Friday, November 18, 2016

New Orleans Public Belt Railroad - November 2016 Commissioners Meeting

The long awaited KPMG analysis has finally been completed and turned in to the City.  Today at the monthly Board of Commissioners meeting Mayoral Representative Ryan Berni announced that the analysis recommends not selling the Public Belt but does recommend entering a public/private partnership to manage the railroad.  He went on to announce that the city would put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) and expected a decision to be made between 3 and 7 months:


Public Belt Railroad - Ryan Berni reports on City's decision regarding the outcome of the KPMG report from Jason Berry on Vimeo.

During public comment a handful of stakeholders once again objected to changing the status quo of the NOPB and the issuing of the RFP. One comment led to a somewhat contentious exchange between David Kearney, President of the Kearny Companies, Inc. and Ryan Berni starting at about the 4:40 mark:


Public Belt Railroad - Public Comment on KPMG report and announcment of Public-Private Partnership RFP from Jason Berry on Vimeo.

I didn't have a lot of time to comment tonight because I have some real world work to knock out but I plan on making some more in-depth posts over the weekend including publishing some excerpts from an interview with Mayor Landrieu about the status of the Public Belt.  He was kind of enough to grant me an audio interview about the NOPB back in September.

More to come.

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