NORD privatization pilot?

Laura Rodrigue somehow got someone to earmark funds in a bill for UNO facilities upgrades for a "youth sports program" of some sort. 

Under UNO's transfer into the LSU system, which Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign into law this week, lawmakers in New Orleans' legislative delegation secured millions of dollars for debt payments and deferred facility maintenance at the financially-troubled university.

At the same time, Landry, acting at the urging of attorney Laura Rodrigue, a longtime ally of the governor's and other conservative leaders, secured $1.95 million to stand up the recreation programs at UNO — apparently without the knowledge of members of New Orleans' legislative delegation, who said this week that they knew nothing about the plan.

There aren't a ton of details about how the program will run. Immediately concerning is the focus on facilities specifically at UNO rather than on upgrading parks and playgrounds throughout the city. You would think that would be a priority given the way Rodrigue has been demagoguing over the state of NORD facilities recently. 

Meanwhile, this program is farmed out to a private non-profit called 18th Ward  that has already done some contracting with NORD. I see some familiar social and political adjacent swells on its board.  Also this story highlights Rodrigue's involvement as well as that of the conservative business political formation known as the "NOLA Coalition." Boysie Bollinger seems to have endorsed it. Greg Rusovich is here too. All of your favs. Who doesn't seem to have been included on the memo, though, is anyone elected by the voters of Orleans Parish to represent their interests in municipal affairs and city services... like public recreation, for example.  

All of which is why Ashonta Wyatt's suspicion voiced at the end of the article seems like a fair diagnosis. 

Others in the community view the plan as a concerted effort to privatize public recreation.

“Anytime you see programming popping up that mirrors programming already in existence, you have to ask yourself why you're trying to reinvent a wheel when you can just pour the resources to shore up the parks and recreation that already exists?” community activist and former New Orleans elementary school principal Ashonta Wyatt said this week on local radio station WBOK.

Fuck you. Pay me

Jack Rizutto trying to pull a classic bust-out on the Krewe of Oshun, apparently.

The Krewe of Oshun parade is the very first float procession in New Orleans’ official Mardi Gras season. As the 2025 Carnival season approached, the Krewe found itself with fewer riders than expected, and unable to make its advance payments to Rizzuto.

By contract, Rizzuto said, the krewe was required to pay for the parade in full before he delivered the floats. Yet, he said, he didn’t want to see the small, 30-year-old organization fail. In a telephone interview Thursday, Rizzuto said that two weeks before the parade, he agreed to allow the Oshun parade to proceed, with the proviso that he become krewe captain.

Rizzuto, who already serves as captain of the Krewe of Mid-City and co-captain of the Krewe of Pygmalion, said that he didn’t need the headache of managing another parading group. But he believed he knew how to increase membership in the krewe, and ensure that he eventually got paid for previous services.

Cue the scene:

Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? "Fuck you, pay me." Oh, you had a fire? "Fuck you, pay me." Place got hit by lightning, huh? "Fuck you, pay me." Also, Paulie could do anything. Especially run up bills on the joint's credit. And why not? Nobody's gonna pay for it anyway. And as soon as the deliveries are made in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a two hundred dollar case of booze and you sell it for a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's all profit. And then finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out. You light a match.


Or something like that. Look, he even charged a vig.

Oshun’s former captain, Dominique Thomas, characterizes Rizzuto’s motives differently. In a telephone interview, she said she considers his insistence on being captain as a power grab that will result in changes to krewe traditions. Thomas said that Rizzuto solidified his control of the krewe by seating a new board of directors.

Thomas accuses Rizzuto of using unfair tactics to take control, including imposing interest fees on the money owed him and suggesting that the former Oshun board members might be personally responsible for the krewe’s debt.

The gold standard for ethics

It's been a long time since Bobby Jindal promised he was going to deliver the most ethicsy "dragonslaying" regime in the history of state government. (It didn't quite work out that way. Long story, kids.)  Anyway, it's now the year of our lord 2025 and pretensions of good government reform have fallen pretty far out of fashion with Republicans. 

So it should come as no surprise now that during a legislative session where we are shielding officials from ethics investigations and rewriting campaign finance laws to legalize bribery, that we're also destroying the civil service system in favor of patronage spoils. 

Louisiana lawmakers are trying to change the state constitution to wrestle power away from the Civil Service Commission to eliminate state worker protections and allow for the quick firing of thousands of employees for any reason, creating fear among critics that some dismissals could be politically motivated.  

Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris. R-West Monroe, is nearing final passage in the Louisiana Legislature, though voters will get the final say on a constitutional amendment on a ballot that could have significant consequences for how state government operates.

Morris’ proposal would give state lawmakers power that currently rests with the Civil Service Commission, a seven-member independent review panel that oversees the hiring and firing of 28,000 “classified” state workers. The commission hears complaints from classified employees and appeals from any who want to contest their dismissal or demotion, affording them due process when it comes to discipline and terminations. 

In an interview Tuesday, Morris said his bill would let lawmakers “unclassify” state employees, removing them from the oversight of the commission. An unclassified employee does not have Civil Service protections and can be fired “at will” for no reason. The bill’s current version would also apply to local civil service workers such as municipal police and firefighters, but Morris said he intends to change his measure to exclude them and restrict it to only state employees. 

If this bill passes (and folks counting the votes all seem to think it will) it still has to go before the voters in the fall.  There's some concern there about the ballot language. 

The more likely course of events, if voters decide to approve the amendment, would be that the legislature designates all future hires as unclassified employees — a move that would eventually end the classified civil service system altogether, Gregoire said. The Civil Service Commission, itself, would still exist under the constitution but would effectively become pointless because it would no longer have anything to oversee.

“Eventually you won’t have any classified employees, so why do you need a commission?” Gregoire said.

Morris said he doesn’t yet have a vision for how lawmakers would exercise their new power if voters approve the amendment.

Except it's already clear what Morris's vision is. He's said that part loudly enough.