Happy New Year

Sending a strong signal that the City is serious about equity and shared prosperity, Mayor Landrieu joined City Council members and business leaders to sign into law an ordinance that significantly reformed the City’s disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program to improve fairness and consistency and strengthen compliance with City’s overall 35% DBE participation goal for public contracts. The reforms strengthen program reporting and compliance requirements, streamline various processes and create penalties for non-compliance. The improvements greatly enhance the City’s ability to hold contractors accountable for meeting the overall 35% DBE participation goal for public contracts, as established by an ordinance passed in 2010. 

Serving as a mix of public safety and public art, the City unveiled the installation of Evacuspots in partnership with Evacuteer.org and the Arts Council of New Orleans. The new 14-foot stainless steel sculptures clearly identify City-Assisted Evacuation pick-up points where citizens without their own transportation would report to in the event the City calls for a mandatory evacuation. The iconic artwork was installed at 17 neighborhood pick-up points across the city as part of the City-Assisted Evacuation plan.

In an effort to educate the community on Mayor Landrieu’s NOLA FOR LIFE strategy and show how the City is collectively providing support to young boys and men in New Orleans, the City introduced NOLA FOR LIFE programming on New Orleans Access Television (NOA-TV), Cox Channel 99. The NOLA FOR LIFE channel provides in-depth information about the strategy and highlights the incredible work already in progress throughout our city. The City hopes that seeing and hearing the stories of our community will encourage everyone to get involved in reducing the city’s murder rate. Content also airs on the current government and education channels 6 and 8. 

Kicking off the 2014 budgeting for outcomes process, Mayor Landrieu held a community meeting in each council district to hear directly from residents about their budget priorities. Hundreds of residents attended the meeting which aim to produce a more citizen-driven budget and to ensure improved government performance and accountability. A national best practice, the Budgeting for Outcomes system encourages city agencies to invest public resources based on the end result the City wants to achieve.

New Orleans received top honors at the 2013 World Travel Awards for excellence in sports tourism, beating out leading travel and sports tourism destinations such as Chicago, Las Vegas, New York City, San Francisco and Toronto. This is the first time New Orleans has received the award since its inception in 2010. The recognition comes after New Orleans hosted an unprecedented series of sporting events in 2012 and 2013, including the 78th Annual Allstate Sugar Bowl, the 2012 Allstate BCS National Football Championship, 2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, 2013 NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four and Super Bowl XLVII, one of the most watched television events and highly rated events in sports history. Last year, New Orleans received the World Travel Market’s World Tourism Award for outstanding accomplishments in tourism industry.

More than 1,000 job seekers and dozens of employers, community partners and industry professionals from across the city participated in the first NOLA FOR LIFE Jobs & Opportunity Expo. The Expo was specifically designed to connect young New Orleanians between the ages of 16 to 30 to viable employment opportunities and essential resources within the community. The four-hour event featured on-site interviews for over 350 current job vacancies, job readiness workshops and networking with industry professionals. The Expo also offered a resource fair with connections to social services, including on-the-spot wardrobe assistance for more than 100 people.

The New Orleans City Council unanimously approved the passage of the City’s 2014 Capital and General Fund budgets, totaling $247 million and $504 million respectively. The 2014 budget will pay for five recruit classes to put 150 new police officers on the streets. The capital budget funds 100 new police cars on top of the 100 cars funded in 2013. NOPD, NOFD and EMS all received increases over their 2013 budgets. The budget also prioritized NORDC again, adding nearly another $1 million on top of their 2013 budget. To combat blight, more funds were allocated for new inspectors and title research staff to help speed up the blight eradication process.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced that the City of New Orleans’ $52.3 million “soft second” mortgage homebuyer assistance initiative’s Direct Homebuyer Assistance Program has now issued 500 commitments totaling over $27 million. In total, 437 home purchases by first time homebuyers have been completed through the program. 

The New Orleans City Civil Service Commission approved a new policy that will “ban the box” that requires applicants to disclose prior convictions on initial job forms, and will establish new guidelines for screening candidates before a final hiring decision is made. Proposed by the Landrieu Administration, the new policy is designed to remove obstacles that might prevent qualified ex-offenders from attaining or retaining quality jobs.

The Rockefeller Foundation announced New Orleans has been selected to join the 100 Resilient Cities Network. New Orleans was one of nearly 400 cities across six continents to apply. As part of the 100 Resilient Cities Network, the City of New Orleans will receive support to hire a Chief Resilience Officer, create a resilience strategy, and receive access to tools, technical support, and resources for implementing a comprehensive resilience plan.