Orleans Parish - Community Involvement

Executive summary

Involving stakeholders is a key strategy in reaching out to community and neighborhood groups that meet regularly to discuss redevelopment. The support of local officials and administrative agencies is also important, as they will contribute to agency plans for recovery in topical areas. A third strategy is providing active technical assistance to groups working to identify possible strategies that could lead to outside funding.

Stakeholders

• Local government administrative officials (mayor, chief administrative office, director of Economic Development, director of Housing, director of City Planning, director of Office of Emergency Preparedness, chief technology officer, director of utilities, director of streets (public works), Safety and Permits, New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, and other officials at the sub-department-head level.
• Staff personnel of agencies like City Planning, Capital Projects, Environmental Affairs, Safety and Permits, Office of Emergency Preparedness, Council Research, Utilities, Regional Transit Authority, Regional Planning Commission and the Port of New Orleans.
• Regional Planning Commission for New Orleans (MPO for region)
• Several educational groups working on individual school projects, representatives of the Council of Non-profit Agencies, Greater New Orleans Foundation, GNO, Inc. (regional chamber of commerce), Downtown Development District and the Public Affairs Research Council.
• The team met with Mr. Joe Canizaro, a local developer working actively in BNOB, several upper-level business members of BNOB, Bureau of Governmental Research, Committee for Better New Orleans, head of New Orleans Housing Finance Authority, staff and director of Louisiana Housing Finance Authority, director of Neighborhood Housing Services.
• The team met with officials of Greater New Orleans Education Foundation (Frank Williams), school board members Landrieu and Moran; attended meetings of state group convened to assess New Orleans Public Schools, including superintendent of Education Picard, BESE Board member (Jacobs), and representatives of Alvarez and Marsal (receivers for New Orleans Public schools).

Local Committee/Task Force

• The Bring New Orleans Back (BNOB) Committee was formed by Mayor Ray Nagin on Oct. 10, 2005. The committee participated in the Louisiana Recovery Conference (Nov. 11-20, 2005) BNOB then split into sub-committees: Urban Planning, Education, Economic Development, Government Effectiveness, Cultural Affairs, Health and Human Services and Infrastructure. The subcommittees met over a three-month period (November 2005-January 2006). BNOB maintains a Web site and invites comments on content. The full committee met in January 2006 to receive the subcommittee final reports, which were then given to the mayor. All meetings were open to the public. Mayor Nagin has the final report and is deciding which recommendations he wishes to recommend as part of his plan for the city.
• A full listing of all persons who were involved in the BNOB Committee or one of its subcommittees is available on the Web site (www.bringneworleansback.com).
• ESF-14 personnel attended all BNOB meetings and kept notes that were ultimately distilled into project form by category. These recommendations generally form the basis of Long-Term Community Recovery projects being sent to the LTCR plan production team.
• All meetings were led by local officials elected by their counterparts. ESF-14 did not take a lead role and was not asked to do so. Our role was to note which projects were brought up, discussed and agreed upon for inclusion.
• BNOB presented its final report on Jan. 27, and the materials were given to Mayor Nagin.

Input Events

• Parish scoping meetings began on Nov. 1, 2005. An LRA-organized event occurred at New Orleans City Hall on Jan.17, 2006, with about ten city officials in attendance.
• Orleans Parish held a two-day event in coordination with the Jan.21 Louisiana Recovery Planning Day (LRPD) held throughout the state and at outside locations. The first day was held at the Dryades YMCA adjacent to the central business district and attracted a continuous flow of 600 visitors. Many surveys were filled out and good conversations and connections ensued. The second day was a less-publicized but important event to bring LPRD to essential personnel living on cruise ships in the New Orleans harbor. Approximately 50 persons participated formally, but quite a number simply perused exhibits without signing in. In addition, most of the input gathered from out-of-state events was from Orleans evacuees.

Day-to-day interaction with decision-makers and the public

• Parish team members met daily with local government officials to offer technical assistance, help with joint problem solution and gather information that is used in plan production.
• Parish team leads met regularly with city and non-governmental leaders to discuss activities of common concern. Our mission is to plan with local government officials. Team members work at this on a daily basis with very good results.
• Orleans Parish has not yet established a storefront location but has recently moved its offices to a much more accessible city location.

Local plan implementation leadership

There have been numerous discussions with community and neighborhood leaders as to the need for them to convene and discuss the futures of their neighborhoods. The BNOB announced a four-month neighborhood planning process to start on Feb. 20 after the submission of the mayor’s final digest of the BNOB plan. This seems to be shifting to a series of focus groups with neighborhood leaders citywide. The team has been supportive of an open and fair planning process that allows for public input and also meaningfully involves the city council and the city planning commission (CPC). We are prepared to help digest submitted reports and to assist in drafting implementation legislation for CPC to submit to the City Council at the appropriate time.
No specific individual or office has been identified as a principle point of contact for implementation. It is unlikely that any one person or agency will be identified due to the complexity of the disaster response in New Orleans. ESF-14 has a downtown office to which LTCR materials will be sent and disseminated.

Summary

Our assessment of elected-official concurrence with LTCR planning is high. Assessment of public concurrence is difficult to ascertain due to dispersion of much of the population and the political uncertainties of planning during a mayoral and council election, which will be held on April 22. As team community relations associates attend meetings, there is a growing sense that ESF-14 is an asset and is increasingly being looked to as a resource for the future.

View the Parish Summary Page from Louisiana Planning Day (PDF)