Does Billy understand what the word, pardon, means?

 The pig didn't do anything that needs pardoning. 

BATON ROUGE, La. — A baby pig that was rescued after being tossed like a football near a Mardi Gras event in New Orleans was “pardoned” Wednesday and has found a permanent home with a Louisiana lawmaker. The weeks-old little pink critter — dubbed Earl “Piglet” Long, a play on the name of the former 45th governor of Louisiana — was ceremoniously pardoned by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser on the Louisiana Capitol steps.

“He will live out his life without any threat of being thrown like a football or being part of jambalaya or boudin in someone's kitchen here in Louisiana,” Nungesser said, referring to two popular dishes that contain sausage. While beads, stuffed animals and hand-decorated souvenirs are frequently catapulted through the air during Carnival Season in Louisiana, pigs are not among those items.

The piglet’s journey to a new home began earlier this month when a bystander noticed men in a park, not far from a Mardi Gras parade, throwing “what appeared to be a mini-football” to one another and laughing, according to the Humane Society of Louisiana.

I mean, clearly, the transgression here is committed by the people abusing the animal. Although, I can't say that's especially pardonable.  Anyway, if anything the pig should have to pardon Billy. Doesn't matter for which offense. Just pick any of them. 

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.

Governed but not represented

Get used to this sort of thing under Governor Landry.  The City of New Orleans and its people can consider themselves an occupied territory, basically.  Decisions about their basic infrastructure, even, are going to be made from elsewhere. 

Landry announced Tuesday he had signed an executive order creating the Governor’s Task Force for the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. The 14-member body, consisting of appointees by the governor, state agencies, city economic development leaders and others, will have wide latitude to make recommendations on any aspect of the agency's operations.

It also has a specific mandate to look at the S&WB's billing practices, its governing structure and whether its management should be reorganized to "achieve more direct lines of authority" over key operations.

The task force is to provide recommendations within 30 days, in time for the upcoming legislative session.

Notably, the group does not include any dedicated appointments by New Orleans elected officials — including Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who serves as president of the state-authorized agency — or any leaders of the S&WB, though a Landry spokesperson suggested some local officials could be named.

No one you've elected gets to appoint anyone to the "task force." Nor does anyone who can reasonably be construed to represent the residents and workers here. Instead, we get bosses and business owners.  

One person appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development

One person appointed by the Executive Director of the Coast Protection and Restoration Authority

One person appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality

One person appointed by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Louisiana

One person appointed by the Louisiana Engineering Society

One person appointed by the Louisiana Associated General Contractors

One person appointed by Jefferson Parish Public Works

One person appointed by Greater New Orleans, Inc.

One person appointed by the Business Council of New Orleans

One person appointed by New Orleans & Company

Four people appointed by Governor Landry

None of these parties has released the names of their appointees yet. But the wind is blowing toward privatization now so keep an eye out for Jim Bernhard. 

Oh my god he admit it

Decades of trying to push the bullshit line that we "create jobs" by giving away tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations. And now the minute they have enough power that they don't have to sell it anymore, they just drop the bullshit and say what they mean. 

Manufacturing companies can qualify for lucrative property tax exemptions even if their investments don’t create or retain jobs, under an executive order that Gov. Jeff Landry signed on Wednesday that marks a significant shift in the way the state incentivizes economic development.

Landry’s order, which he signed Wednesday but announced earlier this month, reverses a big change to the Industrial Tax Exemption Program, better known as ITEP, that then-Gov. John Bel Edwards made in 2016 and again in 2018.

“We have removed the job requirement because this program is about capital investment. It is not about job creating,” Landry told a crowd at the annual luncheon in Baton Rouge of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state’s most powerful business lobby.

Does anybody remember Friedman units?

That thing where you definitely expect conditions to improve "within the next 6 months" or so and then keep pushing that ahead as needed.  Anyway, we might have one of those with the NOPD consent decree now. 

The mood in Morgan's courtroom was relatively convivial Wednesday afternoon at the first public hearing in more than a year on progress with the federal consent decree, and the first for NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick as the city's top cop.

It was a stark contrast to the last series of hearings, where Morgan found the department violated 10 provisions of the consent decree in its internal investigation of Officer Jeffrey Vappie and his work for the mayor. Morgan ultimately declined to hold the city in contempt and accepted a remedial action plan. 

Fulfillment of the plan's 95 actions is among the steps necessary for the department to reach compliance with the consent decree and enter a period of stepped-down monitoring. Of those 95 items, a little under half are done. 

"Our estimated time of completion is June 2024," said Deputy Chief Nicholas Gernon, who along with Kirkpatrick crafted that plan.

We'll check back then, I guess.

Also, here's a somewhat related aside.  On Mardi Gras morning, I got out to take my customary photos of high ranking New Orleans officials leading the Zulu parade on horseback.  Traditionally the mayor does this. But in recent years our current mayor's appearance there has been sporadic. Sometimes there's a councilmember instead. Sometimes it's the Sheriff.  And sometimes, like this year, it's just the police chief. 

Significant in this case, because it is the new Chief, Anne Kirkpatrick. It seemed like a big day for her. Later that night I watched her get interviewed by Errol and Peggy at the Rex ball. This isn't an exact quote below but it does capture the essence. 

 

THEY PUT ME ON A HORSE. I LOVE THE LITTLE HORSE. pic.twitter.com/5xUmStXfyN

— skooks (@skooks) February 14, 2024

Basically, she sounded like this whole gig is just a big fun cruise she's booked. Which might not be too far from the truth but we'll get back to that. 

Anyway, walking about 20 feet ahead of her was former interim Chief (and runner-up to Kirpatrick for the job) Michelle Woodfork.  We all noticed because a woman ran out of the crowd to greet her shouting, "That's MY chief! That's my chief right there!"  

And maybe she's got the right idea. Since we're in a world now where there are multiple police forces reporting to multiple District Attorneys applying multiple standards of justice and policing according to political whim, maybe we should all just pick whatever chief we prefer.

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.

When a fraud policing tech gets taken down, does it make a sound?

Chicago is finally ditching ShotSpotter. (Although, you might notice here that Johnson is dragging his feet a bit.)

Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Tuesday that he won’t renew the city’s controversial contract with ShotSpotter, making good on a key campaign promise to do away with the gunshot detection system that has come under heavy fire for allegedly being overly costly and ineffective.

After the Sun-Times reported on the decision earlier in the day, Johnson’s office issued a statement saying the city “will decommission the use of ShotSpotter technology on September 22,” meaning cops will have access to the system throughout the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention.

"During the interim period, law enforcement and other community safety stakeholders will assess tools and programs that effectively increase both safety and trust, and issue recommendations to that effect,” the mayor’s office said.

The move comes after several years of mounting evidence that the technology is ineffective and, in fact, actively harmful. 

He insisted the technology is “unreliable and overly susceptible to human error,” adding that it “played a pivotal role” in the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021.

Many of those concerns were reiterated by critics of ShotSpotter, who frame it as a costly surveillance tool that has led to overpolicing in minority communities. Proponents argue it’s a lifesaving resource that gives cops another much-needed tool to respond to gun violence.

Last week, the Sun-Times reported the Cook County state’s attorney’s office had conducted a review of ShotSpotter that found the technology had a minimal effect on prosecuting gun violence cases.

ShotSpotter was previously slammed in a May 2021 report by the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern School of Law, which found that nearly 86% of police deployments to alerts of gunfire prompted no formal reports of any crime.

In another scathing report that August, the city’s Office of the Inspector General concluded the technology rarely leads to investigatory stops or evidence of gun crimes.

Ever behind-the-curve, though are New Orleans public figures who reflexively promote the fraudulent technology as a "solution" whenever crime and policing is missing. (Here's JP Morrell doing that not even a scant two years ago, for example.) The more cynical among us would posit that this has something to do with the presence of local political and business personages on the company's board.  But it doesn't have to be that.  This city is backwards enough on its own.

The year of worst fears

Mardi Gras is over.* Time to start facing up to the realities of 2024, most of which will be bad.  Get used to it.  Here they come. 

Gov. Jeff Landry doesn’t want to make a public school teacher pay hike from last year permanent, frustrating teachers who have been pushing for the pay bump since early 2023.

“Of course, our worst fear came through,” said Cynthia Posey, legislative director for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. “It’s really devastating to a profession where people are paid so much less than others with college degrees.” 

Landry’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year includes $198 million for a second round of stipends for teacher and school support staff, instead of permanent salary increases.

*Yes, I know there hasn't been the usual Mardi Gras posting on this site this year. It's coming. I've got a bunch of stuff to say about it before JP Morrell's promised April review of the Carnival ordinances, though. Coming soon. 

Turns out they will have to figure in a way to bribe the legislators too

At first they didn't think they'd have to.  Technically the legislature doesn't have direct authority over whether or not the sale goes through. But the way lawmakers were talking before the hearing was starting to make everybody feel back. So, back to the drawing board. For now, anyway. 

Hours before regulatory hearings in Baton Rouge were set to begin Wednesday, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana officials said they were shelving plans for a controversial $2.5 billion sale to Elevance Health.

In a statement early Wednesday, the Louisiana Department of Insurance said, “Late yesterday evening, Blue Cross notified the LDI that it has chosen to withdraw its Plan of Reorganization. The hearing scheduled for today and tomorrow is therefore canceled."

It’s the second time in less than a year that the Baton Rouge-based nonprofit has tabled its plan to sell itself to the for-profit Elevance, one of the nation’s largest insurers, amid steep opposition from doctors, hospitals, some policyholders and state lawmakers.

I'm sure they'll be back. 

The bribes are un-subtle

We really thought Jeff Landry would have been in jail by this point in his career. But we also thought the same of Billy Nungesser and look at them both just keep chugging along.  Anyway..

The chief of staff for Gov. Jeff Landry has worked as a lobbyist for Pennington Biomedical Research Center, the institute that the governor has singled out to receive potentially millions of research dollars as part of the controversial proposed sale of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana.

Landry aide Kyle Ruckert, who also served as a campaign strategist for Landry’s gubernatorial bid last year, held the lobbying contract until late last year when his wife Lynnel took it over exclusively. The contract, which is for representation in Washington, pays $40,000 per year, according to federal filings.

The Ruckerts have represented Pennington Biomedical since 2020.

Shut up, go back to work, do not ask any questions

As we've already noted, the sale of Blue Cross Louisiana to a notorious for-profit corporation is a terrible deal. Even your also notorious Louisiana Legislature seems to understand this. 

Legislators, who came prepared with detailed questions about every aspect of the complex transaction, returned repeatedly throughout the marathon hearing to Elevance’s track record in other states. The company has racked up more than $26 million in regulatory fines for violations that included denying coverage of needed medical care, failing to cover preventive service like immunizations and breast cancer screening, and failing to pay claims in a timely manner.

Louisiana, where Elevance administers the Healthy Blue Medicaid plan, was among the seven states where the company has incurred fines.

But, because the deal also grants the new Governor and Commissioner of Insurance seats on the board of the new entity the sale will create, and sway over how some of the proceeds are spent, it will likely gain the approval of both. The Governor, in fact, has already made a public endorsement.  

There appears to be public momentum gathering against the sale. Note the skeptical legislators above and, here, even our reactionary Treasury Secretary John Fleming is militating against it today.  In the meantime, though, let's look at Jeff Landry's stated reasons for accepting his bribe lending his support. To begin with, he says it's a good excuse to boot people off of Medicaid.

Landry’s strongest comments in favor of the Blue Cross sale centered on the nonprofit foundation, Accelerate Louisiana Initiative, that will funded with the bulk of sale proceeds and surplus Blue Cross reserves, for a total of more than $3 billion.

The foundation will seek to operate as a nonprofit public-private trust, a designation that will require a change of state law. It is to have four focus areas, all centered on poverty and health outcomes. Landry praised the first pillar, which supposedly would move people from dependence to independence.

“In other words, we’re going to be able to have an organization that is going to work towards trying to move those people off of Medicaid,” the Republican governor said.

It used to be, you had to just pull the inference out of the policy choice itself and explain how hostile the intent was.  Nowadays, they just come out and say what they are doing.  

The other thing they've given up on pretending to anymore is the notion that there are fiscally "conservative principles" at work here. It's about being cruel for the sake of being cruel.

That federal government-sponsored health insurance program for poor people was dramatically expanded under Landry’s predecessor, Democrat John Bel Edwards. Almost half the state’s population is now on Medicaid, most of which is paid for by the federal government.

Landry said Accelerate money will also be used to help get the state’s “safety net programs” working in sync. He used the example of a hypothetical patient with Type II diabetes, a chronic health condition that leads to other health problems. Landry said the patient might receive a “shiny brochure” from her doctor telling her to eat healthy and lose weight to help her condition.

“Then, she puts it in her purse, goes to Piggly Wiggly and goes down the aisle to the soda, chips, cookies, and then she goes to the cash register with her Louisiana Purchase card,” said Landry, using an old trope that criticizes welfare recipients. “How about if we had an organization that helps the government start to integrate the food stamp program with the Department of Health, so instead of getting a fancy brochure we could give her $100” if she engages in healthy lifestyle choices,” he said.

“When else are we going to get that opportunity again?” he said. “Those are the things we will do.”

Poor people deserve to be bullied and shamed by the state.  It's the only way to keep the help in line.  And that is, in fact, all they are good for. Landry is saying that out loud as well. 

The plans for the foundation, which were changed late last year as Blue Cross sought approval from state regulators for the deal for a second time, now specifically prohibit research money for health outcomes from going to higher educational institutions — except for the LSU-affiliated Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

Landry said that giving the money to other Louisiana research institutions, a list that would include LSU and Tulane University, would be wasteful.

“I don’t want money going to higher education. I want the money used in our workforce because everywhere I go, people are telling me they don’t have skilled labor. And I’ve seen these deals around the country and all the money gets sucked up by the universities and we got nothing,” Landry said.

When we consider this is how the Governor view his people; not so much as humans with human appetites for joy and knowledge and experience to be nurtured, but only as a "workforce" to be disciplined; then it's easier to understand why he's keen to sell their health care off to capitalist vultures at the nearest opportunity. It's an extremely efficient way of liquidating lives into profits.  

Get this off my desk

Every politician's dream everywhere is to hold the trappings of office; the social recognition, the little privileges, the bankable resume, the power to grant petty patronage favors for kickbacks, etc. without having to solve real problems.  If you are one of these office holders, anything serious, anything that requires you to fight with anyone powerful or, god forbid, actually believe in anything, is a big No Thank You.  You want to get that shit off your desk as quickly as possible. 

So, for example, you may have run for District Attorney in order to be congratulated as a "reformer." But when it comes time to do the job of dismantling the massively unjust carceral machine you promised to oppose, well, that's not really why we're here is it? No, indeed not.  We want that off our desk.   We don't even mind handing the keys to office back over to the very same people we replaced if it means we don't have to deal with it anymore. 

On Monday, shortly after this story was first published, Williams’ office released a CEA between his office and the AG, signed at the end of November. The agreement gives the AG’s office full authority to handle any state police cases in New Orleans from start to finish — from investigation, initiation of charges, trial, and even post-conviction matters. 

It also gives the Louisiana State Police’s Force Investigation Unit authority to handle any investigations related to law enforcement uses of force when they arise from arrests or investigations by state police. Any criminal matters related to those incidents would be prosecuted by the AG’s office. 

(The four page agreement released Monday afternoon, however, was missing one page. The Lens has requested it.)

The announcement comes at a time when conservatives across the country are targeting other local progressive prosecutors, hoping to strip them of power. 

Republican lawmakers in other states have passed bills allowing state attorneys general to step in to prosecute certain crimes refused by local DA’s. Other bills sought to impeach local prosecutors or suspend them from office. Landry seems inclined to take Louisiana in a similar direction. On his campaign website he bemoaned “woke” district attorneys playing a dangerous game of “catch and release” — a clear reference to Williams. 

When viewed against national dynamics, the new New Orleans partnership seems to provide a unique counterpoint. Though the state would not usually have the authority to enter the Orleans courthouse and try cases, Williams has invited prosecutors from within an office run by Donald Trump-backed Liz Murrill, to handle cases instigated by the state police, an agency under federal investigation for racial profiling and excessive force by troopers.

“None of this would be possible without the permission of Jason Williams,” said Rafael Goyeneche, director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

People think this is weird but Jason knows what he's doing.  Sure, it's an insult to the people of New Orleans that the reformed justice system they overwhelming voted for has been replaced by a right wing coup from outside of the jurisdiction.  But, you see, by welcoming the coup himself, Jason still gets to call himself the District Attorney. And that's really all that matters here.

It's called a bribe

Appreciate the legislators asking very good questions about all of this. But, at the end of the day, it will be Tim Temple and, to a lesser extent, Jeff Landry (via bully pulpit agenda setting) who will make the decision.*  So... the deal guarantees Temple a seat on the board of the new entity created by the sale.  And Landry gets this.

They called special attention to a curious provision in the plan to create Accelerate Louisiana, which will be a $3 billion foundation focused on addressing poverty and health inequity in the state. The provision prohibits the foundation from giving money for health research purposes to any higher education institution in the state except the Pennington Biomedical Research in Baton Rouge.

“You have $3.1 billion and the only institution that can receive funding is Pennington?” asked Sen. Adam Bass, R-Bossier City. “Why is that?”

Tim Barfield, a former Blue Cross member who is now board chair of the Accelerate Louisiana Initiative, said the stipulation was a condition imposed by Gov. Jeff Landry and his staff.

“That was a requirement of the attorney general, now governor,” Barfield said.

*Blue Cross policy holders also have to vote on the sale but that may be, in the bag, so to speak.  

Lawmakers also grilled Blue Cross about potential irregularities in the voting process and the way proxies are being collected. Under questioning, Blue Cross officials acknowledged that the same outside firm tabulating proxy votes is also soliciting members by phone to make sure they vote.

“The same group that can take a proxy vote over the phone is the same group calling to say, ‘Did you get your ballot?’” said Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly of Shreveport. “I am blown away.”

Entergy messaging still not resilient enough

Back in March of last year, we thought this NOLA.com "Talking Business" interview with Entergy New Orleans CEO Deanna Rodriguez would be worth bookmarking for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, there's a part where she literally says it's nice that Austin (the city she arrived here from) is prioritizing crime, jobs, and infrastructure even though, "it is losing a lot of its soul."  You know, the classic soul-for-material wealth exchange that always works out so well for everyone.  Apparently, Rodriguez is excited to help get some of that alchemy working for us too!

But before she does that, she has to lay out her thoughts on the "lessons learned" for Entergy after its catastrophic system failures in the wake of Hurricane Ida left the city without power for over a week leading to at least 10 deaths in New Orleans from heat exhaustion.

What were the lessons you learned from Ida?

One of the biggest ones is that overcommunicating is a double-edged sword. You need to communicate as often as you can. But I realized I was in a very different environment than I had been in Texas, where the relationship between the regulators and the utility is very different. There, the regulators do not tweet everything you say. Here, the City Council does. Everything we shared was being amplified by the politicians either in a good way or a bad way. I think we learned how to share more carefully. It was a good lesson. If we are going to communicate with customers, we need to partner with the media to make sure we get our message out as clearly as possible.

So her main takeaway from the Ida experience is that their PR machinery needs to be a bit slicker. 

As for their actual infrastructure, I'm not sure fixing that has ever been a priority. Not when every disaster presents a new opportunity to slam ratepayers with new fees.  That was the idea behind their proposal before city council this week. It is likely thanks only to the federal funds made available via the infrastructure bill that councilmembers were able to resist giving them everything here.  

The three projects approved Tuesday are funded in part by the federal government through the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The company will replace 97 transmission towers from Slidell to Michoud with stronger poles and pole tops, addressing a key weak point exposed by Ida. The lines feed power to about 48,000 customers. The projects will also upgrade distribution poles serving about 1,300 customers near Chef Menteur Highway and add a 30 megawatt battery to provide backup to its solar station in New Orleans East.

About half of the $106 million in costs will be funded by the feds, while ratepayers will see bills rise by $1.50 a month by 2027 to pay for the rest. If the council had approved Entergy's broader plan, customers would see their bills increase to about $12 a month for the first phase.

Most of the time, though, Entergy loves it when their shit breaks. Stretching back to Katrina, each of these episodes has been an opening to slap on more fees.  It's why your bill looks like this now. 

 

Static monthly fees may or may not do much in the way of hardening the infrastructure. But they certainly provide a consistent and predictable monthly revenue stream on top of the standard utility rates. That's exactly the sort of thing the shareholders are looking for. Which is the primary motivator behind the creation of schemes like this.

The council also debated the impact of Operation Gridiron on Entergy’s shareholders, arguing that the utility neglects necessary maintenance in favor of replacing overall infrastructure. 

“Operation Gridiron is really proposed to the public as this altruistic endeavor, but that is not 100% true,” Councilmember JP Morrell said. “Entergy will profit from infrastructure investment… And you would admit that maintenance is not as profitable as replacement.”

“That’s fair,” said Courtney Nicholson, vice president of regulatory affairs at Entergy New Orleans. 

In previous reporting, Verite News found that as bills have climbed, so have payments to Entergy shareholders. As of November, the utility’s parent company has paid out over $3 billion in shareholder dividends since 2020.

Entergy is responding to the hazards brought on by climate change by taking steps to ensure that their profits and dividends stay strong. When you hear their execs talk about "resilience," this is what they mean. 

Still, the fact that the public at large and elected city councilmembers can still see all of this for what it is probably just means Rodriguez hasn't made good on her resolution to be better at lying to them.  It isn't for lack of trying.

In November 2023, the same month the organization was founded, Resilience New Orleans released a study that said that all New Orleanians, including those experiencing social vulnerabilities, stood to benefit from Entergy’s proposed resiliency investments. DeMoss also wrote an op-ed in defense of Entergy’s plan for NOLA.com.

Other energy nonprofits in the city, like the Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, have expressed skepticism of Entergy’s proposal, and representatives for the organizations spoke up at the meeting in support of the Council’s resolution. They also advocated for the Council to approve grid resiliency efforts put forward by community members, not just the ones proposed by Entergy.

Resilience New Orleans’ website advertises that Entergy is a supporter of the nonprofit organization. The company is thus far its only financial supporter, DeMoss told Verite News.

When asked by Verite News about her nonprofit’s connection to Entergy, DeMoss replied: “I know it doesn’t look great.”

DeMoss said Entergy gave her organization $40,000 to pay for the study, which was performed by Maryland-based firm Hedgerow Analysis. Outside of that $40,000, DeMoss said that her non-profit has neither received nor spent any other money.

This is basically just the "paid actors" bit all over again except in the form of a bogus non-profit.  That they called it, "Resilience New Orleans" is almost too on-the-nose.   

Anyway one more point of interest here is the paid actor in this case is Casey DeMoss. The article notes that previous to this gig, she served as director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy which is seen as a more legitimate advocate for ratepayers. That's something to watch. Lately it looks like jobs in the non-profit advocacy and political organizing sectors have been drying up everywhere. As that continues, and as corporations like Entergy seek to better hone their lobbying efforts, I don't expect DeMoss will be the last sellout we'll come across. All these comms and policy professionals are going to need resilience strategies of their own, after all.