is less money than people actually need so long as they get to be in charge of passing it out. 

Why is this acceptable?  Or more critically, why does our political system allow this state of affairs to obtain?  To answer that, let us refer to a book by Arizona Senator and budding professional troll, Kyrsten Sinema. The book, by the bearer of the now famous "fuck off" ring, is titled Unite and Conquer: How to Build Coalitions That Win and Last, funnily enough. In this excerpt, Sinema relays to us some important lessons she learned serving in the Arizona State Legislature. 

I showed up all right. And for the first several months, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, coming to work every morning full of vim and vigor, ready to face off for justice—which made me rather annoying. I’d stand up four or five times a week on the floor of the house and give scathing speeches about how this bill and that bill were complete and utter travesties of justice, and the paper would capture one or two of the quotes, and then we’d vote on the offending bills and they’d pass with supermajorities. I’d get righteously indignant and head back to my office, incensed that my colleagues could not only write but actually support and vote for such horrid policies!

Meanwhile, everyone else went to lunch. In short, my first legislative session was a bust. I’d spent all my time being a crusader for justice, a patron saint for lost causes, and I’d missed out on the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with fellow members in the legislature, lobbyists, and other state actors. I hadn’t gotten any of my great policy ideas enacted into law, and I’d seen lots of stuff I didn’t like become law. It was just plain sad.

At this point the reader may begin to wonder. Is Kyrsten "just plain sad" that the bad laws are passing? Or is this more about missing out on all those terrific sounding social opportunities?  It's not entirely clear yet, but it's not a great sign that the "offending bills" and "horrid policies" are left undefined while the author's self-image and personal comfort level becomes the center of the narrative. Anyway let's read on.

I spent the summer figuring out what I wanted to change. I knew that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing because it wasn’t working for me and I hated it. I had, without actually planning to do so, fallen quite easily into the role of the loyal opposition, the righteously indignant crusader, the bomb thrower. In legislative lingo, a bomb thrower is a legislator who chooses to yell from the sidelines, cackle at the rest of the body, and generally raise hell from the corner of the room. A person who chooses to be a bomb thrower in the legislature is choosing to remove himself or herself from the work of the body: negotiating on bills, working to find compromises, and sometimes teaming up with unusual allies to promote or kill legislation. This person plays an important role at the capitol because he or she calls out the body on a regular basis (which is needed, especially considering that the general public hears or reads roughly 0.3 percent of what happens each day inside the legislature). However, the bomb thrower has made a choice—whether consciously or not—to be excluded from the actual process of negotiating proposed legislation. You can’t play both roles in the legislature; if you choose to be a bomb thrower, you will not get the opportunity to amend bills, participate in bipartisan meetings to craft good legislation, or work with people on the other side of the aisle to kill bad legislation. I unwittingly chose to be a bomb thrower my first session, which led to my unhappiness and regret.

Over the summer, I consciously chose to reject the bomb thrower role. For me, it was not a hard choice to make. I was miserable as a bomb thrower. And since I hadn’t consciously chosen that role, I was even more depressed when I realized that I had become a bomb thrower and worked my way right into that lonely corner. It didn’t fit me. I do love to give fiery speeches. But I also love people. I love talking with people, working together, and making friends. The bomb thrower doesn’t get to make friends much (understandably so), and she certainly doesn’t get to work with all the people she’s throwing bombs toward.

Remarkably, the younger Sinema was wrong about all of this.  Now at the apex of her career she has figured out you really can throw bombs and make friends at the same time.  As long as you make sure the bombs fall on the appropriate people outside of the Senate, you'll never be lonely inside of it.  

There's a kind of class politics at work here. But it's the politics of a consensus class within the halls of power charged with managing the hyper-concentration of societal wealth into ever more exclusive circles.  That retreat has been going on since the 1970s but it took a significant turn in the response to the 2008 financial crisis. That's when we learned capitalism can sustain itself just by passing around federally guaranteed credit among the wealth hoarding class and leaving a growing class of surplus humans to more or less fend for themselves. As we've tried to show over the past year, the pandemic response has been a continuation of this project. Anyway that's why a completely captured political apparatus can be indifferent to a homelessness crisis and cut off already miserly safety net payments in the height of a pandemic. It's just doing its work of laying down terms of the harsher readjusted social contract. 

So that about sets the table for the rest of the year. We're looking at another round of political buck passing to cover for a national policy of austerity and privatization. Locally, this will set off a bonanza of petty patronage delivered through local pub-private and non-profit networks. Come October, the new moratorium will expire. By that time, nothing will have fundamentally changed for the renters facing eviction, and we'll have another version of this same argument. Only by then, Biden will have celebrated the success of his bipartisan Infrastructure Week, Sinema will be back from vacation, and, in New Orleans, the same mayor and  (basically same) city council who are running with no meaningful opposition will be on their way to reelection.  And so at every level of government, the next round of calls to "do something" will be one degree easier to ignore. 

Of course the rent will still be due.  Just like every month.