Voter Education Guide: Saturday, October 14, 2023

By Antigravity Voter Guide Team

September 28, 2023

Excerpt:

PW HRC Amendment Prop. No. 1 of 2 – Art. VI, Sec. 6-102 & 6-104 – CC
Shall Article VI, Sections 6-102 and 6-104 of the Home Rule Charter of the City of New Orleans be amended to move up the deadline by which the City Planning Commission must submit a capital program to the Mayor; and by which the operating budget, the proposed revenue and operating budget ordinances, the capital program as prepared by the City Planning Commission, the Mayor’s capital budget message, and the proposed capital budget ordinance must be submitted to the Council by thirty days so that the Council may have additional time to conduct public hearings and to receive input on budget matters, as provided in Ordinance No. 29370 M.C.S.?

Every year, the mayor creates a draft of the City budget for the City Council to review, ask questions, and approve by December 1. Parishwide Home Rule Charter Amendment Proposition 1 would extend the deliberation period for the City Council by one month, effectively moving the deadline for the mayor to submit a budget draft to October 1, instead of November 1. The proposition asks for this extended period for “additional time to conduct public hearings and to receive input on budget matters.”

This extension gives the council more time to ask in-depth questions and for the City administration to adequately respond. Normally, this would be done with the Thanksgiving holiday interrupting the deliberation process midway through, which really gives the council two-and-a-half weeks to scrutinize the mayor’s proposal, as expressed by author Councilmember Joe Giarrusso. He hopes the extra month will provide opportunities to the public to stay updated and engaged with the process through community meetings and hearings, such as the 2022 budget hearing we covered.

The caveat is that the City’s administration still has room left to improve to make hearings more accessible to the public, such as making meetings more focused and providing additional days for residents and council members to review and ingest changes to the draft. Ultimately, the additional month allows for a thorough and deliberate review of the City’s budget and prompts accountability and transparency between the public and municipal government.

Summary: Vote “Yes” on Charter Amendment 1.

PW HRC Amendment Prop. No. 2 of 2 – Art. IV, Sec. 4-702 & 4-801 – CC
Shall the Home Rule Charter of the City of New Orleans be amended to establish the Department of Code Enforcement to inspect substandard property and authorize demolition or remediation of property hazardous to the public health, safety, and welfare, and to enforce laws and regulations for maintaining streets, vacant lots, and other places free from weeds, trash, and deleterious matter, thereby reassigning such functions from the Departments of Safety and Permits and Sanitation to the Department of Code Enforcement, as provided in Ordinance No. 29371 M.C.S.?

Parishwide Home Rule Charter Amendment Proposition 2 seeks to formalize a disparate City “division of code enforcement” into a newly-established Department of Code Enforcement for New Orleans. Outlined in the proposition are the department’s responsibilities, which include property inspection, demolition, and code regulation for the purpose of promoting public health and safety. It would become the City’s main agency for addressing blight, a prominent focus of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration.

Studies on blight have tied its eradication to improved quality of life and lower violent crime rates, something Mayor Cantrell has centered in her approach to reduce crime. Local business owners and neighbors themselves have expressed the need to address the overgrown and infested buildings that leave sore spots in their neighborhoods. Having a dedicated department would improve the responsiveness to reports of hazardous properties and the accountability of funding the fight against blight. This fiscal year’s budget includes $20.9 million for “blight remediation and beautification,” which was spread across four different departments with staff of varying code enforcement responsibilities. The flow of that money is still unclear to Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who also authored this proposition. He said having a single department dedicated to code enforcement would make monitoring the department’s spending more transparent.

This proposed Department of Code Enforcement would likely be led by current Deputy Chief of Administration Thomas Mulligan, who has been in charge of the City’s anti-blight operations since 2021. Nicknamed the City’s “blight czar,” Mulligan was successful in lobbying a hefty fine on the owner of the abandoned Plaza Tower to compensate for lost parking meter fees. Since 2019, Thomas has greenlit the demolition of 326 properties considered as emergent hazards based on a risk assessment. However, remediating blight is not just leveling plots of land but having a plan for what to do with the empty lots afterwards. Both residents and experts have concerns with what happens to these vacancies, which would offer the Department of Code Enforcement an opportunity to engage and involve the community to plan remediation.

But even when owners wish to address their property’s violations, the City can threaten seizure of the property if the owner isn’t able to make adequate progress over a course of inspections and hearings. There are certainly risks of having a department that has authority to fine and cite property owners in low-income neighborhoods, which have a higher presence of blight. Without a clear development and upkeep support plan for the community, these neighborhoods are susceptible to invasive City planning projects and systemic gentrification. Having an established department provides the public with options of community feedback and accountability.

Charter Amendment 2 does further its case being alongside Constitutional Amendment 4, which proposes to incorporate penalties against landlords that accrue multiple housing code violations that impact tenants’ health and safety. The responsibility would fall on the Department of Code Enforcement to enforce this, as well as a portion of the Healthy Homes law passed last year. Voters have a unique opportunity to establish the department that would enforce these propositions.

Summary: Vote “Yes” for Charter Amendment 2, but with a sense of vigilance.

PW School Board Proposition – 4.97 Mills Renewal – SB – 20 Yrs.
Shall the Orleans Parish School Board (the “School Board”) renew the levy and collection of a tax of four and ninety-seven hundredths (4.97) mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation of property within the City of New Orleans assessed for City Taxation, (an estimated $20,450,000 reasonably expected at this time to be collected from the levy of the tax for an entire year), for a period of twenty (20) years, beginning in 2025, for the purpose of preservation, improvement and capital repairs of all existing public school facilities, to be levied and collected in the same manner as is set forth in Article VIII, Section 13(C)(Second) of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974?

The Parishwide School Board Proposition asks voters to renew a property tax levy that will supply an estimated $20.5 million to the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), specifically to be used for the repair and upkeep of all public school facilities. The OPSB governs New Orleans Public Schools (the District), the school district responsible for the recurring maintenance of over 75 school campuses funded through the School Facilities Preservation Program, a governing law that determines how tax revenue is allocated to each school.

The Preservation Program was enacted into law in 2014 with the purpose of capturing revenue, managing investments, and fairly allocating funds across all school facilities to ensure the $2 billion federal investment in post-Katrina facilities were not lost. The program arms the District with agreed-upon criteria that determines fair distribution of funds, prioritizing schools built prior to Hurricane Katrina that haven’t seen renovations since. Officials and advocates have acknowledged that the funding system isn’t perfect, but it keeps politics out of decision making and refrains from overallocating well-connected schools. According to the Bureau of Governmental Research, the District already has a comprehensive plan to determine tax revenue allocations based on each school’s capital needs.

In December 2014, voters approved a similar 10-year property tax to fund the Preservation Program. The tax generates more than half of the Preservation Program’s annual revenue, accompanied by a portion of the OPSB’s 1.5% sales tax. Without this property tax revenue, the District has no alternative funding mechanisms to replace the tax without creating significant gaps to address priority concerns, like modernizing building infrastructure, upgrading doorways and windows, and replacing electrical and plumbing works.

The renewal proposes a longer 20-year term to provide stable financial footing so the District can shift focus on financial threats like rising insurance rates and the looming “capital bubble” where post-Katrina facilities will all soon require extensive repairs and replacements at the same time. There are still ongoing developments with the District’s plans for school closures and consolidation due to sinking enrollment rates and divestment of abandoned properties too old to fix. Therefore, the tax revenue levied by this proposition may or may not fulfill the District’s funding immediate needs. However, the 20-year period allows the District the flexibility to invest the revenue in long-term bonds for sustainability.

The bottom line here is that there’s lots of impending financial concerns for the Orleans Parish School Board and the New Orleans Public Schools to address and they won’t come close to resolving those matters without a necessary revenue stream.

Summary: Vote “Yes” for the School Board Proposition.

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