What do we want for our city during the brief time it has left?

Gambit asks various political players and advocacy groups what they would like to see from the Governor during the next legislative term. There are some good answers as wells as some bad ones. LaToya says some good words about some interesting topics like the LaSalle Street controversy, the public defender's office, and "rail connectivity." We should wait to hear what she has in mind for those items, though, since she also takes a minute here to thank the Governor for his help with the Fair Sham. If her solutions to the new priorities are involve more giveaways to oligarchs the way that plan did, then that's going to be a problem.

Ethan Ellestad wants the Governor to appoint better people to the Convention Center board and Superdome Commission. But he's not likely to do anything different with those patronage opportunities than in his first term.  If anything, the fact that he doesn't have a reelection campaign to worry about now could make this even worse. Appointments are more likely to reward past donors now than they are to encourage community or labor support in the future.

Ethan also talks about housing but he frames that in stark capitalist terms as an "investment."

“For the culture,” Ellestad says, “it is investing in making sure people can stay in the communities where they’re from, because they are not just the creators of the culture, which comes from working class black communities, but also they are part of the service industry, which is the backbone of the tourism industry.”

Of course we need to make sure poor and working class people are not displaced from their neighborhoods.  But to turn that question of basic human dignity into a matter of "tourism industry" benefit is demeaning.  Your right to your city isn't based on your potential commoditization as a "culture bearer." You deserve more respect than that. I've written about this before. Unfortunately Ethan Ellestad's organization has embraced this dehumanizing and exploitative rhetoric wholeheartedly. It's going to continue to be an impediment to true housing justice.

Gambit also asks for comments from GNO Inc. for some reason.  Nobody should care what they think.

If I had to pick the best comment out of all of these it would probably be this from Anne Rofles.

“New Orleans’ risk of sinking into the Gulf of Mexico is already pretty high, but it is assured if Gov. Edwards continues to allow every chemical plant, oil refinery, pipeline and gas terminal that wants to come here to come here,” says Anne Rolfes, founding director of the environmental advocacy group Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “Right now he is rolling out the red carpet for them, and New Orleans will simply not exist if he does that.”

Last week we learned that, over the past decade, the state of Louisiana, one of the most environmentally threatened places in the nation, has slashed funding for its Department of Environmental Quality more than almost any other state.

In a 10-year period marked by a dramatic increase in newly built and planned petrochemical plants in the state, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has seen its budget slashed by nearly 35 percent and its staff cut by almost 30 percent.

So says a new report from the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that terms itself an environmental enforcement watchdog.

Louisiana’s funding cut percentage ranked second among the states, tied with Texas. The state ranked fourth in the percentage of staffing cuts, with Illinois, North Carolina and Arizona seeing larger cuts of 38% to 32%, according to the report.

Meanwhile the state continues to pour millions of dollars into state subsidies for the very industries most in need of monitoring. During this year's election campaign, John Bel told us as plainly as he could that that isn't likely to change in his second term.

Edwards has suggested Louisiana can continue to embrace natural gas for “20, 30, 40 years,” as the U.S. transitions to renewable energy. “There’s going to continue to be a demand for hydrocarbons for a long time to come,” he said, adding, "We are a natural gas state." 

John Bel was just narrowly reelected specifically because New Orleans turned out to vote in record numbers.  And yet he'd prefer to go on subsidizing oil and gas production for "20, 30, 40 years" even if it means New Orleans no longer exists. Enjoy those years while you have them, I guess.