Just stripping it for parts now

We're almost past the point of abandoning pretense.  At the same time that New Orleans administrators find themselves begging for help before a hostile audience in Baton Rouge, threatening city workers with furloughs and layoffs, and drastically cutting back on public services, it has been determined that now is also an excellent moment to give away millions of dollars to corporate entities who definitely do not need them.

Some of the biggest cuts will be for the largest downtown hotels, including the Marriott on Canal Street, the Hilton Riverside, and the Sheraton, as well as Harrah's Casino New Orleans and its adjacent properties.

Each could see their tax bills drop by between $1.5 and $2.5 million, based on current millage rates and estimates from data provided by the assessor.

The assessor says this is about helping "small businesses" and the local hospitality industry. But look at where the bulk of this goes. 

According to data compiled by the Downtown Development District, almost a third of the total cut in commercial sector valuations — or about $90 million — is accounted for by 10 downtown properties, including the cluster of properties at the river end of Canal Street owned by Harrah's New Orleans Casino, a division of Caesars Entertainment of Las Vegas. Harrah's valuations were more than halved to about $15.3 million, which will reduce its property tax bill by an estimated $2.4 million, according to the assessor's office.

Similarly, the Marriott Hotel on Canal, the Sheraton, the Intercontinental, the Crowne Plaza, the Roosevelt and the Ritz-Carlton will see their property taxes halved.

All are owned by national hotel management groups, suggesting that any tax savings will head to corporate coffers outside of the city.

In order to pay for this roughly $42 million tax cut gift to mega-landlords and out of town corporate interests, we will ask  residents - that is homeowners and renters combined since residential tax increases are always passed on to renters - to  pay about $30 million a year more, collectively.

Overall it means at least a $12 million drop in annual revenue to the city and public services that depend on property taxes.  And, of course, the poorer you are, the more likely it is you rely on such services or cannot easily pay to make up the difference if they are diminished.  

How does this happen? Who would push a disaster capitalism scheme like this on an already hard-hit city?  The same people who have been robbing that city blind since Katrina, of course. They are the pros at this, after all. 

Michael Sherman, a lawyer who was land-use adviser to Mayor Mitch Landrieu and whose current clients include 30 hotel owners, was among the industry representatives who consulted with Williams on the tax changes. Sherman pointed out that Williams had the authority to make the big cuts for commercial property owners because of a revision to a flood-damage law that came into effect after Hurricane Katrina. It required assessors to consider tax cuts after various types of disasters.

Who won the pandemic? The bosses won the pandemic. The landlords won the pandemic.  The same grifters who step in after every disaster to strip the broken pieces of the social contract for parts won the pandemic. But you can't say we didn't know it would be like this.  We've gotten pretty well used to it by now.