So much going on...

...you may have missed this little story...

Signs point to possible Ray Nagin federal probe

I've been told that Frank Fradella has been spotted roaming the streets of our fine city in the past few days.  That can only mean one thing and that thing is most likely not good news for Ray Ray.

Something wicked this way comes.

Come on over to my way of thinkin'

Times-Picayune employees in shock as extent of Newhouse cuts begins to emerge

My condolences to the talented folks who are losing their jobs today or taking pay cuts.

However, I would like to make a suggestion to the talented ones....start your own online media outlet.  The worst thing that ever happened to the TP is NOLA.com.  It didn't have to be that way but perhaps this is an opportunity to do it right.  The ONLY reason people read NOLA is...well besides the Saints....the quality of journalism the TP staff provides.  If that quality disappears, NOLA will be a big pixel puke of advertising with some Saints stuff thrown in.  If Newhouse thinks it's time to cull the TP, I think the culled staff of the TP should start their own online venture and set about the task of culling NOLA.

Just my two cents.

BTW:  If any of the TP folks would like to go on an apeshit rant, named or anonymously, I will offer AZ as your unadulterated canvas.  Just email it to me or post in comment section and I will serve it up hot.

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Arrogance is in?

We'll see how long that fad lasts...

Zombie Zone

I'm telling you....he is sadly, blindly misjudging the blowback these underhanded actions are going to have.  Landrieu is about to lose the support of the neighborhoods and citizens of this city in a period where we could have moved forward together.  He has pitted himself against the citizens of this city and allied himself with the plantation owners....this did not have to happen like this.  He could have listened to the people, he could have sought compromise, he could have been a uniter.

Instead he flexed his muscles and cried war against our neighborhoods and citizens.  He asked for it...he's going to get it.

Back to the drawing board

Providing the utmost visitor experience is an understandable and feasible goal but not an excuse to push through bad legislation.

Again, there’s still time for those wiling to work on a compromise.

 That's all we've ever asked for...and we never got it.

Mine! All Mine!!!!

Finger-pointing ensues after Hospitality District killed in Legislature

The arrogance is stifling :

Also at issue was a 10 percent tax allocation to the French Quarter Management District, a state entity with no recurring revenue that focuses on quality of life and infrastructure, in Peterson’s proposal. The original bill, authored by Sen. Ed Murray, provided no money for the group.

This was a particular bone of contention for Landrieu, who heaped criticism on the FQMD for its “recalcitrance.” Landrieu characterized the group as demanding a share of money that industry — primarily hotels — had volunteered to forfeit for the city’s image.

“You don’t put in, you don’t get to take somebody else’s money and go do what you want with,” Landrieu said. “They cannot come to a table with no money and no responsibility, and take the money from someplace else to satisfy themselves.”

It's not your goddamn money, Mr. Mayor.  It's tax payers' money...what fucking part that does he not understand?  There is no forfeiture of money on the industry's behalf...the money is an added tax.

So if he feels this way about the the FQMD I guess he should mount a campaign to eliminate the DDD as well.  

Act now....

Please email the following addresses and demand that Sen. Karen Carter Peterson's amendments be left in SB 767.  

adleyr@legis.la.gov, alarioj@legis.la.gov, allainb@legis.la.gov, amedeej@legis.la.gov, appelc@legis.la.gov, lasen15@legis.la.gov, brownte@legis.la.gov, smithbuffington@legis.la.gov, chabertn@legis.la.gov, claitord@legis.la.gov, cortezp@legis.la.gov, crowea@legis.la.gov, donahuej@legis.la.gov, dorseyy@legis.la.gov, erdeyd@legis.la.gov, gallotr@legis.la.gov, guillorye@legis.la.gov, HeitmeierD@legis.la.gov, johnsr@legis.la.gov, kostelka@legis.la.gov, lafleure@legis.la.gov, longg@legis.la.gov, martinyd@legis.la.gov, millsf@legis.la.gov, morrelljp@legis.la.gov, morrishd@legis.la.gov, murraye@legis.la.gov, neversb@legis.la.gov, peacockb@legis.la.gov, perryj@legis.la.gov, petersonk@legis.la.gov, risern@legis.la.gov, smithgl@legis.la.gov, smithj@legis.la.gov, tarverg@legis.la.gov, thompsof@legis.la.gov, walsworthm@legis.la.gov, wardr@legis.la.gov, whitem@legis.la.gov, legerw@legis.la.gov, larep100@legis.state.la.us, morenoh@legis.state.la.us, brossettj@legis.la.gov, shead@nola.gov, kgpalmer@nola.gov, jbclarkson@nola.gov, info@vcpora.org

Zombie HoZone

It's back and headed to the floor this afternoon.

If they manage to strip the amendments off the bill and push it through....well....I will have a new mission statement in life.

"They (amendments)" killed "our" bill...

Plans for proposed Hospitality Zone shelved

This quote from Melvin Rodrigue pretty much sums up the arrogance of the "stakeholders" who were pushing the HoZone and refused to compromise for the betterment of the city:

Melvin Rodrigue, the chairman of the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center, said new amendments killed the initiative.

"While we are disappointed in the new amendments to our bill, and it is true that they have effectively killed this very important marketing and infrastructure initiative for the time-being, and have undermined the rationale for our Convention Center's plans for an immediate $30 million injection into French Quarter infrastructure, our board will remain open to finding other ways it can partner with the Mayor and political leaders to improve our city and its role in the very competitive travel industry,” he said. “Our board is committed to that future partnership."

The amendments did not kill anything.  The tourism officials killed this bill, not the amendments.  It's funny that he thinks the bill is "theirs".  Broad sweeping legislation that affects every person in this city in not "theirs".  It is everyone's.  It's called democracy and it worked exactly as it should in this case.  If they want to create a banana republic they should move farther into the Caribbean.  

Kill Bill

Hospitality Zone Bill Appears Dead

And there it is.  I don't understand why the "stakeholders" were unwilling to compromise.  If this bill was truly about fixing infrastructure as was stated, the amendments proposed by Sen. Peterson actually increased the amount of money going to infrastructure repair.  Why would they be opposed to that?

This is no victory for anyone, it's a loss for the whole city.  It's ridiculous that the citizens and neighborhood organizations were left out of the discussions from the beginning.  I hope this sends a message to the "stakeholders" that ramming your plans down our throats isn't going to work anymore.  This city is ours as much as it is theirs.

I hope all parties can go back to the table together and get a bill that makes sense for next year.

It was the authors of this bill who killed it, not the neighborhood groups or the citizens.  Remember that.

Non-starters

Sorry I've been sloth-like with the video clips from the committee meeting but I had the hamsters running full time on the computer wheels to pump out some "real world work" stuff I had to finish to feed da' babies.

This next video is a crucial moment in the committee meeting...more than one moment actually.  Watch this vid and listen to Andy Kopplin's comments right out of the gate about the amendment to "sunset" the HoZone in ten years:



I've heard the rhetoric from the "stakeholders" all through the process of getting this bill to the floor and I can't tell you how many times I've heard the threat "non-starter" thrown out by "the swinging dicks".

Well...I think we're about to find out the true nature of the authors of this bill.

Were they really trying to help the city and rebuild its infrastructure?

Or were they just launching a massive power grab?

If the bill goes through as is...it would be a boon for the city....methinks.

If it was a farce from the beginning...I think we'll see...

We'll know shortly.

Confirmed...

In the previous post I wasn't sure if hotel/motel tax in the HoZone is applicable to the entire city or just the hotel/motels in the zone.  It is applicable to all hotel/motels with 10 rooms or more throughout the city.  So those projected numbers are accurate.  I wasn't sure what the difference between "Zone" and "district" meant but the district is the entire city.

Hang on...have more coming...

Oh and thank you greatly to the 3 generous folks who donated.  Much appreciated and much love.

Ashe' 

Just give us all the money and no one gets hurt...

...don't ask questions, don't turn around, keep your eyes and your mouth shut.

That's kind of how this whole HoZone money/power grab has been presented to the public from the get-go.

Yesterday we had a prescient, yet familiar , article from Jaquetta White in the TP about the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau's outright contempt for transparency and their continued denial of public records requests.  If you watched the videos of the committee meeting in my previous post you will have noticed that the CVB members in the committee hearing insisted that they have complied with all PRR's.  That is simply not fo' true.  This organization has purposely hid behind their public/private title, claiming that their "private nonprofit corporation" status protects them from having to turn over their books and expenditures.

While the CVB does provide a generalized audit to the state legislative auditor every year, they do not provide audits on detailed expenditures.  This is an organization that is already getting millions of dollars annually from an existing hotel/motel tax and it refuses to be transparent about how that money is spent and exactly what the public is getting in return.  I would dare say the CVB is the largest, most secretive fiefdom funded by public money in the city and now they are asking to possibly double their annual income from tax generated revenue (I will expound on this claim in a minute) without having to provide detailed accounting of how the money will be spent.

I have heard that during the failed merger attempt, the mayor's office pressed the CVB's CEO/President, Stephen Perry, on the transparency issue but was continually stonewalled.  The CVB's excuse for not releasing their books went something along the lines of "We are in the travel and hospitality industry and therefore we have to spend a lot of money on entertainment and travel.  We don't think the public would understand our expenditures if they were to be made public."

Hah!  No shit.  So they are basically saying "If the public actually saw our books and how much money we spend on globetrotting and wining and dining they would have a fit....so don't ask us to show that anymore.  Oh and don't ask us why we keep running multi-million dollar deficits every year either."

That's a pretty neat trick.  Too bad the cats at the Public Belt Railroad and Patricia Schwartz Core didn't have Steve Perry's playbook.

In a previous post I told you to hold that thought about Sen. Karen Carter Peterson's demand to the CVB that they start complying with ALL public records requests.  Well...I know there has been more than one set of PRR's submitted to them within the past few weeks and we'll see, this week, if they live up to their claims they made in the committee meeting.  Especially now that a state senator has called them out and they are asking for millions more in public funds.

Which brings me to another point...just how much money are we talking about with this HoZone tax?  The running number is being pitched as 16 million annually.  The amendment Sen. Peterson introduced to the bill would divide that money as follows:

Infrastructure (City Council oversight) - 40%

Infrastructure (French Quarter Management District) - 10%

Tourism Marketing ( CVB) - 20%

Tourism Marketing (NOTMC) - 20%

Tourism Marketing (Multi-Cultural Tourism Network) - 10%

So theoretically the CVB would be pulling in about 3.2 million annually from the tax zone as the bill stands.

Or maybe not.  I was curious as to how they came up with that projected number of 16 million.  I took a look at the hotel/motel section only (the largest income source of the taxed entities) to see what kind of numbers that would pull in.  Referencing data from Smith Travel Research from 2011...this is what we're looking at:

New Orleans Market:  275 hotels

New Orleans hotel/motel rooms:  36,611

Current Pipeline (more rooms that will be available next year):  1445

Total Hotel Rooms:  38,056

Days available:  365

Total Room Nights (2011):  13,890,440

Average Monthly RevPAR:  $78.38

Total Revenues (2011):  $1,088,733,000

Ok so, let's take a look at what the new tax should generate off these numbers....

Proposed hotel/motel tax rate for the HoZone:  1.75%

HoZone hotel/motel tax revenue generated (from 2011 numbers):  $19,052,827

That's 19 million and it doesn't even take into account the restaurant and parking taxes proposed for the zone.  I am guessing this thing is going to generate between 25 and 30 million...possibly double what they are projecting.  However the RevPar number is a cumulative average of all hotel rooms rented in the city, while the bulk of hotels lie in the proposed Hospitality Zone, many do not.  I do not believe the tax will apply to hotel/motel rooms outside of the Zone so this number may be high...still it will most likely be higher than the base 16 million they are projecting for all the extra taxes imposed.  

Also, they are not factoring in the annual increase in room rentals we've seen almost every year for the past few years.  The 2012 numbers are already up 20.4% (per Smith Travel Research) from last year. That puts this year's total revenues at $1,310,834,532.  That would put the 2012 tax generated from only the hotel/motel tax @ $22,939,604 (Please check my math).

If those numbers increase exponentially over the currently proposed lifespan of the Zone...we could possibly be looking at 50+ million dollar annual pull from these taxes before the proposed sunset amendment.  I think we are already close to double what they're saying it will pull out of the gate.

This is a staggering sum of money.  Keep in mind that the very first draft of this bill had the two marketing entities, CVB and NOTMC pulling in over 80% of the cash.  They then presented a compromise and came down to taking 2/3 of the total haul...leaving only 1/3 of the money for infrastructure.  KCP's amendment knocked their marketing share down to basically 50/50 with a 10% margin going to another tourism marketing entity, the Multi-cultural Tourism Network.

And the CVB expects to take that money without having to show line item expenditures or provide transparency and access to their books?  

    

Oh reeeaaallllyy....

Mayor Mitch Landrieu says he had no role in New Orleans City Council walkout

Alright...I have a very simple litmus test to prove this true.

If the mayor had nothing to do with the walkouts, all he has to do is honor the wishes of the other city council members and appoint Errol George to the interim district B seat.

Simple enough....let's see what happens.

And in other news...Garland Robinette still claims the money he took from Heebe was just a loan, Ray Nagin still proclaims his innocence, and no one on the Silicon Bayou was actually having sex with the "strippers".

Technical difficulties

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "HoZone Highlights....with limited commentary": 

Thanks so much for doing this, Jason. It's really great to be able to see. (FYI the first video kept stopping on me with 3:33 left to go. As always with me, it definitely could've been user error.) 


Not sure what is going on there but if you can't watch the videos try going directly to the Vimeo pages to watch them:


http://vimeo.com/42387005


http://vimeo.com/42387559


And if you're really appreciative....you can always drop a few dollars here.  As you know, I do everything on my own dime so any help is appreciated.  


Ashe'

That explains it...

$166G in taxpayer loans, yet council member's property still a wreck

He can't be bothered to take care of his own property, why would he bother to show up at his job?

Nice Jon....stay classy.

Two council members continue work stoppage

Councilwoman Kristen Gisleson Palmer alluded to rumors that Mayor Mitch Landrieu was exerting influence on the decision as to who should take Head’s seat.

 “If the intent of this is to let the mayor appoint, I ask the mayor to respect our decision.”

That may be a tough one....he's shown very little respect for anything but his own machinations in the past few weeks.  It's amazing that neighborhood groups had to travel to Baton Rouge just to get a seat at the bargaining table on a bill that could have potentially destroyed the most unique neighborhood in the country.  Not once, did the mayor's administration offer to listen to the concerns of the citizens affected by the HoZone.  I'm sure they're also not listening to the anger this little coup by Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and Jon Johnson is creating among the people of this city. 

It may be a good time for an ego check before this admin. runs off the cliff. 

HoZone Highlights....with limited commentary

I tried to get the video together as quickly as possible for you, folks....but my daddy duties took precedence.

And please forgive the quality of the video and audio...the room was so crowded, we (media) got pushed into an impossible scenario to record it so the best thing I could do was record the flat screen in front of me and hope the audio was kosher (short period where it is not).

I managed to get two key moments from the committee hearing encoded and I want you to watch them if you have the time.

The first one is at the beginning of the meeting when Sen. Karen Carter Peterson questions New Orleans CAO, Andy Kopplin, and Sen. Ed Murray about their willingness to accept compromises that would make SB 573 more palatable for the citizens of New Orleans.



Ok, so you heard Kopplin's responses.  I distinguish Kopplin because I think Sen. Murray knew better than to speak for the mayor.  Sen. Peterson was very careful to focus her questioning on Kopplin at times because he is essentially "Mayor Landrieu by proxy".

Mitch needed a proxy because he couldn't be bothered to show up in the "storming of the castle".

I would point out that I think Sen. Murray spoke with the utmost jurisprudence and I commend him on his diplomacy.  It was obvious that Murray had deliberated over this bill for endless hours but he still maintained a sense of measure throughout the questioning.  He was very impressive.

Now for the second clip...I have edited together three separate moments where the issue of Public Records Requests (PRRs) and the CVB came into question.  I want you to watch all three of these moments and pay close attention:



In that last edit....someone from the peanut gallery (CVB lawyer?)  called out and insisted that the CVB does, in fact, comply with all Public Record Requests (PRR's).

Hold that thought......

And now for something completely...familiar?

http://www.justice.gov/usao/lae/news.html

Is it just me....or is anyone else worried about the conspicuous lack of....life sounds...from our Department of Justice down here in the swamp?  I mean white collar crime-wise.  

Is that just me?  

Bueller?  Bueller? ......Voodoo economics.....

Is the pilot house empty?  I'm just asking because there are some serious turns that need to be navigated upriver.

And we could use a dredge or two.

Did you hear that loud smacking sound?

It came from Baton Rouge.  It was a backhand from Sen. Karen Carter Peterson to the HoZone "Stakeholders".  Also, kudos to Senator JP Morrell and Rep. Helena Moreno for working with KCP to create the amendments to SB 573.

I just got back with video...will have more later on tonight on what the amendments mean and their importance.

Viva democracy!

Oh wait...perhaps I shouldn't celebrate too much.  

I'll say it again....

Yes...you will answer for this.  You may not perceive us a threat....and I hope you keep that attitude.