Sunday, January 15, 2017

New Orleans Public Belt Railroad - KPMG Evaluation

Here's an update on what's happening with NOPB and the KPMG evaluation that led the City to decide they would not seek a sale of the Public Belt in lieu of a "Private/Public" partnership to lease the City-owned asset.

In the last post, I introduced an interview I conducted with Mayor Landrieu about his intent to sell and/or lease the NOPB.  In that interview I asked him if the company the City had hired to provide an evaluation of the railroad was taking in to account the myriad contract agreements and trackage rights with Class/Tier 1 railroad companies the NOPB had developed over the past 100+ years since it's inception.

I didn't get a very clear answer...from the Mayor or his appointee to the NOPB Commission, Ryan Berni.



NOPB - Complications in trackage rights, etc. from Jason Berry on Vimeo.


I don't have the full evaluation from KPMG but I do have an abbreviated version and it states that it was created under the assumption that existing"rights and leases" would remain intact.

That is quite an assumption.

I have not seen the full KPMG evaluation but it appears they did not address the complications of "clear title" to the NOPB's assets and operations.

  

Here is the abbreviated KPMG Evaluation material I currently have:

KPMG Evaluation

Upcoming...In our interview, I asked Mayor Landrieu about the wisdom of selling off City assets, his affinity for public/private partnerships and his strategy of "bully politics" when it comes to appointments to public boards, e.g., Wisner.

Coming soon...stay tuned.


  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is bruthaman... how fucked are we with trump?

Jason Brad Berry said...

I have no idea.