New Orleans City Hall
Monday, May 21, 2012
Civil Service meeting: NOPD loses request for full-time public information officer
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Mon, May 21, 2012 at 2:55 PM
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) was not able to convince the city Civil Service Commission to approve the creation of a new, unclassified position for its currently contracted public information officer, Remi Braden, at today's commission meeting.
Researchers in the city personnel department found that there was no reason for creating a new position since the job primarily involves the dissemination of information produced entirely by classified police officers rather than independent policy making. Furthermore, there is already an equivalent classified Civil Service position, researchers found — marketing development coordinator — currently in use by one other city agency — the French Market Corporation.
The maximum salary for the marketing development coordinator position, however, is just over $83,000. NOPD hoped to pay Braden $83,000.
"To equate a public safety public information officer with the French Market Corporation is ludicrous," said Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, deputy mayor of public safety.
(Continued after jump)
Friday, May 18, 2012
WDSU: Hedge-Morrell will return for next Council meeting
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 2:43 PM
Which, oh by the way, is scheduled for June 7, nearly one week after the interim appointment of the now-vacant District B seat gets kicked to the Mayor's office.
WDSU reports that Hedge-Morrell notified city officials in an email earlier this week that she did not plan to attend any meetings until July. Then, today...
But two days after the email was received by more than a dozen people connected to the Council, Pugh sent a second message:Please be advised Councilmember Morrell will be in attendance at the June 7th and 21st Council meeting since the dates of the conferences has (sic) changed.
Update: Hedge-Morrell, Johnson met with mayor before boycotting Wednesday and Thursday meetings
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:35 AM
According to Cynthia Hedge-Morrell's personal calendar, which was obtained by Gambit through a public records request, she and fellow absentee Council member Jon Johnson were scheduled to meet with Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Tuesday May 15, the day before City Council was scheduled to meet to wrap up its unfinished May 3 agenda.
Lena Stewart, Hedge-Morrell's chief of staff, confirmed that the meeting with Landrieu did, indeed, take place as scheduled. However, she added, she could comment on what was discussed as she was not present for the meeting and neither Council member discussed it with her.
Among the items leftover from May 3 — and subsequently placed on the May 16 and May 17 agendas — was the confirmation of Errol George as an interim appointment to the now-vacant District B seat. Neither Hedge-Morrell nor Johnson attended that meeting. They were again absent from a May 17 regular Council meeting.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Hedge-Morrell, Johnson again absent from City Council meeting
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:17 PM
Once again, no quorum today, as only four members, one short of quorum, were present in City Council Chambers for what was supposed to be the May 17 regular meeting.
However... "We can't conduct any of the city's business," said Clerk of Council Peggy Lewis following today's predictable roll call (Cynthia Hedge-Morrell: Absent, Jon Johnson: Absent).
What followed was basically more of the same. Instead of the 42-page agenda, which included a number of items from the unfinished May 3 regular meeting, we got a few presentations: a wrap-up of Navy Week, a proclamation honoring Unity GNO on the occasion of its 20th anniversary and lots of righteous indignation from the four Council members who decided to come to work. That last non-agenda item largely centered around City Council's continued inability to confirm the interim appointment of Errol George to the District B Council seat, which has been vacant since Stacy Head was sworn as an at-large Council member on May 2.
(More after the jump)
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
No quorum: Hedge-Morrell, Johnson absent at special City Council meeting
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:11 AM
City Council members Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and Jon Johnson were both no-shows today at a City Council meeting today, once again leaving the city's legislative branch with only four present members, one short of quorum, and unable to vote on any legislation. The four present members — at-large Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, at-large Councilwoman Stacy Head, District C Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer and District A Councilwoman Susan Guidry — were, however, able to make the most of what quickly turned into, basically, a press event, shaming the two absent members for bringing city government to a standstill.
"There is a lot of city business at stake that's lying dormant, and that's disgraceful," Clarkson said.
Today's meeting was called in order to wrap Council's May 3 agenda, still unfinished after Hedge-Morrell and Johnson walked out in the middle of that meeting. Among those items was the confirmation of urban planning consultant Errol George as the interim District B Council member. That seat has been vacant since Head assumed the at-large seat.
(More after the jump)
Friday, May 4, 2012
Last group of inmates leaves House of Detention
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Fri, May 4, 2012 at 11:53 AM
"The House of Detention is now a closed chapter in the history of the sheriff's office and the city of New Orleans," Gusman said at a press conference, minutes before the few remaining HOD residents boarded a bus taking them to other Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office facilities.
More than 600 OPP inmates — all of them Orleans Parish, rather than state, detainees — have been moved out of the facility since Gusman's April 10 announcement, Gusman said. To make room for them, 400 post-conviction state inmates, recently housed in other OPP buildings, have been handed over to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections to be placed in other facilities throughout the state.
(More after the jump)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
New Orleans trying to decide where to build new dog parks
Posted by Kevin Allman on Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 1:33 PM
Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration is surveying citizens and holding meetings about the development of dog parks in New Orleans. More than 1,400 residents have responded to an online survey aimed at determining the needs of dog owners (you're welcome to do so; the survey closes Friday). This week, the city’s Office of Neighborhood Engagement is holding a series of six public meetings last week (one in each council district; two in District C) to explain the fact-gathering process and get more community input. Tonight's meetings are at 6 pm at Holy Angels Church (3500 St. Claude Ave.) and the Cut-Off Recreation Center (6600 Belgrade St.).
“The goal is to put one dog park and one dog run in each council district,” explained Vince Smith, director of capital projects, to a group of about eight people gathered at the District A meeting last night at the Robert E. Smith Library in Lakeview. Smith said the city had identified 23 unofficial dog parks across the city — 10 of which are in District A — in addition to “City Bark,” the membership-only dog park in New Orleans City Park. Dog owners pay $43 per year for a permit to use the 4.3-acre off-leash park, a fenced area with amenities that include a dog wash and a smaller fenced-in area for little dogs.
It’s not only the sites that are unknown right now — it’s the funding. “We have no dedicated funds,” Smith said. “This is a site-selection process only.” Smith explained that the city isn’t sure yet whether any dog park monies would come from the capital operating budget or from New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) funds, so there’s no timetable on building.
Those who can't make the meetings can still provide feedback to the city at dogpark@nola.gov.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Proposed Civil Service Commission meeting rules: Who's allowed to speak?
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:49 PM
The New Orleans Civil Service Commission is scheduled to vote Monday on new meeting procedures, theoretically intended to make the meetings more orderly. (More at The Times-Picayune.)
One section that civil servants will probably like deals with closed executive sessions. As it stands, the Commission schedules executive sessions prior to nearly every meeting, often without a stated reason, which employee groups have recently claimed is illegal.
Under state law, a public body may call a closed meeting in a limited number of exceptional circumstances — like discussion of pending litigation or collective bargaining — and must state the reason for the closure. The new proposals explicitly state that the Commission must abide by that law.
For the most part, the 18-page rulebook brings the (admittedly sometimes chaotic) meetings in line with City Council policy, including the new Sandra Wheeler Hester-inspired ban on unauthorized recording.
Like City Council, an attendee who is found by the presiding body to be disruptive and refuses to comply with Commission requests to leave can be fined and potentially jailed. In City Council, there's a maximum $50 fine and 30 days jail time, per a city ordinance that only applies to City Council Chambers. The applicable law here addresses breaches of security in public buildings, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $100 and as much as five months incarceration.
And as in City Council, attendees wishing to make public comments must fill out a speaker request card and can only speak for a limited time. There's where things get convoluted.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Financial advisory firm begins audit of city's criminal justice system
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 3:52 PM
Public Financial Management Group (PFM), a Philadelphia-based advisory firm that specializes in government finance, this week began a two-month-long financial and operational review of the city's entire criminal justice system. Its findings will ultimately be used as a guide in writing the departmental budgets for the New Orleans Police Department, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office and the city's court system, Criminal Justice Commissioner James Carter said today at a meeting of the Orleans District Law Enforcement Council.
David Eichenthal, director of PFM's Chattanooga, Tenn. office, who's leading the project, said the company will conduct a full review of those departments' budgets, identify operational deficiencies in each and propose new and theoretically more effective strategies.
PFM has a consulting contract with New Orleans government going back to 2007, when it was hired for just under $1 million to develop a five-year plan to fix the city's finances. That yearlong contract has since been renewed five times — a total value of nearly $4.5 million over the five year period, city records show.
Eichethal said PFM staff have already begun reaching out to "key stakeholders" (meaning high-ranking police and sheriff's office officials, judges and other court personnel) for interviews.
"All these folks will be contacting you," Carter said to meeting attendees, including NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas, Sheriff Marlin Gusman and Municipal Court Chief Judge Paul Sens. "This will literally determine our budgeting process.
PFM will be back in town on April 23 and May 7, one week before and one week after April 30, when the city puts out initial requests for departmental budget offers for the 2013 fiscal year. PFM is scheduled to have a draft report completed by late May or early June.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Gusman will close House of Detention
Posted by Charles Maldonado on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 3:47 PM
The Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office will begin closing one of its facilities, the city-owned House of Detention, beginning today, Sheriff Marlin Gusman announced this afternoon. Gusman, speaking at a press conference outside the construction site for the Orleans Parish Prison's (OPP) new kitchen and warehouse facility, set to open later this year, said the decision came partly as a result of criticism from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including a report released just this week which found OPP to have a particularly high number of sexual assaults.
"Certainly the mounting criticism, the inspections by the federal people," were a factor in the decision to close the House of Detention, Gusman said today.
The most recent report by the Review Panel on Prison Rape included testimony from former OPP inmates who claim to have suffered multiple rapes at the jail and say they received little protection from sheriff's deputies. Gusman claimed that DOJ chose not to include his office's rebuttals to the findings.
That, in turn, came less than a week after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class-action lawsuit against Gusman citing inhumane conditions at the jail. See this week's lead news for more on that.
(More after the jump)
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