We the undersigned are united in opposition to the proposed “Citywide Public Safety Improvements” plan as currently written. While crime is a real problem in New Orleans, the answer is not investing $40 million dollars in surveillance cameras, security barriers, street improvements, and cultural commodification. Instead, we should be investing in economic and cultural opportunities for all of our residents. As Louisiana already has the highest mass incarceration rate in the world, we have a heightened responsibility to avoid any initiatives that could lead to increased profiling or arrests. A true ‘Safety Plan’ for New Orleans should focus on proactive approaches to addressing crime developed in conjunction with the community and drawing from our culture….
Category Archives: City Hall
Community Outcry Over Proposed Bourbon Street Plans
“Yes, we need to clean up Bourbon,” longtime Quarter resident James Bullock stated after the meeting. “We need to clean up the French Quarter, we need to clean up the city. I just don’t understand how limiting us like this is going to do that.”
The next community meeting in this series is expected to take place in May. More information about the proposed Bourbon Street closures can be found here.
This is the same question that I have for Landrieu:
“Just what exactly is the problem you are trying to fix?”
Worst damn planning
The latest road race has completely surrounded the Quarter so that no one can leave or arrive safely and on time for work. One opening business owner is still hoping his baked goods can arrive sometime soon, as he had no idea of this road closure and so could not alert his baker ahead of time. I have watched workers walk in all a.m. who are normally dropped off in front of their workplace, with one housekeeper tiredly telling me she has already “walked a few extra miles before going in to do some more.”
When locals and workers are pushed out, the Quarter suffers. I know our exiting mayor doesn’t understand this fact nor does he have a plan beyond soaking visitors for as much money as he can, but this sort of event “planning” is a recipe for disaster for our neighborhood and the city as a whole in more ways than one.
Only 2 garbage cans for the trash means that runners throw the rest to the ground. In case anyone feels this picture shows very little trash, it is because most of it is a block down where there were no cans. I just wanted to show the organizer’s “best effort”very early in the race.
Mitch: Leave Bourbon Street alone. Leave our small businesses alone.
Mayor Landrieu: Rescind Your Cameras and Closed Doors Security Proposal
Petition is here
This is one of the nuttiest and most dangerous ideas that our mayor has come up yet. Making Bourbon a ped-only street will snarl the traffic that needs to serve a large neighborhood and will make Iberville, Conti and Toulouse (especially) virtual parking lots. (Iberville is already snarled between Bourbon and Royal when the parking lots are backed up.) That will undo the Quarter’s dynamic flow once and for all, and reduce the cross streets to 20 hour a day freight zones with the ensuing mess leaking onto the residential streets.
As for the 3 a.m. idea, I don’t even know where to begin. What about this idea will reduce random shootings, gang retaliations or even any other major crime issue? How does closing the doors of bars solve any of these? Instead we will have people leaving bars with no “eyes on the street” (meaning bartenders or bouncers or other workers) that are there now to watch out for them. Instead we will have bars and clubs going out of business.
Security cameras managed by the city have been tried and have failed. Better to incentivize businesses to install better cameras and for the city to actually USE those cameras rather than ignoring them as they do now. Spend money on building a force that investigates crimes, using available technology and witnesses and old fashioned analysis. Get OUT there and know community members, notice upticks as they happen, build a knowledge base to actually solve crimes rather than just relying on Crimestopper rewards for the sensational crimes, ignoring the rest.
Community policing (more better paid cops, with more training, walking and biking on the streets and cops stationed inside partner businesses) will do more than any street-killing idea.
Honestly, Mitch Landrieu seems to be as out of touch as C Ray was in his last days as mayor. Maybe we need to do away with 2 term mayors…..
Some French Quarter Bars Owners Aren’t On Board With a New Citywide Safety Plan
Healthy Homes Hearing
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Wednesday, January 18 at 2 PM – 4 PM1300 Perdido Street – New Orleans City Council Chambers
Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center
New Orleanians are paying far more than we can afford in rent, and too often we’re not getting what we pay for. One tenant Southeast Louisiana Legal Services assisted is a mother whose daughter fell through their termite-infested floor. Thousands of other families deal with mold, leaks, rats, and other hazards in their homes on a daily basis, with no way to hold their slumlords accountable.After years of advocacy, City Council hearings, and countless stories in the press, the New Orleans City Council recently introduced an ordinance to improve these conditions. It would set up a system for receiving complaints and require periodic inspections of rental homes.
The first hearing for this ordinance is January 18th at 2pm at the City Council Community Development Committee.
It’s critical to have a strong presence at the meeting to ensure Council knows that all renters deserve safe and healthy homes because no one deserves to live in a home that makes them sick. We hope to see you there.
French Quarter safety plan could include cameras that can spot guns through clothing
This idea is so messed.
Potential constitutional problems as the FQ surveillance plan could include cameras that could detect guns and other objects under clothing.
“I think that this is a violation of people’s constitutional rights, and I cannot imagine that the public will accept that,” Esman said. “It really defies common sense because it presumes that everybody carrying a weapon is going to use it for an improper purpose, and that’s just not the case.”
There are significant questions about how police would use the information gleaned from the cameras and whether that information would be enough justification to search those believed to have weapons, Esman said. That’s particularly true if they would be set up on a public street, where standards are different than requiring people to go through metal detectors or body scanners at airports.”
Cameras that can spot guns through layers of clothing — using infrared or similar technologies — may be included in sweeping new security measures for Bourbon Street to be proposed.
Second Line For Equal Justice by John Calhoun – GoFundMe
My name is John Calhoun, and I am working with over a dozen Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and the Orleans Public Defenders Office to plan a Second Line For Equal Justice to raise awareness about the crisis our public defenders office is facing and to encourage our city and state governments to adequately fund indigent defense.
Source: GoFundMe
French Quarter block by block 
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