Finding a Better Balance in How We Use Technology

September 5, 2016 by Charlie London

courtesy Religion and Ethics News Weekly
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2016/09/02/digital-addiction/29965/

Americans are increasingly dependent on their digital devices, and while these provide undeniable benefits, some say their negative consequences must also be addressed. Correspondent Kim Lawton talks with Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Sherry Turkle, who says there must be times and places where conversations and human relationships are more important than technology. “Empathy is at stake,” she says, “and we need empathy to raise children who are able to be ethical and moral people.” Also interviewed are Tanya Schevitz of the Jewish cultural organization Reboot and the National Day of Unplugging, and Zen master Jane Dobisz, who leads device-free meditation retreats.

courtesy Religion and Ethics News Weekly
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2016/09/02/digital-addiction/29965/

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: It’s Friday night in San Francisco. These people are heading for a lively night on the town. And they are doing something many would find unthinkable: they’re checking their phones at the door. This is the National Day of Unplugging, launched seven years ago by the Jewish nonprofit group Reboot. The goal is to encourage people to take a break from technology and find other ways to entertain themselves. For many, that’s easier said than done.

CYNTHIA AHR: If I leave my phone, I feel like I’m driving a car without a seat belt. I never know what’s going to happen.

SHANNON KELEHER: I check my email all the time. I was doing it before.

KYLE BALLARD: She was. We were at a bar, and she was checking her email from work at 7:30 at night on a Friday. So this is good. It’s just an excuse to leave the phone behind.

ABI KOH: It’s like a security blanket in a way for me. If I don’t have it when I go out the door from home, I kind of feel vulnerable.

04KAY DELGADO: There was a time when you would go out and not know what happens in the world for that time you went, so why has that changed? I guess we’re just addicted to the constant stream of I’m knowing what’s happening at all times.

LAWTON: At National Day of Unplugging events like this one, people have fun doing non-digital activities, from knitting and coloring to writing notes the old-fashioned way. There’s face painting, live music, and even a photo booth.

TANYA SCHEVITZ (Reboot National Communications and San Francisco Programs Manager): We ask people to think about what they like to do when they’re unplugged. So many people say, “I can never put down my cellphone, I wouldn’t be able to live without it.” But in reality there are so many things that we like to do when we are unplugged.

15LAWTON: Reboot spokesperson Tanya Schevitz says it’s not anti-technology, but rather urging people to find a better balance in how they use technology. She says the concept comes from the Jewish Sabbath, Shabbat, a regular time set aside for rest.

SCHEVITZ: It’s ancient wisdom that’s ever more important right now in our hyper-connected world, in a world where we are on 24/7, where there is an expectation that you can be reached and will respond to every buzz, beep, vibration, and ping of your phone or your digital devices, so I think it’s needed more than ever, really.

LAWTON: Americans are increasingly dependent on their digital devices. According to the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of US adults own cellphones, and almost 70 percent of those are smartphones. About three-quarters of Americans own a computer, and nearly half own some kind of tablet. While this has undeniable benefits, many analysts say the negative impact must also be addressed.

17PROFESSOR SHERRY TURKLE (Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology and Director, Initiative on Technology and Self, Massachusetts Institute of Technology): The latest studies shows that 89 percent of Americans took out a phone during their last social interaction, and 82 percent say that “it deteriorated the conversation.” That’s my concern, that we are deteriorating our presence and in-person presence.

LAWTON: Psychologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Sherry Turkle is author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. She argues that the near-constant distractions of technology can harm many aspects of relationships.

PROFESSOR TURKLE: All the things that we get out of conversation—intimacy, empathy, our ability to connect with other people and know them and form relationships, because we are always elsewhere in some way at the same time.

LAWTON: She argues that a deterioration of personal connections has troubling consequences for the entire society.

23PROFESSOR TURKLE: When something becomes the social norm, we become desensitized. We say that’s just the way it is. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t do its damage, and it’s particularly damaging to young people, to the children that we’re raising.

LAWTON: In his recent document on the family, Pope Francis also noted that technology can hurt families such as “when at dinnertime everyone is surfing on a mobile phone, or when one spouse falls asleep waiting for the other, who spends hours playing with an electronic device.”

LAWTON: For the National Day of Unplugging, Tanya Schevitz organizes non-digital events for adults and children as well. She says she was taken aback by one recent interaction with a father.

SCHEVITZ: He said “Oh, my gosh, we really need this,” and he turned to his daughter who was about five and said, “Who is mommy’s best friend?” And without hesitation, this little girl said, “Her cellphone.” My gosh, that is heartbreaking. I wouldn’t want my kids saying that.

LAWTON: Still, Schevitz admits unplugging is something that she struggles with as well. She puts her phone away when she picks up her kids from school and tries not to be on it again until they go to bed.

36SCHEVITZ: They know that they are going to get my attention. When I pick them up from school, I’m not going to be half-listening or going to be glancing at my phone or checking Facebook. They know that I’m going to listen to what they have to say, that I’m going to play with them.

LAWTON: Many experts are also concerned that people use digital devices as a way to avoid being alone with their thoughts.

PROFESSOR TURKLE: You can see that anxiety about being alone, when you look at people in a checkout line in a supermarket, when I study people at stop signs. They are supposed to wait four seconds; in three seconds they are checking their texts.

LAWTON: As a Zen master and guiding teacher at the Cambridge Zen Center http://www.cambridgezen.com/ in Massachusetts, Jane Dobisz believes there are great spiritual benefits to being still and being in the present moment. She finds help in the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation.

28-2JANE DOBISZ (Zen Master, Cambridge Zen Center): That’s what meditation addresses, is that this moment is so rich, it’s so wonderful if you could just stop running away from it. Take a breath, take a rest, settle into the moment. Then hear the sound of the bird, feel the wind on your cheeks, smell the flower, feel your body. Feel your heart.

LAWTON: Dobisz leads device-free meditation retreats for college students.

DOBISZ: They are told in the beginning of the day no phones. And you can’t check your phone during the break or anything. And they are so happy at the end of that day, it’s just 9 to 3, and it’s not like a huge commitment. They are so happy.

LAWTON: She says they are amazed at their heightened awareness of the world around them.

DOBISZ: And it’s a revelation for them that they could see the flower, because you can’t see the flower. If you’re doing this [texting].

38PROFESSOR TURKLE: I feel that we’re at a moment where we’ve adopted a new technology. We’ve been vulnerable to its seduction, and we’re also ready to say this has led us not to a good place in terms of how it’s affected our relationships. It’s time for a change.

LAWTON: Professor Turkle says one of society’s ethical priorities should be carving out what she calls sacred spaces, where conversation and relationships are given more importance than technology.

PROFESSOR TURKLE: Empathy is at stake, and we need empathy to raise children who are able to be ethical and moral people.

LAWTON: But given the new digital gadgets flooding the market, the challenges to doing that may only get greater.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

 

 

Filed Under: Featured, HISTORY, Living Well Tagged With: bayou st john, best neighborhood in New Orleans, cell phone, cell phones, eclectic, faubourg st john, get off the cell phone, great places to live, jazz fest, meet your neighbor, meetings, new orleans best neighborhood, pbs, religion and ethics weekly, talk to people, teen phone

City Touts Progress in Fight Against Blight

August 23, 2012 by Charlie London

article by Mitch Landrieu, Mayor of New Orleans | photo by Charlie London

New Orleans received exciting news this week in the fight against blight in our city.

As of March 2012, there are an estimated 35,700 blighted homes and empty lots in New Orleans, down from 43,755 in September 2010, as indicated by United States Postal Service (USPS) data. This means the city of New Orleans is no longer the most blighted city in America. According to The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, the continued reduction in blight since 2010 is attributable to a strong economy and ongoing population growth complemented by the focused efforts of City agencies to bring properties into compliance.

You can read the entire report at www.gnocdc.org.

Nearly two years ago, our administration announced a new,
aggressive blight strategy aimed at reducing blighted properties by
10,000 by 2014. Since then, our tracking indicates 4,930 properties
have been remediated through our effort. These new numbers validate
that we are well on our way to achieving our goal.
Keep up with our progress through BlightSTAT. Click here for
more information on BlightSTAT meetings
.
Sincerely,

Mitchell J. Landrieu
Mayor
City of New Orleans

______________________________________________________________

Drop in New Orleans blight marks significant progress: Editorial

Published: Wednesday, August 22, 2012, 7:02 AM
By Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune

New Orleans no longer tops the nation’s list of most blighted
cities, and though that’s not nearly enough to declare this chronic
problem solved, it shows we’re making tremendous progress.
The Greater New Orleans Data Center, in an analysis using U.S.
Postal Service data, estimated that 8,000 properties in the city
were repaired or rebuilt between September 2010 and March 2011. For
any urban area, that’s a significant bite off blight. Indeed, that
caused New Orleans to drop behind Detroit and Flint, Mich., which
now have a larger percentage of ramshackle or abandoned properties.

Much of the progress came as Mayor Mitch Landrieu launched an
initiative to target this massive problem, and the mayor deserves
credit for making blight reduction a priority in his
administration. Residents who have continued rebuilding their homes
and new residents who have moved into the area in recent years also
deserve credit for the city’s progress.

Shortly after taking office in 2010, Mayor Landrieu set a goal of
eliminating 10,000 of the city’s then-43,755 blighted properties by
the end of 2013. The city then proceeded to demolish almost 1,600
properties last year. That was almost three times the number of
buildings demolished in 2010. Many of the demolished properties
included homes that were flooded after Hurricane Katrina and
properties sold to the Road Home program.

At the same time, the city cleared 1,750 lots in 2011, or almost
twice the number it cleared the year before. The Landrieu
administration has also been aggressive in filing writs to seize
properties whose owners have neglected them. As a result of city
efforts, owners brought more than 1,000 properties into voluntary
compliance last year. The city also put some of its surplus
property up for sale, and other public agencies, such as the
Housing Authority of New Orleans, focused on getting rid of their
own blighted property as well.

These are impressive and encouraging results. Decades of neglect
and poverty, aggravated by destruction post-Katrina, left our city
with the country’s highest proportion of dilapidated buildings,
reaching 34 percent in 2008. Progress since then has dropped that
figure to 21 percent, according to the data center’s estimates.

That’s still a very large number. Even excluding vacant units that
are likely habitable, the center estimated that the city still has
close to 36,000 blighted properties. Allyson Plyer, the data
center’s chief demographer, said surveys show residents who have
rebuilt are growing inpatient with blight in their neighborhoods.

That gives Mayor Landrieu support to continue targeting blight
aggressively and help the city improve further in this undesirable
ranking.

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: bayou, bayou st john, blight, BlightStat, demolition, eradication, faubourg, faubourg st john, landrieu, meetings, neighborhood, New Orleans, progress

31 Flavors of Blight

February 9, 2012 by Charlie London

BlightStat 31

February 9, 2012

This was the 31st BlightStat meeting to which the public was invited.
The city continues to march toward its goal of the removal of 10,000 blighted properties within three years. It is estimated that over 40,000 blighted properties were in New Orleans in 2006.

Mr. Oliver Wise moderated the meeting.

Mr. Wise quipped about the change from bi-weekly to monthly meetings and that the report produced this month is the first data for 2012.

Ms. Williams will be changing departments and Mr. Kray will be replacing her.

Ms. Denise Ross introduced the Code for America team. Code for America representatives Ms. Alex Pandel, Mr. Amir Reavis-Bey, Mr. Eddie Tejeda, and Ms. Serena Wales produced a slide show.

Code for America worked in Boston on education last year. They made an easy to use application. 26 fellows are working with 8 cities.

The focus in New Orleans is blight, open data, and 311. The goal is to have active collaboration between city staff, neighborhood leaders, non-profits, community members and the tech community. The Code for America team can be reached at [email protected]

Mr. Kopplin thanked the Code for America team for their contribution to the city. Jeff Hebert indicated that the Code for America team is here due to problems found during the BlightStat meetings.

Mr. Square indicated that citizens are very happy that the Code for America team is here. Mr. Kopplin indicated that New Orleans would be a great place for them to stay permanently.

On Code for America’s website, the situation is described as follows:
“The City of New Orleans wants to partner with Code for America to support and further legitimize the invaluable role neighborhood stakeholders continue to play in community revitalization. By developing a light-weight application to allow community stakeholders to submit bulk information to the city about their neighborhood, view existing relevant city data, and receive status for each of the on-going issues in their neighborhood, they will be better able to advocate and support their neighborhoods.”

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CITY’s NEW and IMPROVED BLIGHTSTAT PRESENTATION.

Major portions of the presentation have undergone a redesign to focus on quality and timeliness of the steps in the process

Ms. Basco continued the meeting. During January…
reinspections were high due to better property-owner compliance which requires reinspections.

Ms. Basco indicated posting of hearings should increase over time.

Mr. Lessinger indicated the “Inspections by Type and Result” slide better shows the inspection to to posting of hearing process. He thanked Mr. Kray for his work on producing the new format for the presentation.

Mr. Square indicated that some undercounting may be occurring.

Ms. Basco indicated that the majority of the complaints are over the 30 day mark.

Mr. Wise explained the “Timeliness of Inspections” slide. The goal is to have all inspections done within 30 days and to have no inspections that exceed the service level agreement.

Mr. Kopplin and Mr. Wise further discussed the parameters of the powerpoint slide. Mr. Kray clarified the details of the information.

Ms. Basco indicated the priority is on the older inspections while continuing to work incoming complaints.

Ms. Basco indicated that the city is “rockin” concerning the hearings process.

Mr. Kopplin indicated that performance is important but just as important is “Did we do it when we said we would do it?”

Ms. Tammie Jackson reviewed the “Hearings Outcomes” slide. She indicated that better communication has produced improved results.

Ms. Jackson further stated that “yes, 6 years later there are people who are still working through the Road Home process”.

Mr. Kopplin and Ms. Jackson discussed the details of the Road Home program with Ms. Illarmo clarifying how many are still working through the Road Home program. It ranges from 60 – 78 still working through the process.

A representative from the Road Home program asked for help from citizens locating people who have not used their grants from the Road Home program to refurbish their property.

Mr. Wise indicated “the reset – no inspection numbers are still troubling”. He inquired, “What’s going on?” Ms. Basco indicated she did have an answer today but would look into it.

Mr. Hebert said that is not an indication of poor performance of Ms. Basco’s department but that reinspections are a problem.

Mr. Lessinger indicated that Mr. Kray has produced a presentation which better indicates what is going on.

Mr. Kray does not have a way to pull out all of the reinspections from the current system. Mr. Wise said that should become an “action item”.

Mr. Wise asked about what is happening with resets. Ms. Illarmo indicated that some cases do go on for a long time. Ms. Illarmo went through the hearings process in response to a question from Mr. Kopplin.

A discussion ensued about how the new graphics are presented.

Mr. Kray made an analogy of meetings-clients vs. hearings.

Ms. Illarmo discussed resets and that Mr. Kray has produced a valuable tool to help fight blight. More and easier to access information is being produced.

Ms. Illarmo said there will be fewer hearings in February for a variety of reasons (Mardi Gras for one) but a “big push” will be on the agenda for March.

Mr. Carrere discussed demolitions. Significant process has been made particularly in New Orleans East.

Mr. Hebert indicated the townhouses in New Orleans East produce a multitude of issues. Mr. Hebert indicated “the state is committed”. He added that commercial properties have a lot of issues that need to be solved before the buildings can be demolished.

Mr. Kopplin indicated that the City is continuing to negotiate with FEMA. A good working relationship has been established.

The FEMA rep reviewed the “New Orleans FEMA Demolitions” slide. Mr. Kopplin inquired about properties denied by NCDC/HDLC. Those properties then go before the City Council for review.

Mr. Kopplin asked for a report on how many are HDLC denials and NCDC denials and how many have gone before the City Council.

NCDC demolition denials can’t be appealed. They just die for one year.

In just over a year 2,728 demolitons have been completed.

Mr. Keith Ferrouillet discussed the interim nuisance abatement program. Call 658-2526 but INAP can only cut a specific lot once. Citizens in the 9th Ward are doing the “maintenance cuts” once INAP cuts the tall grass on a particular lot.

Mr. Kopplin inquired about the current grass cutting contract which expires March 28th. A request for proposal will go out for a contract that will replace the current non-performing contractor.

Ms. Basco indicated only 1 FEMA trailer remains.
That trailer should be removed soon. Initially there were 18,000 FEMA trailers in the City of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Granderson indicated that the law department continues to work diligently on the lien foreclosure process. 57 of 144 files were approved for the lien foreclosure process during the past month.

138 properties set for sale. 62 went to auction but no one bid on them. They will be offered again at a future sheriff’s sale for a lower amount. 13 stopped due to “noticing issues”. All owners (heirs, entities, etc.) have to be notified once a property is scheduled to go to a sherrif’s sale.

There will be Sheriff Sales on February 16, February 23 and a large sale on March 6th. This info is updated at data.nola.gov

Mr. Hebert indicated LLT properties are being transferred to the City of New Orleans.

Mr. Lawlor of the Office of Community Development thanked Ms. Rosalind Peychaud for her assistance with the soft-second program.

Mr. Kopplin stated that citizens are demanding results. Mr. Kopplin wants to make sure the process from blighted property to property in commerce gets smoother with time.

Mr. Hebert indicated he and Mr. Lawlor are working together to continue the fight against blight.

The meeting was then opened up for questions from the audience of about 50 people. TV news crews were present at this meeting.

It is clear that enforcement of laws related to blighted properties will be more aggressive in 2012. The Mayor’s directive to have 10,000 blighted properties eradicated in three years remains on track.

BlightStat 32 will be held on March 8, 2012. The meetings are on the 8th floor of City Hall in the Homeland Security Conference Room.

You can review reports on all of the previous BlightStat Meetings in the links below:
Blight Sweep in 9th Ward: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/blighted-beginnings/
BLIGHTSTAT ONE: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/bi-weekly-blight-business/
BLIGHTSTAT TWO:https://fsjna.org/2010/11/keeping-our-eyes-on-the-prize/
BLIGHTSTAT THREE: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/what-gets-measured-gets-managed/
BLIGHTSTAT FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/blight-busting/
2010 Year End Update: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/year-end-update-from-the-landrieu-administration/
BLIGHTSTAT FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/the-5th-dimension-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/a-sixth-sense-for-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/the-7-heavens-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/8-by-ya-mommas/
BLIGHTSTAT NINE: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-9/
BLIGHTSTAT TEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-10/
BLIGHTSTAT ELEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-11/
BLIGHTSTAT TWELVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-12/
Mayor’s State of the City Address: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/one-city-that-shares-one-fate/
BLIGHTSTAT THIRTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-13/
BLIGHTSTAT FOURTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-14/
BLIGHTSTAT FIFTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-15/
CITY GETS REPORT CARD: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/city-gets-report-card/
BLIGHTSTAT SIXTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-16/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVENTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-17/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-18
BLIGHTSTAT NINETEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-19/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-20/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-ONE: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-turns-21/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-TWO: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-22/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-THREE: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-23/
FIGHT BLIGHT RIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/fight-blight-right/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-24/
CITIZENS PARTICIPATE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/citizens-participate-in-new-orleans/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-25/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/blightstat-turns-one
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/27-meetings-about-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/12/blightstat-28/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-NINE: https://fsjna.org/2011/12/blightstat-moving-to-monthly-meetings/
BLIGHTSTAT THIRTY: https://fsjna.org/2012/01/armageddon-has-arrived-for-blighted-property-owners/
BLIGHTSTAT 31:https://fsjna.org/2012/02/31-flavors-of-blight/

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: 31, Alex Pandel, allen square, Amir Reavis-Bey, andy kopplin, blight, blighted property, BlightStat, brenda breaux, brian lawlor, charles london, Charlie London, code for america, cynthia sylvain-lear, David Lessinger, Eddie Tejeda, jeff hebert, Justin Kray, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, meetings, Mia Wallace, miles granderson, New Orleans, oliver wise, Pura Basco, second, Serena Wales, Tammy Jackson, thursday, tyler gray, winston reid

Armageddon has Arrived for Blight in New Orleans

January 12, 2012 by Charlie London

by Charlie London
Blightstat #30
January 12, 2012

The thirtieth BlightStat meeting (that the public was invited to) was held today. This was the first meeting since the change from bi-weekly meetings to monthly meetings on the second Thursday of each month. Visit the link below for a calendar showing all of the BlightStat meetings for 2012.
https://fsjna.org/steps-to-stomp-out-blight/

Click here to view a PDF of the City’s
January 12, 2012 BlightStat presentation.

Oliver Wise, the Director of Performance and Accountability for New Orleans generally moderates the meetings but is out on paternity leave due to the birth of his daughter on January 5th. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Wise!

Mr. Jeff Hebert began the meeting with announcements, the most notable being that Code for America is to arrive in February.


Ms. Denise Ross continued the meeting indicating that once again New Orleans has been blessed with help from the “best and brightest”. You may remember that New Orleans was the recipient of a “Smarter Cities Grant” from IBM last year. Ms. Ross said Code for America will analyze the City’s information systems and learn how New Orleans’ neighborhoods track blight. Code for America will bring this information back to San Francisco to build applications to further the blight effort in New Orleans. Ms. Ross said the City’s goal is to deliver value to its citizens. An aggressive implementation target for the Code for America applications has been set for December, 2012.

Ms. Ross gushed with the information that twenty cities applied for the Code for America help and New Orleans was one of five to get it. And, because New Orleans has such an aggressive BlightStat program, there will be four “fellows” from Code for America arriving to help us.
The other winning cities will only receive three “fellows”.

On Code for America’s website, the situation is described as follows:
“The City of New Orleans wants to partner with Code for America to support and further legitimize the invaluable role neighborhood stakeholders continue to play in community revitalization. By developing a light-weight application to allow community stakeholders to submit bulk information to the city about their neighborhood, view existing relevant city data, and receive status for each of the on-going issues in their neighborhood, they will be better able to advocate and support their neighborhoods.”

The meeting continued with each department’s director commenting on the powerpoint slide that affected their department:

INSPECTIONS
532 inspections for period ending Dec 31. 20% above inspections goal. Inspections backlog remains and age of inspections has increased slightly but the backlog is down overall. The goal is to have all inspections done within 30 days of assignment.

HEARINGS
Ms. Illarmo reviewe the hearings slide which indicated that the backlog has been reduced by 340 cases. The backlog continues to be aggressively addressed. The goal remains unmet but Mr. Kopplin indicated it is clear that the City is in a turn-around period. The number of cases held continues to rise while the backlog continues to be reduced. Ms. Tammy Johnson indicated that fewer fines will be waived and that blight liens will be enforced. Judgements will be recorded.

Ms. Illarmo indicated that 666 blight hearings per month is the goal.
It’s armageddon for blight in New Orleans!

DEMOLITIONS
Ms. Basco said 11 FEMA demolitions and 8 strategic demolitions were done over the last month. SHPO, NCDC, and HDLC approvals slow the process. Councilmembers have requested that properties be sold at Sheriff Sales rather than demolished. Unfortunately, most of the properties that are so bad that they need to be demolished don’t ordinarily sell at a Sheriff Sale. Mr. Hebert indicated about 1500 buildings were demolished last year. (2200 units)

Mr. Kray reminded the audience that demolitions are listed at data.nola.gov. The “Demolition & Salvage by Program” slide indicated there is much work being done in New Orleans East. This is great especially if blight is cleared along the I-10 corridor as it is the first area people see in New Orleans as they travel from the east on I-10.

Mr. Will McGowan indicated that 11 demolitions were done over the last month with 14 demolitions done so far in January. There are 32 “selective salvage” properties in the works. FEMA funded demolitions will eventually end. Mr. Kopplin warned that the City needs to have a backup plan when the funding ends.

Mr. Lessinger indicated the 9th Ward lot clearing program continues.

Ms. Basco indicated only 1 FEMA trailer remains.

Ms. Sylvain-Lear indicated the Sanitation Department continues to fight illegal dumping. Over 3,000 illegally dumped tires have been removed. Sanitation Rangers continue to check manifests at tire shops to make sure that tires are being disposed of properly. Mr. Kopplin indicated that the work Sanitation Rangers do with the Quality of Life Officers is the backbone of the blight fight. Ms. Sylvain-Lear asked that neighborhoods continue to report bandit signs as they are beginning to pop up again but instead of major thoroughfares are deep within neighborhoods. Call 311 or write to [email protected]

Mr. Kopplin announced Quality of Life Stat will begin January 26th.

SHERIFF SALES
Mr. Granderson indicated lien foreclosures continue. Filing fees have increased in 2012.
Sheriff Sales coming up are Jan 19 | Jan 26 | Feb 2 | Feb 9. Sheriff Sales are done each Thursday at noon in the lobby of the Civil District Court building which are generally bank foreclosures. The Tuesday sales are blight removal sales. Mr. Granderson mentioned data.nola.gov and indicated that information on Sheriff sales is up to date as of yesterday.

LLT/NORA inventory remains constant with 24 closings for the month of December.

Mr. Square indicated the new and improved 311 call system will be launched March 26th. Code Enforcement is the number one call to 311.

It is clear that enforcement of laws related to blighted properties will be more aggressive in 2012. The Mayor’s directive to have 10,000 blighted properties eradicated in three years remains on track.

BlightStat 31 will be held on February 9, 2012. The meetings are on the 8th floor of City Hall in the Homeland Security Conference Room.

You can review reports on all of the previous BlightStat Meetings in the links below:
Blight Sweep in 9th Ward: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/blighted-beginnings/
BLIGHTSTAT ONE: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/bi-weekly-blight-business/
BLIGHTSTAT TWO:https://fsjna.org/2010/11/keeping-our-eyes-on-the-prize/
BLIGHTSTAT THREE: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/what-gets-measured-gets-managed/
BLIGHTSTAT FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/blight-busting/
2010 Year End Update: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/year-end-update-from-the-landrieu-administration/
BLIGHTSTAT FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/the-5th-dimension-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/a-sixth-sense-for-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/the-7-heavens-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/8-by-ya-mommas/
BLIGHTSTAT NINE: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-9/
BLIGHTSTAT TEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-10/
BLIGHTSTAT ELEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-11/
BLIGHTSTAT TWELVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-12/
Mayor’s State of the City Address: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/one-city-that-shares-one-fate/
BLIGHTSTAT THIRTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-13/
BLIGHTSTAT FOURTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-14/
BLIGHTSTAT FIFTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-15/
CITY GETS REPORT CARD: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/city-gets-report-card/
BLIGHTSTAT SIXTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-16/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVENTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-17/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-18
BLIGHTSTAT NINETEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-19/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-20/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-ONE: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-turns-21/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-TWO: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-22/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-THREE: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-23/
FIGHT BLIGHT RIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/fight-blight-right/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-24/
CITIZENS PARTICIPATE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/citizens-participate-in-new-orleans/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-25/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/blightstat-turns-one
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/27-meetings-about-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/12/blightstat-28/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-NINE: https://fsjna.org/2011/12/blightstat-moving-to-monthly-meetings/
BLIGHTSTAT THIRTY: https://fsjna.org/2012/01/armageddon-has-arrived-for-blighted-property-owners/

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: allen square, andy kopplin, blight, blighted property, BlightStat, blightstat 30, brenda breaux, brian lawlor, charles london, Charlie London, cynthia sylvain-lear, David Lessinger, jeff hebert, Justin Kray, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, meetings, Mia Wallace, miles granderson, New Orleans, oliver wise, Pura Basco, second, Tammy Johnson, thursday, tyler gray, winston reid

Beetlejuice?

January 10, 2012 by Charlie London

Fairgrinds
3133 Ponce de Leon
New Orleans, LA

"Sunshine" and "Can't Stop the Beet" are two new offerings at Fairgrinds

No, it isn’t beetlejuice but the drink on the right does have beets in it! Click on the lights to learn about Fairgrinds‘ other menu items.

Fairgrinds is at 3133 Ponce de Leon near the corner of the 3100 block of Esplanade. They have coffee, tea, pastries, and more. Click on the new offerings featured on the right to learn more.

Fairgrinds also hosts many community meetings in its upstairs meeting room. You can learn about everything from Occupy NOLA to Yoga.
Click on the link below for a schedule.
http://fg.chieforganizer.org/calendar

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: and more, coffee, community, fairgrinds, juices, meetings, nola, occupy, occupy nola, tea

Lafitte Greenway News

December 20, 2011 by Charlie London


The next round of meetings about the Lafitte Corridor will take place near the end of February, 2012.

The Lafitte Greenway & Corridor Revitalization Plans will be available for public viewing by visiting http://www.lafittecorridorconnection.com/
or two physical locations:
SoJourner Truth Community Center, located at 2200 Lafitte Street and the New Orleans Public Library (main branch), 3rd floor in the Louisiana section.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: corridor, greenway, lafitte, meetings, news, newsletter

BlightStat Moving to Monthly Meetings

December 15, 2011 by Charlie London

by Charlie London

BlightStat 29 | December 15, 2011

Beginning in 2012, the BlightStat meetings will be held once each month instead of bi-weekly. This was the 29th BlightStat meeting to which the public was invited.

Click here to view a PDF of the City of New Orleans’
December 15, 2011 BlightStat Meeting

Thursday, January 12, 2012 will be the next meeting date. Then the second Thursday of each month thereafter.

Inspections
514 over the last two weeks. Ms. Basco indicated the backlog has increased slightly but the inspectors are working diligently in their assigned districts.

Inspection sweeps were done throughout the city with several being done during the recent “Fight the Blight” day held in each council district.

Mr. Wise reviewed the map of inspections with Ms. Basco.

Mr. Kopplin asked about the progress of the “occupied property” strategy. Ms. Basco said she is working on it. Occupied houses are not currently cited for blight.

Hearings
The backlog has been reduced significantly. Mr. Square indicated the majority of 311 calls are for code enforcement. Mr. Kopplin indicated that a target needs to be set for getting rid of the backlog. Mr. Kopplin suggested the February, 2012 meeting would be a good date to shoot for but would like closure on the backlog.

The greatest number of hearings were held this bi-weekly period with 413 hearings completed.

Demolitions
Mr. Carrere indicated 7 strategic demolitions with 3 being done during the recent “Fight the Blight” day, one of which was a 24 unit apartment building.

Cold weather drives vagrants into unoccupied buildings which often results in fires.

FEMA demolished 15 structures and 20 units.

44 properties removed from FEMA demolitions due to compliance.

Mr. Wise indicated that the strategic demolitions program has finite resources so the city needs to maximize the benefit for the resources available.

Interim Nuisance Abatement Program
Mr. Ferrouillet indicated 15 properties were cut during the “Fight the Blight” day. Contract for lot cutting is being re-bid and should be done by March, 2012.

9th Ward Lot Clearing
Mr. Lessinger indicated that 775 lots have been cut so far. Mr. Wise indicated that issues that affect people is the main focus of fighting blight. Blight affects public safety and quality of life.

Five FEMA trailers still remain.

Illegal Dumping
Ms. Lear indicated the Sanitation Department is still focusing in the 9th Ward and New Orleans East. Almonaster and Michoud are hot spots for tire dumping.

Sheriff Sales
Mr. Gray indicated that the highest amount ever was collected from the recent Sheriff Sale bringing the total to 1.2 million for the year.
Ms. Breaux indicated her team met with the owners of 609 Jackson Avenue about what action they are going to take to rid the city of this blighted property. (former medical facility) Ms. Breaux’s team is still working with the owner to get the owner to demolish the property or sell it.

Mr. Gray indicated 125 properties will be sold at a Sherrif Sale on January 10th. He also indicated sales are done every Thursday.

Mr. Wise indicated about 35% of the properties that go to Sheriff Sale are actually sold.

Mr. Kopplin indicated that economic development and blight strategy go hand in hand.

Mr. Lessinger discussed strategies for improving the number of properties sold at Sheriff Sales.

Auction updates for code lien foreclosures are posted on http://data.nola.gov/

Ms. Wilkerson said that 85 NORA closings were done over the past two weeks. Ms. Wilkerson will be leaving early in 2012 when the NORA program gets discontinued.

Mr. Kopplin indicated his goal is to have as many hearings as possible to get properties in compliance and to reduce the number of properties that end up in the backlog due to title research, contacting heirs, etc.

Mr. Kopplin indicated that the City Council authorized two additional Sanitation Rangers to help fight the dumping problem.

***
NEW ORLEANS | Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:39pm EST
Next up for New Orleans’ recovery: fighting blight
By Mark Guarino
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A city policy involving demolitions, inspections, community meetings and Saturday morning elbow grease is reviving New Orleans neighborhoods at a faster rate than most expected after Hurricane Katrina put 80 percent of the city underwater six years ago.

“This is a total groundbreaker for the city,” said Allison Plyer, chief demographer of the nonprofit Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

“There’s never been this intensive an effort previously to combat blight.”

Even before the levees broke, New Orleans struggled with many of the classic elements that produce vacant homes and empty lots: systematic population loss, a troubled economy and crime.

Then Katrina accelerated blight. Some 110,000 New Orleans residents did not return to their homes in the five years since the storm, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In October 2010, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, then just six months in office, launched a blight initiative he said was designed to turn around 10,000 properties by 2014.

By the end of this year, city officials say, nearly 4,000 properties will fit that bill, lowering the city’s total number of blighted properties to less than 42,000, according to data from the United States Postal Service, which tracks such figures as vacant homes where mail is not collected.

“What happened is we got better at what we’re supposed to be doing and that, by getting more aggressive, property owners know we’re coming and know we mean consequences so they start to self-correct,” Landrieu told Reuters.

FEDERAL BILLIONS

In the early post-Katrina years, billions of federal recovery dollars helped the city buy abandoned properties and either demolish them or sell them to neighbors, as well as encourage residents to return and rehabilitate their homes.

Then came Jeff Hebert, the city’s inaugural director of blight policy and neighborhood revitalization.

He has sped up property inspections, held regular community meetings and implemented little changes like redirecting workers in a jobs program to mowing overgrown lots in devastated neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward, which hadn’t seen a lawnmower blade in years.

Herbert also helped the city steer away from tax sales of foreclosed properties, which can drag on for three years, to sheriff’s sales, which award new property owners a clear title immediately upon purchase.

“That may be our single biggest policy shift,” Hebert told Reuters. “Our goal is not necessarily to demolish houses but the end goal is to get houses back into commerce.”

Landrieu said the new measures are designed to address his administration’s three priorities: crime, jobs and schools.

“Blight is the thread that depends on whether or not we have success in those areas,” he said. “It’s a major threat to public safety and quality of life.”

Despite the city’s efforts, about 25 percent of New Orleans housing remained vacant in 2010, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

Title issues, contractor fraud and rebuilding costs are saddling recovery, and some residents say the city isn’t acting fast enough to prevent neighborhoods from falling behind.

EIGHT FEET OF WATER

Take Rose Johnson. Her neat, two-story home in the city’s Broadmoor neighborhood took nearly 8 feet of water and she spent $130,000 to return it back to its original splendor.

Her neighbor did not. In the years that passed since the storm, the vacant Italianate home next to Johnson’s receded, as if reclaimed by the earth.

Pink exterior plaster is crumbled at the ground and this month, the stairs caved in. Johnson, 65, took it upon herself to mow the grass and hired an exterminator to set baits around her house so the rats next door wouldn’t infest her own.

She said she called the city several times but has seen no progress. “It’s a mess. I want them to tear it down,” she said of city officials. “It’s not fit to live in.”

Demolition creates its own challenges. Some community organizers complain the city leaves the foundation behind on houses it demolishes, preventing lots from reverting to green space and creating another version of blight. The city has demolished over 2,100 blighted properties so far this year.

“Demolitions are a mixed bag,” Plyer said. “If you do a lot of demolition then you have a dumping problem. People come and dump tires and debris and trash.”

Population recovery is one reason New Orleans appears to be advancing on blight. Even though the New Orleans population is 21 percent less than before the storm, the population more than doubled between 2006 and 2010, to 343,800.

Katrina helped mobilize the city’s public-private web of civic and neighborhood organizations and city departments, says Margery Austin Turner, vice president for research of the Urban Institute, a nonprofit policy analysis group based in Washington, D.C.

“I don’t think you would have seen that kind of capacity in New Orleans prior to Katrina,” she told Reuters.

Evidence of that is a section of Broadmoor where a development corporation set up by the neighborhood association in 2006 is rehabbing homes it purchased with $5 million from the Clinton Global Initiative. On one Friday in late November, 200 volunteers built a new playground for the nearby school.

“Our residents have skin in this game,” said David Winkler-Schmit, communications director for the association. “We know what we need.”

***
You can review reports on all of the previous BlightStat Meetings in the links below:
Blight Sweep in 9th Ward: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/blighted-beginnings/
BLIGHTSTAT ONE: https://fsjna.org/2010/11/bi-weekly-blight-business/
BLIGHTSTAT TWO:https://fsjna.org/2010/11/keeping-our-eyes-on-the-prize/
BLIGHTSTAT THREE: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/what-gets-measured-gets-managed/
BLIGHTSTAT FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/blight-busting/
2010 Year End Update: https://fsjna.org/2010/12/year-end-update-from-the-landrieu-administration/
BLIGHTSTAT FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/the-5th-dimension-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/01/a-sixth-sense-for-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/the-7-heavens-of-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/02/8-by-ya-mommas/
BLIGHTSTAT NINE: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-9/
BLIGHTSTAT TEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/03/blightstat-10/
BLIGHTSTAT ELEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-11/
BLIGHTSTAT TWELVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/blightstat-12/
Mayor’s State of the City Address: https://fsjna.org/2011/04/one-city-that-shares-one-fate/
BLIGHTSTAT THIRTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-13/
BLIGHTSTAT FOURTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-14/
BLIGHTSTAT FIFTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-15/
CITY GETS REPORT CARD: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/city-gets-report-card/
BLIGHTSTAT SIXTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-16/
BLIGHTSTAT SEVENTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-17/
BLIGHTSTAT EIGHTEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-18
BLIGHTSTAT NINETEEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/07/blightstat-19/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-20/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-ONE: https://fsjna.org/2011/08/blightstat-turns-21/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-TWO: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-22/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-THREE: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/blightstat-23/
FIGHT BLIGHT RIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/09/fight-blight-right/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FOUR: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-24/
CITIZENS PARTICIPATE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/citizens-participate-in-new-orleans/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-FIVE: https://fsjna.org/2011/10/blightstat-25/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SIX: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/blightstat-turns-one
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-SEVEN: https://fsjna.org/2011/11/27-meetings-about-blight/
BLIGHTSTAT TWENTY-EIGHT: https://fsjna.org/2011/12/blightstat-28/

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: allen square, andy kopplin, BlightStat, blightstat 29, brenda breaux, brian lawlor, cynthia sylvain-lear, David Lessinger, jeff hebert, joyce wilkerson, Justin Kray, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, meetings, Mia Wallace, miles granderson, New Orleans, oliver wise, Pura Basco, second, Tammy Johnson, thursday, tyler gray, winston reid

Are YOU a Mover and a Shaker?

November 21, 2011 by Charlie London

by Charlie London
The Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association just completed two major events. Both events were held around the same time, Voodoo on the Bayou on Oct 29th and Bounty on the Bayou on Oct 31st. A small group of dedicated neighbors made the events happen.

WANT TO BE INCLUDED? Show up! There are several opportunities for you to express your thoughts and ideas coming up:

December 12th: FSJNA Board Meeting
December 14th: FSJNA General Membership Meeting (and vote for new board)
Got great ideas for change? Wonderful! Let’s hear them at the upcoming meetings especially if you are ready to take the lead implementing those ideas.

Help your neighbors make YOUR neighborhood continue to be the premier neighborhood in New Orleans. FSJNA needs your help to keep Faubourg St. John as the place where big dreams grow.

Hope to see you at the upcoming meetings. Please visit the link below for more:

https://fsjna.org/fsjna-meetings-and-more/

Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: bayou st john, faubourg st john, faubourg st. john neighborhood association, fsjna, meet, meetings, neighbors

MINDMIXER

October 28, 2011 by Charlie London

More at http://mindmixer.com/

MindMixer acts as a virtual town-hall allowing community planning to happen online.

They believe that people want to be active participants in their community’s decision-making. Yet, the existing model for civic engagement is rooted in community meetings that still require citizens to physically show up at a specific time and specific place. MindMixer changes that model by providing citizens access to share ideas, solve challenges, and interact with community leaders at any time, from anywhere. Whether it is transportation, schools, taxes, or climate change, the conversation is a mouse click away.

MindMixer is unique in that the platform was designed and built by people who have spent their careers working with government entities. They have first-hand experience in the difficulty associated with attracting citizens to traditional meetings and we understand the challenged of prolonged engagement. They believe whole-heartedly that if you provide the right tools and put forth the right topics, citizens will often surprise with their enthusiasm and knowledge.

Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: better meetings, city, internet, meetings, mindmixer, New Orleans

BlightStat Turns 21

August 25, 2011 by Charlie London

It’s Your Right to Fight Blight

This was the twenty first BlightStat meeting to which the public was invited to attend.

The City continues to march toward its goal of eradicating 10,000 blighted properties within three years. City departments that can help with this process meet every two weeks for a “BlightStat” meeting.

Goals have been set for each department and a presentation is made at each meeting to show how each department is doing toward meeting those goals.

Click here to view the City’s 21st public BlightStat presentation.

The legal department had an extended discussion about getting properties to Sherrif Sales. The legal department has been consistent in their efforts to fight blight in New Orleans. Ms. Brenda Breaux has made it clear to her team that consistent efforts will be maintained.

The group discussed marketing efforts for the Sherrif Sales noting that the Preservation Resource Center and neighborhood organizations can be utilized to help promote the events.

Mr. Kopplin suggested that the names of the curators should be known to neighborhoods as citizens are out of patience with those who are not effective.

Mr. Kopplin noted that 1,000 writs have been filed this year. Mr. Granderson and Mr. Gray were touted as the driving force behind getting writs filed so that blighted property can be brought to a Sherrif Sale.

Mr. Hebert said he has heard that some are shocked at how far the city has come in the fight against blight. Mr. Brad Vogel also gave accolades to the City for its efforts toward getting properties up for Sherrif Sale.

Mr. Granderson indicated that he and Mr. Gray have been working diligently on the files sent to them to get them ready for Sherrif Sales.

Mr. Kopplin noted that compliance only works under threat of demolition.

Mr. Granderson indicated that citizens can go to CivilSherrif.com and click on the sales list to see properties coming up for Sherrif sale.
Code Enforcement was represented by a new person that indicated the strategic demolition process is moving along but historical reviews, utility cutoffs and owner objections have slowed some demolitions.

Mr. Kopplin noted that packet delivery does not necessarily equal demolition and quipped that eminent danger works better.

Mr. Wolcott reviewed the FEMA demolitions noting that ten demolitions were done in that last two weeks. He indicated that FEMA’s process is better organized but ten demolitions each bi-weekly period will likely be the norm. Mr. Kopplin indicated that a third of all FEMA demolitions have been denied by NCDC. Mr. Wolcott indicated that only adjudicated properties are submitted to NCDC. Mr. Kopplin asked Mr. Hebert for a list of demolitions denied by NCDC.

Ms. Wilkerson indicated that NORA demolitions are winding down as the money runs out around June, 2012.

Mr. Keith Ferrouillet discussed nuisance abatement which has slowed because the contractor has indicated he is not being paid timely. Mr. Hebert indicated that the process has been explained to the contractor and that the results for this period are unsatisfactory. Mr. Hebert also indicated that payments to the contractor are current. Mr. Wise suggested inviting the contractor to the BlightStat meeting.

Mr. Wise indicated a Yale intern has done some work on performance contracting and this situation would be a good project for the intern to work on.

Mr. Ed Horan discussed the remaining FEMA trailers noting that 16 trailers remain. Mr. Kopplin told Mr. Horan that he wants the status of every FEMA trailer, what the city and code enforcement is doing to finalize this issue. Mr. Kopplin indicated that resets for FEMA hearings needs to end. He noted that the mayor said he would have them out by January and it is eight months beyond the deadline. He threw a benefit out to Mr. Horan stating that he doesn’t have to attend the BlightStat meetings once the FEMA trailers are gone.

Ms. Lear indicated that a big push is on for eradicating litter and bandit signs. She noted that enforcement is going to be tough now after giving out numerous warnings. She noted that any citizen can removed illegal signs and if brought to the Sanitation Department the owner will be called and cited if necessary.

Mr. Kopplin noted that enforcement is the key because like tire dumping, the bad behavior will continue until the perpetrator is cited.

Ms. Lear noted that 10,000 dumped tires have been picked up by the city. She indicated that citizen calls to NOPD have helped some tire dumpers get cited.

Ms. Wilkerson noted that no NORA closings were done this bi-weekly period. She noted that there have been some issues with code enforcement and the permit process. Mr. Kopplin suggested a private meeting between Mr. Horan and Ms. Wilkerson.

Ms. LeGrand from Lakeview indicated that large shipping containers on various properties are an issue in her neighborhood. A discussion ensued on how to remove these. Ms. LeGrand indicated that Safety and Permits has jurisdiction on these large shipping containers.

Answering a question from the audience, Ms. Wilkerson stated that NSP2 is a neighborhood stabilization program run by HUD (Housing and Urban Development). It’s focus is low income and rental properties as well as demolitions. More info at NORAWORKS.org
***
http://katrinafilm.com/public/wordpress/?p=2397
In an exclusive interview Charlie’s Neighborhood News has learned from a trusted source that the City of New Orleans will be giving Sign Bandits until September 12th to get their act together.

On September 12th the City of New Orleans will begin aggressively fining those who insist on placing signs on public property. To learn more about bandit signs and how you can help fight blight, please visit the link below:
http://business.fsjna.org/steps-to-stomp-out-blight/
***
http://katrinafilm.com/public/wordpress/?p=2397
***
Comment on FACEBOOK by Brad Vogel:
The city is talking about putting approximately 300 properties up for auction at sheriff sales prior to Thanksgiving of this year – that’s a momentous step. Several hundred buildings stand to get a new lease on life instead of being demoli…shed. Initial discussion envisions about 100 properties going to auction on Oct. 18. That date is designed to focus exclusively on city-initiated blight sales. There’s also the Sep. 10 NORA/LLT auction coming up – which will feature about 100 Road Home properties. So get ready to bid this fall. Auctions may not be a panacea for the city’s blight problem, but they’re certainly part of a better way forward.
***

BLIGHTSTAT MEETING (every 2 weeks)
WHO: Key blight policy and code enforcement staff

WHEN: Thursday, September 8, 2011
8:00-9:30 AM CST

WHERE: 1340 Poydras Street
9TH Floor—City Planning Conference Room
New Orleans, LA 70117

BlightStat Meetings
Nov 4, 2010 | Nov 18, 2010 | Dec 2, 2010 | Dec 16, 2010
| Jan 13, 2011 | Jan 27, 2011 | Feb 10, 2011 | Feb 24, 2011 |
Mar 10, 2011 |
March 29, 2011 | April 7, 2011 | April 21, 2011 | May 5, 2011 | May 19, 2011| | June 2, 2011 | June 16, 2011 | June 30, 2011 | July 14, 2011 | July 28, 2011 | August 11, 2011 | August 25, 2011

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: allen square, andy kopplin, bayou st john, blight, BlightStat, brenda breaux, Charlie London, clean, cynthia sylvain-lear, david wolcott, demolition, faubourg st john, FEMA, fsjna, Hillary Carrere, jeff hebert, joyce wilkerson, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, landrieu, meetings, miles granderson, neighborhood, New Orleans, nora, oliver wise, paul may, tyler gray, winston reid

City Gets Report Card

June 11, 2011 by Charlie London

by Brian Denzer

Click here for a PDF of Brian Denzer’s report

2011 NolaStat Progress Report

Progress Report on the Adoption of NolaStat Recommendations:
Findings from a Q&A Meeting with City of New Orleans Officials
May 25, 2011

Why was a meeting with the administration requested?
A year has passed since Mitch Landrieu was inaugurated as Mayor of New Orleans. First Deputy Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer Andrew Kopplin was tasked with developing a performance
management system for the City of New Orleans. By request, Deputy Mayor Kopplin solicited a number of experts to brief him and members of his staff with recommendations for the implementation of a
City-wide performance management program. As the founder and director of the NolaStat advocacy project, I, Brian Denzer, was invited by Deputy Mayor Kopplin to three meetings that were held soon
after the inauguration. Subsequent meetings were held with other key city officials.

Since then, few details have been forthcoming to the public that articulate the administration’s overall vision for adopting NolaStat recommendations to improve public access to local government
information, and to institute a performance management policy. It has become clear in the intervening months that ongoing oversight should remain a high priority. The administration has appeared to be more comfortable using the NolaStat brand, than it has in responding to requests for information about what it intends in using the name. This has been disappointing, because there has been no official acceptance by the administration that it would fully adopt the reform recommendations.

The NolaStat reform policy offers a set of recommendations for City Hall that, if properly implemented, hold great promise for New Orleans citizens by improving the quality, efficiency, and equity of city
services through greater accountability and transparency. Because there has been relatively little information or feedback from the administration, and because NolaStat supporters have been asking for
a status update, the time was long overdue for a discussion with Deputy Mayor Kopplin to assess the administration’s progress in adopting NolaStat recommendations. The discussion was necessary to acquire a more complete understanding of where the NolaStat recommendations were in implementation timeline of the administration.

Report overview
The format of the requested meeting was a Q&A with, specifically, Deputy Mayor Kopplin, to discuss the city’s vision and progress with respect to the four key NolaStat reform policy recommendations:
• Improve public access to information by publishing city data on a Web portal.
• Improve government responsiveness to public needs with a regularly-convened performance management process.
• Institutionalize reforms and exercise best practices by creating an office staffed with technical personnel and performance management professionals.
• Close the feedback loop between government and citizens by engaging the community to ensure that performance goals and data needs are satisfactorily being answered.

The finalized May 25th meeting was attended Deputy Mayor Andrew Kopplin, a seasoned Louisiana political executive; Oliver Wise, who serves as the city’s first Director of the Office of Performance and
Accountability (OPA); and Denice Warren-Ross, who was hired into the administration as the city’s interim GIS Manager; and myself, Brian Denzer, creator of the NolaStat reform policy recommendations
and the NolaStat information website. Despite repeated requests of several months, and the fact that this meeting was rescheduled at Deputy Mayor Kopplin’s request, he was only available for about fifteen
minutes of the discussion. Deputy Mayor Kopplin did, nevertheless, respond to a set of follow-up questions.

Following a set of key findings below, the format for this NolaStat progress report presents each of the four NolaStat recommendations accompanied by a set of relevant questions. The responses provided by
Deputy Mayor Kopplin and staff members follows in an answer section. Included in the answer section are findings from research conducted outside of the meeting. Statements evaluating the findings from
discussion and research may be found in the body of the answer section, but those statements should not be attributed to the administration. Evaluative statements are mine alone, but a draft of this
document has circulated among key NolaStat supporters for review and comment. Finally, the administration is given a grade on a standard academic A-F scale, and general comments on the grade follow.

Key findings
1) Administration communications need to improve. Other than Mayor Landrieu, First Deputy Mayor Andrew Kopplin is now the person most responsible for the systems and staffing that could transform City Hall, yet he had been unresponsive to repeated requests to meet over a period of several months.

This lack of communication has made it challenging to assess what Kopplin’s values and vision are for implementing NolaStat recommendations. Many policy directives and results had to be discerned from piecing together evidence found after conducting comprehensive research. Furthermore, many policy decisions in issue areas that are important to quality of life, or to the city’s unique character, have been made without public input or transparency.

2) Especially in important issue areas, when appropriate, hiring decisions for pivotal positions should be made with an opportunity for public input to ensure that community values are reflected in policy
decisions, and with greater transparency to ensure that hires are, in fact, the best that can be found.

3) Greater executive commitment to regular performance management accountability needs to be shown. Without an executive leadership commitment, no amount of money invested in equipment, hardware, software, or a new bureaucracy of analysts, will prevent failure. The administration has plans to implement a number of performance management projects that build upon the generally successful
experience with the new BlightStat initiative. There is a spirit of good intent, yet beyond the Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO) quarterly planning and reporting process, it remains unclear how thoroughly a culture of performance management is being articulated, measured, and reinforced, and whether or not there is strong leadership that recognizes and rewards performance excellence throughout the
bureaucracy of City Hall. Every municipality that has developed a successful performance management model strongly emphasizes that leadership commitment. The regular articulation and reinforcement of
performance management goals is an indispensable component of success.

4) The administration is working toward restoring the internal technical capacity to conduct the city’s day-to-day business. Contractors will only be used for special projects. This should significantly improve
the ability of the city to serve the public efficiently, cost-effectively, and ethically.

5) Civil Service continues to be a barrier to modernization and change, yet it is unclear what specific plans the administration has to reform the system of antiquated job descriptions and ossified human resources management.

6) Even if little visible progress has been accomplished to date, the administration offered an admirable vision for an open data model (http://data.seattle.gov). As the city’s IT systems are stabilized after years of neglect, plans are in place to reform the city’s IT systems that support critical business functions, such as accounting, and 311 services. Among the new systems that will be implemented is the Socrata platform for publishing the city’s administrative data.

7) Community engagement on a regular basis to identify administration goals and specific performance indicators needs to improve. BlightStat meetings are open to the public, and feedback from community
members who attend those meetings is solicited. Aside from this example, however, systematic engagement of the community on a regular basis, reporting information and performance trends to
neighborhood associations, for example, or soliciting service desires that may change from one neighborhood to another, doesn’t seem to reflect an intentional vision of community engagement as an
important part of a performance management and reporting strategy.

Recommendation #1: Improve public access to information by publishing city data on a Web portal
1) What is the road map for improving public access to city data? What deadlines are there for releasing data to the public?
2) Have city data systems been inventoried? Are there any reports that have been produced about data systems and data quality?
3) If data systems have been identified for improvement or upgrade, what projects are underway? When will they be completed?
Answer:
There are no defined deadlines for the release of city data to the public. The general philosophy expressed is that data will follow stat initiatives. For example, citizens who have followed and offered their feedback on the administration’s BlightStat initiative can look forward in the future to a spreadsheet download of blight abatement activities.

Broadly speaking, department business plans will be posted on the city’s website, and citizens can expect department achievements on specific key performance indicators to be reported on a regular basis.

The administration acknowledges that there has been no comprehensive inventory undertaken of the city’s data systems for the purpose of assessing the quality and availability of data for publication. On
the other hand, administration members generally share the philosophy that data should be public.

Specifically, Denice Warren-Ross said that the administration would follow the guiding principles of the Sunlight Foundation’s Ten Principles of Open Government.1 Ross said that the lesson learned over the
last year has been, “we’re figuring this stuff out,” and data systems are “as bad as you can imagine.”

The Sunlight Foundation’s principles of open government are well respected, but they tend toward the mechanics of publishing administrative data in a one-way push of information, and miss the need for a participatory, two-way collaborative model, in which citizen engagement is integrated into a more holistic open government system. In this approach, the government isn’t a one-stop shop providing all
information on the city’s website, but is instead a facilitator of information services, publishing good quality data, facilitating private for-profit or non-profit development of information services that
transform data into knowledge that people can use, and that offer the hope of serving a greater variety of information needs at lower cost to the city. The Knight Foundation, for example, proposes six such
strategies for more open and participatory government:2
1) Convene a working group of chief information and technology leaders to determine more effective technical and operational procedures that mitigate change environments for open government;
2) Create opportunities for developing public goods applications that are sustainable through public-private partnerships or philanthropic investments;
3) Establish more flexible procurement procedures, off-the-shelf purchasing and easier contracting for the technologies used to disseminate government information;
4) Improve broadband access to community anchor institutions;
5) Create government content that is relevant and accessible to all populations regardless of ability, language or literacy level; and
6) Promote public-private partnerships for professional development to enhance skill-building, technical expertise and forward-thinking processes within government.

The BlightStat initiative may be the most instructive example of the administration’s approach to opening up city data to the public. Oliver Wise said, “it’s easier to count what changed than count what’s there.” He expanded that it’s easier for him to count the number of blighted properties that have been disposed of than it is to count the actual number of blighted properties that exist. Therefore, the administration has decided that when it can’t establish specific baseline measures, it will at least measure results. This response is an issue of concern, since one of the goals of an open data policy is for the public to understand how decisions are made, and how those decisions impact life in the city.

The specific indicators for how a property is declared blighted aren’t available to the public. We know what the legal definition of blight is, and we know the process, but in what ways a property has been cited,
and therefore declared blighted, hasn’t been open to the public. This transparency is needed, in particular, when the city’s approach to blight appears to be driven into two options: Sheriff’s sales, or the “atomic bomb” of demolition. If counting what has “changed” is the goal, what specific indicators support a determination made that a property needs to be sold or demolished? When weighing theoption to demolish, what countervailing historic preservation values are brought to bear upon the
decision? These are not trivial questions, but may have important consequences after the administration has achieved its goal of disposing of 10,000 blighted properties.

NolaStat supporters have complained that there is often an unsatisfactory lag in publishing BlightStat reports on the city’s website. When they are published, reports are merely static Powerpoint
presentations that lack actual machine-readable data, and that lack contextual, narrative information which would make them understandable to a broad audience. When actual data is made available, it appears that decisions are based upon the value of personal relationships rather than upon a broad philosophy that all citizens should have equitable access to information. Some progress has been
reported in making data equitably available to every neighborhood. NolaStat supporters have reported that lists of properties that are being auctioned off in sheriff’s sales have been distributed by the Office
of Neighborhood Engagement to every neighborhood association, and are posted on the Civil Sheriff website, although some neighborhood members have issued complaints that lists may not be up to
date.

In the realm of improving public access to crime information, the New Orleans Police Department dropped the contractor from the previous administration who was managing an unusable public-facing
crime-mapping site, which lacked credibility. Instead, the NOPD upgraded to a nationally-respected crime-mapping and reporting platform produced by the Omega Group, a corporate leader in the
business of crime mapping and analysis.3 The site features various query and reporting types, and basic information can be downloaded in a tabular format. The data doesn’t go very far back in time, and this
shortcoming has already been expressed by some NolaStat supporters. Additionally, the public should expect that machine-readable raw crime data will become available in the future – and this can be done
while also protecting victim privacy – in order to ensure that statistics can be independently developed for neighborhood revitalization efforts, for academic research, and for civilian oversight of police activities. It’s notable that the previous administration frequently complained that citizens couldn’t be trusted to respond rationally to crime reports updated every 24 hours from 911 computer-aided dispatch records.

NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas has plans to provide updates three times a day. It also merits noting that significant development of the NOPD’s previous internal operations desktop crime-mapping system had been neglected for nearly ten years. The improvement that the public now sees is a system that also benefits the rank-and-file patrol officer who wants to track and analyze emerging crime patterns.

Superintendent Serpas called this technology enhancement a “force
multiplier” that will improve the situational awareness and effectiveness of every officer. This is a highly commendable shift in attitude and results.

On a decidedly positive note, Denice Warren-Ross established that the city decided to use Socrata as a vendor for a turn-key, web-based open data platform, and offered that the vision for an open data model that the administration was striving for is data.seattle.gov. This is very positive news, since it follows the NolaStat philosophy that government doesn’t possess a monopoly on the best uses for city data, or on the best way to publish information on various platforms. The Socrata system will liberate city data so that web developers can access data directly in machine-readable formats, to incorporate into new ways of visualizing city processes, and new ways of informing the public of city activities. If meaningful data sets are published through the Socrata system, New Orleans citizens can expect an explosion of activity centered around the exploration of creative new web-based applications that open up New Orleans government to citizens as never before, and that serve information in ways that uniquely serve particular needs.
Grade: B
Comment:
The administration has a promising vision, but still has a long way to go to follow through on its commitment to improve public access to city data. The administration deserves high marks for expressed intent. New Orleans citizens shouldn’t be discouraged, but should look forward to tangible results, a concerted effort to make data available to the public as well as the implementation of a consistent reporting format that should significantly improve the grade merited.

Recommendation #2: Improve government responsiveness to public needs with a
performance management process
1) Other than BlightStat, are there any other performance management processes underway? When will a fully functioning performance management process be completed? What does that look like?
2) What specific baseline metrics, and performance targets, have been established for departments?
3) Are their incentives, rewards, or penalties for meeting, or failing to meet performance goals?
Answer:
“BottomLineStat”: An initiative to track key revenue collection and money saving strategies, as reflected, for example, in the increase in sales tax collection enforcement. This initiative will be expanded and will
“go live” in the next 60 days. Other cost-saving or revenue-generating activities already underway have focused on undervalued building permits, and reducing the use by city workers of take-home vehicles. It
remains to be seen whether the measurable improvements of these activities will be reported in a way that they can easily be found by citizens.

“ReqtoCheckStat”: An initiative to pay contractors on a timely basis, to retain and attract good contractors, and to ensure that requirements of contracts are satisfactorily completed. This will “go live” in the next 90 days.

“PermitStat”: An initiative to integrate all permitting processes through a single point of entry, and to reconcile problems with business processes that plagued the previous administration. This is in a “design
phase,” requiring improvements to the city’s Accela permitting system, but should be operational in the fourth quarter of 2011.

“CustomerStat”: This will be the process by which citizen 311 issues are tracked. This will be operational in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Quality of Life Task Force: Two meetings have already convened of this catch-all initiative to measure anything that can be measured in the realm of quality of life in the city. Action items are added to a list
of issues, such as picking up abandoned cars.

Quarterly performance indicators: As part of the city’s budget process, the mayor is required by the City Charter to report to the City Council on a quarterly basis how well budget targets are being met. The
administration’s plan is to follow through with its Budgeting for Outcomes process by reporting, for every department, a list of key performance indicators tied to their budgets. The first quarter indicators
will be reported in the next 30 to 45 days. Additionally, after the inauguration last year, the Landrieu administration quickly implemented its Budgeting for Outcomes process by convening meetings in every
neighborhood to measure the temperature of the city on a set of issues, such as blight reduction. These broad issues were incorporated into the city’s agenda.

Going forward, the Budgeting for Outcomes process will focus more on quality, rather than speed, in soliciting input from the community.
Aside from these specific initiatives, each city agency is now required to submit a business plan to the respective Deputy Mayor. Business plans contain departmental missions, goals, key initiatives, SWOT
analysis, deliverables with timetables, performance measures, and organizational charts. Draft plans were due by the end of the first quarter of 2011. None were made available in the meeting for review or
discussion, but there are internal “Requests for Proposals” that are similar in approach that can be found on the CAO’s web page.

Responding by email to a follow-up question on how performance management is reinforced by the deputy mayor system, Deputy Mayor Kopplin offered:
Each department head now has developed a business plan with key performance indicators and measurable goals that are linked to the budget. Our deputy mayors manage the performance of departments based on their achieving these goals and living within their budget. They are supported by our Office of Performance Management and stat programs to track progress against goal for these key performance indicators.

Supporting the performance management process in the future will be business intelligence dashboards, of which only mockups exist at this point. There was little discussion about how this would be done. It
seems it could only be a remote goal given the report about data systems being so egregiously unreliable.

Other systems initiatives will have a bearing on the city’s ability to deliver high quality services to citizens include, as mentioned, improvements to the Accela permitting system, a complete overhaul of
the city’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) accounting system, and a new 311 customer relationship management platform that will have an Open311 component. Open 311 systems implemented in other
cities are particularly good for integrating citizen complaints into smart phone applications.

Meanwhile, a tweak to the NOPD 911 CAD system has produced a useful report that Kopplin now receives. He reported that 1100 NOPD officers worked 30,000 details between December 1st and May 1st.
Grade: B
Comment:
It was disappointing that no report of performance management successes was offered. One might have expected the administration to take more seriously the desire to show progress. Fortunately, there are
documents that can be found with a little searching around the city’s website. A BlightStat presentation, for example, reported that code enforcement inspections have increased to about 600 per week, or
roughly five times the rate when the program began in November.4 Meanwhile, code lien foreclosures have increased to about 35 per week, or 14 times the rate when the program began. These are positive
signs that the program is working – that there is directional progress, and that the task of tracking data is beginning to drive positive results.
As the city’s first regularly-convened statistics-driven accountability example, the BlightStat process merits attention. The administration fumbled the implementation of this project by failing to release an
announcement that the program was about to commence, and only after news leaked out, did the administration open up an invitation for the public to attend. Since then, the public response has been
very favorable to the meetings being conducted in the open. That said, the meetings scheduled every other Thursday morning may not be easy to attend. The city would benefit from using video streaming
technology to increase access to these meetings. The City Council has expanded access to council meetings in this way, using a system called Granicus that was implemented about two years ago. City Council meetings are archived, and are searchable. The same could be done for performance management meetings. Currently, the best source of archived information about BlightStat meetings is the detailed notes written by Faubourg St. John neighborhood association blogger Charlie London.

Maybe that is as it should be, but if unofficial, decentralized reports of administration happenings is the administration’s desired approach, the rapid implementation of an open data policy is an even higher priority, yet there remain frequent complaints that the city’s Accela permitting management system is being used as an excuse for why blight data can’t be produced.

While the BlightStat initiative is ambitiously pursuing Mayor Landrieu’s goal to eliminate 10,000 blighted properties, noticeably absent from the policy are any historic preservation goals. Is the administration
pursuing alternatives to demolition? Is the city counting the number of historic properties that have been saved from “demolition by neglect,” or counting the number of historic properties that have been saved from official city orders to raze? How is the city reconciling the conflict between the historic nature of buildings, with the flood insurance requirement that flood-destroyed homes be elevated?

While eliminating blight in the city is a laudable goal that the administration deserves accolades for pursuing, historic preservation appears to be a afterthought. This is a concern to many preservation
advocates, who have expressed concern that blight officials have often not been receptive to their input, and in light of official statements that “demos have hit their stride”, and that “the city is trying to get as
many demos as possible through FEMA.”5

Stepping back from the focused vantage of BlightStat, and examining more broadly the administration’s performance management policy, greater clarification of official policy should be made. The NolaStat
performance management recommendation was for the city to hold regular accountability sessions that engaged all departments in collective problem solving. The Budgeting for Outcomes process is an
excellent, well-established budget process used by government managers everywhere — but there are good BFO processes, and there are bad ones. As we’ve seen from the previous administration, lack of
meaningful goals produces lackluster performance. Furthermore, the experience of many other cities has been that annual, or even quarterly, goal-setting exercises aren’t sufficient to track and manage challenges that occur in real-time.

The Landrieu administration’s commitment to tying department key performance indicators to the budget is highly commendable, yet the previous administration demonstrated appallingly lackluster performance following the same Budgeting for Outcomes model. There is no clear evidence yet that the Office of Performance Management and “stat programs” are, in fact, tracking progress against key
performance indicators. The administration has stated that plans are in place for quarterly reports, but the NolaStat reform policy specifically recommended the successful approach implemented in other
cities – of performance review meetings held on a more frequent basis, at least bi-weekly.

The experience of other cities with positive statistics-driven leadership models has been that the greater frequency of meetings increases the number of times available to review, refine, and support performance improvement. With a quarterly review model, there will be only four opportunities a year for the administration and the public to see how well deputy mayors and department heads are meeting their performance targets. Other than the aforementioned named initiatives, such as BlightStat, the administration has a decidedly different approach model than what was recommended in the NolaStat
reform policy.

Moreover, the development of sound internal measures that lead to outcomes, not just changes in outputs, is a critical component of the success of any process. These measures should be developed in
consultation with experts in the field, staff members at all levels of departments, and with an eye to long term goals, which are different than intermediate outcomes.

For long-term performance targets to be met in cities like New Orleans that have a long history of chronic performance problems, challenges have to be tackled on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, with specific outcome expectations and goals. That was a vital lesson learned from NolaStat research on other cities, and became a foundational recommendation. Thus far, other than BlightStat, the administration has appears to have invested its faith in the BFO architecture for long-term goal setting,
perhaps learning as it goes that managing expectations requires a process of regular goal setting and review. This is simply not enough. It is more than just money that should be a concern of the administration.

A serious performance management project will yield data that may transform entire organizational systems and business processes, and as part of that transformation, produce even more efficient systems. If budgetary efficiency is the only goal, however, we will continue to fall short of performance efficiency – a citizen driven requirement. If the outcomes and intermediate outputs are incorrectly focused, then we will not benchmark toward progress, and provide a key vision for the improvement of city services that more closely align with citizen-driven priorities.

Many New Orleans citizens are highly suspicious of statistics, having heard the litany of city pronouncements in previous administrations lauding crime reductions, potholes getting filled, streets being repaired, blighted properties being abated, etc. What most people want to know is how those statistics improve the quality of life in their block – in their neighborhood. “Show me the money!” was the famous Cuba Gooding refrain. “What have you done for me lately?” is what citizens want to know.

When is the city going to fix that pothole that destroyed my car’s alignment? When is that crack house going to be shut down? Why are all the streets in good neighborhoods getting fixed before mine? What
specific progress has been made in getting a hospital back to New Orleans East? Annual Budgeting for Outcomes metrics won’t alleviate the day-to-day frustration that citizens feel. New Orleans can and
should do better than strive for annual or quarterly reports.

On the other hand, while the administration isn’t now completely fulfilling the expectation of regular performance management sessions, neither is it sitting idle, or offering lofty but meaningless promises,
as did the previous administration. In deference to the administration’s signs of positive movement, the public should remember that performance management isn’t a one-time achievement. It’s a process
that evolves and improves as lessons are learned. What matters is directional improvement through the process of accountable administrators owning problems, and producing results by sharing strategies in an inter-agency forum for collective problem solving.

There is a clear sign that the administration is making honest investments in the process of managing for results that really matter to people. Time will tell what results are actually achieved. Public expectations are high, and in the interim much more clear,
consistent communication from the Office of Performance and Accountability about these efforts is needed.

Recommendation #3: Institutionalize reforms and exercise best practices by creating an office staffed with technical personnel and performance management professionals
1) What new positions have been created to support performance management and open data systems goals?
2) What hires have been made, what are the qualifications of those hires, how many people applied, and what was the selection process for screening candidates?
3) What is the allocated budget to implement performance management and open data systems?
Answer:
The Office of Performance Management and Accountability was created in the fall of 2010 with a $700,000 budget. Staffing the office are:
Oliver Wise, Director
• Background in public policy analysis and think tanks
• MPA from NYU Wagner School
James Husserl, Performance Manager
• Background in accounting and finance
• BA from Loyola, MPAs from London School of Economics and Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris
Jen Cecil, Performance Manager
• Former capital budget director
• Background in public policy and education
• MPP from Ford School, University of Michigan
Mia Wallace, Performance Analyst
• Background in business process analytics and accounting
• BA from Xavier
• MBA candidate from Tulane
• McMain alumna
Justin Kray, Technology Specialist• Background in GIS, graphic design, and urban planning
• MSCRP from the Pratt Institute
Other administration members who should be considered as part of a performance management strategy are Cary Grant, Budget Director, and his staff. Allen Square, once the “Deputy” Chief Information Officer, is now officially the CIO, and heads a “Service and Innovation Team.” Square has reportedly been very busy in the first year stabilizing the city’s technology infrastructure, while examining and restructuring business processes and workflows. He has hired web developers, a GIS
manager, and analysts. Meanwhile, Denice Warren-Ross, who was hired as the city’s “interim” GIS Manager, clearly plays a highly strategic role in forming overall strategy and implementing best practices.

New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ronal Serpas leads the city’s crime-fighting Comstat initiative. There is an entire process there that has been in place, with varying success, since the Morial administration.

Finally, leading the city’s blight abatement effort is Jeffrey Hebert, the Director of Blight Policy & Neighborhood Revitalization. The issue of Civil Service barriers to hiring for new positions came up in conversation more than once, and yet, no strategy was articulated for how to fix that critical problem. The administration has expressed problems getting people hired for positions due to bureaucratic Civil Service impediments,
yet it is unclear what the administration’s vision is for reforming Civil Service.

Recent glimpses into the administration’s Civil Service plans have been highlighted by news reports on attempts to change the policy of older workers “bumping” younger workers during layoffs. In a Times-
Picayune story, Mayor Landrieu threatened to replace The Civil Service Commission’s five members if they didn’t comply with his plans.6 The fact that a May 2nd 22-page memo on the bumping policy drafted
by the Mayor’s office, cited in the story, can’t be found on the city’s website demonstrates, at a minimum, a significant gap in the administration’s communications strategy. In fact, a keyword search of
Nola.gov using the term “memo” produces a single result – a 2006 statement by previous Mayor C. Ray Nagin re-asserting his commitment “to compensate fairly all the men and women who bravely and tirelessly serve this city.”7

The memo and a letter to the Civil Service Commission can be found as links to documents stored on The Times-Picayune’s Nola.com servers, suggesting that the newspaper offers a better source of information on official policy than the administration.8

The administration’s interest in reforming workforce rules in City Hall to improve services seems clear, even if a comprehensive strategy is not.
Admirably, at least in the technology realm, the administration is trying to move toward the use of civil servants for day-to-day production needs, rather than relying upon the well-publicized substandard results that obtained by the previous administration’s reliance upon a graft-influenced contracting process. Contractors will only be used for special technology projects. It’s unclear whether this special projects contractor approach is being exercised in other city activities.

Deputy Mayor Kopplin was asked to provide a complete organization chart for the administration, listing names and salaries. Deputy Mayor Kopplin replied in a follow-up email, stating that a link to the administration’s executive staff organization chart can be found at Nola.gov. It’s true that an organization chart can be found by searching the city’s website, yet the organization chart is far from a complete, and does not answer the question about salaries earned by people working for the administration. 9

Additionally, though not mentioned in the meeting, the administration has been awarded a $400,000 IBM Smarter Cities grant to study opportunities for technology to make the city “healthier, safer,
smarter, more efficient, more prosperous, and attractive to current and prospective residents and businesses.” This effort may produce results that fortify the institutionalization of a performance management approach in City Hall, yet it would help to know in more detail what IBM will be doing for the city.

Furthermore, again not mentioned in the meeting, the argument for institutionalization of reforms was reported with some of the strongest language possible in a study published earlier this year by the Public Strategies Group, a Massachusetts consulting firm.10

Grade: C
Comment:
The issue of Civil Service reform deserves more attention by the administration. When are classified positions merited, and when are appointments merited? If the administration’s goal is to create an
adaptable, responsive, skilled bureaucracy through appointments, then greater transparency should be brought into the process of hiring decisions.

It is disappointing, therefore, that the appointment of a campaign worker, Oliver Wise, with no obvious background in performance management or performance measurement was made to staff the
Director’s position for the newly created Office of Performance and Accountability. Wise had apparently lived in New Orleans for less than two years as a policy researcher, immediately following an academic
career, and worked in the Landrieu campaign before being appointed to his post. It needs to be said, one wonders if a person with more significant actual professional experience at turning around
municipal government could have been found for such a critical position.

The concern is that a person in such a pivotal post could either be an agent for transforming government, or a barrier to change. The lack of transparency in that hiring decision, and the lack of a thorough search for such a pivotal position, offers the appearance of politics as usual.

The process for choosing a Director of the Office of Performance and Accountability should represent change in the political system of City Hall, providing the substance of reform, with a fresh emphasis on excellence and experience in hiring decisions, rather than reward for political loyalty.

With respect to decisions made to staff the Office of Performance and Accountability, what stands out is academic rather than significant professional experience, and minimal is the cumulative experience of
staff hires actually living in New Orleans working professionally in a realm that would expose them to City Hall’s problems. There appears to be a high value placed on planning and accounting skills, yet for all of the discussion about data systems that need scrubbing and manual counting to derive performance statistics, there should perhaps be more people who can actually write programmed routines to automate some of those tabulation exercises with knowledge of performance management and performance measurement.

Will this be coordinated with the city’s IT staff? Or is everything going
to be produced with off-the-shelf software? It’s unclear what the priorities are, or how the day-to-day division of labor will be coordinated.
Many NolaStat supporters offered reports of an amateur hiring process for positions in the Office of Performance and Accountability. Deputy Mayor Kopplin was asked to explain what his values were, and the competencies and experience, that he sought in hires for these positions – and in particular, the qualities he sought in a person to lead the Office of Performance and Accountability.

He answered in a follow-up email that “our BlightStat strategy and its implementation have been led by Oliver Wise and they have been widely praised for their vision and effectiveness.” This unsatisfactory reply is like prematurely praising a novice passenger who grabs the wheel of an airplane in freefall after the pilot is found unresponsive. The plane still has to be safely landed. From a condition of absolute ruin in which New Orleans has the worst blight problem of any city in the country, any oversight at all will produce better results than have been seen before.

It should also be mentioned that the administration’s blight czar, Jeff Hebert, Director of Blight Policy & Neighborhood Revitalization, has considerable experience that bears recognition in any reported success of the BlightStat strategy. It’s also true that the administration’s blight abatement policy has appeared on more than one occasion to suffer from either a lack of coordination with historic preservation authorities, or failure to coordinate with private preservation organizations, such as was the case when the historic home of jazz legend Sydney Bechet
was demolished.11

It should also be noted that the administration negotiated with Civil Service to ensure that Office of Performance and Accountability positions would remain unclassified. Despite well-known problems with
the Civil Service system, as previously mentioned here and in other forums, maybe this was not the best strategy for New Orleans. Had these positions been classified, more attention to qualifications, rather
than relationships, may have yielded a different, more experienced team.

Additional comment on this can be found in the summary findings below.
At a higher executive level, Deputy Mayor Kopplin was asked to explain how his peers among the deputy mayors are all being integrated into a performance management culture. Many NolaStat supporters have observed that there appears to be a new top-heavy bureaucracy created to manage the city’s affairs. This new level of bureaucracy may prove unwieldy if it doesn’t actually improve a culture of leadership accountability to the person, a well-documented cornerstone of the success of such efforts in other cities around the country. On the other hand, the deputy mayor system may still prove to be an excellent instrument for instilling pride in results, and reward, down through the ranks of hard-working civil servants. It’s for the administration to demonstrate that the deputy mayor is justified based upon evidence of such a model in other cities. Barring that, a publicly-reported cost-benefit analysis may be justified to prove its merits. Thus far, there is little evidence exhibited by the administration of a true understanding of more than bureaucracy, but leadership required at all levels to successfully build a performance management process.

The benefit of time and results may prove otherwise. Until then, it’s
fair to ask how the deputy mayor system functions to improve city services, or if it’s just a costly additional layer of executive bureaucracy.
The spirit of the recommendation to institutionalize NolaStat reforms in a dedicated office has been observed, but time will tell if the office quickly produces the kinds of efficiencies that citizens have a right to demand for the budgeted investment.

Recommendation #4: Close the feedback loop between government and citizens by engaging
the community to ensure that performance goals and data needs are being satisfied
1) How is the public being included in the creation of performance metrics in order to ensure that particular constituent and neighborhood needs are being satisfied, and that investments in services reflect community values?
2) How are performance metrics being reported back to the community?
Answer:
Office of Performance and Accountability Director Oliver Wise paused before responding to these questions, as though he’d never before considered the importance of reporting results to the community, or of soliciting public input in the performance management process. After an
uncomfortable moment to consider his response, Wise settled on the Budgeting for Outcomes process, stating that quarterly progress will be reported to the City Council. Through that process, the public will
be able to find out whether departments are meeting their goals. First quarter BFO results will be reported to the City Council by the end of the 2nd quarter on June 30th.

In keeping with the Budgeting for Outcomes process, PFM consultants will be utilized again to assemble results teams that identify key performance indicators for every department. Denice Warren-Ross added that the administration has affirmatively responded to community feedback through the BlightStat process when, for example, requests have been made to obtain particular addresses of targeted properties.

Wise continued that the administration would be contracting with the LSU Survey Center to initiate a citizen survey in August, and survey results would be reported back to the community.

Although it wasn’t specifically mentioned in response to this question, the Socrata system mentioned above may yet prove to be the best system for crowd-sourcing and publishing independently-developed
metrics and analysis of government performance. The concept expressed through NolaStat advocacy was that raw data produced by the city in machine-readable formats could be transformed into
independently produced maps, charts, and analysis. The conventional approach used by the previous administration was that its contractors should be given a monopoly on building websites, effectively keeping data and meaningful knowledge locked behind websites that were at best difficult to use, and at worst, that contained outdated information that couldn’t be trusted.

The administration clearly intends to engage citizens on a more elemental level, leaving open to a free market of creative competition the best way to report information that matters to them.

Neither was it mentioned how the newly-created Office of Neighborhoods would be involved in the process of engaging the community to elicit issues of concern, and reporting administration
accomplishments back to the community. The idea of an Office of Neighborhoods seems like a good idea that arose out of neighborhood frustrations with City Hall throughout the Hurricane Katrina recovery
experience. One hopes that the vision for this office is to do more than just attend neighborhood association meetings to establish an administration presence in the community. Furthermore, the
absence of a full expression of values from the administration about how a formal community participation process will be robustly incorporated into future land-use planning decisions has been
notable.

Other than some published information documenting plans for upcoming City Planning Commission best practices research and meetings, with an uncertain timeline for accomplishments, there has been little information forthcoming from the administration.12
Grade: C
Comment:
There doesn’t appear to be much of an organized strategy for citizen engagement, although clearly Mayor Landrieu exhibited an innovative and honest desire in the 2010 budgeting process to engage citizens in the process of identifying issues and goals. The Mayor also hired two people for a new Office of Neighborhoods. However, their mere attendance at community meetings is not communication or
engagement – it’s simply a start. Citizen engagement as part of a performance management strategy still doesn’t appear from the NolaStat discussion to be a well-thought out strategy, even when there are things happening which indicate the desire – for example, BlightStat and NOPD ComStat meetings are open to the public. Hopefully, the administration will learn to better articulate a vision that includes
ongoing performance management as a process that benefits from including the community in decisions about what matters to them.

There are numerous examples of successful community reporting initiatives that have taken place throughout the country. Some are sophisticated, time-consuming and expensive to implement. Others
don’t require any sophisticated software, but rely upon an honest commitment to diligently proving that government works for its citizens.

Among the stat-driven leadership models for reporting results, there
are examples found in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., and many other cities.13 In fact, in Baltimore, the public had an opportunity to interact with former Mayor Martin O’Malley every two weeks as part of that city’s CitiStat process. In Florida, there are cities that provide a summary of performance results in the newspaper on an annual basis.

Other cities use what is known as the citizen-centric report that has been developed by the Association of Governmental Accountants. Still other cities, such as Saco, Maine, have developed comprehensive
reports that are available both in print based and electronic forms for all citizen constituents to see and view. These reports are made on an annual basis, and the model could be adapted for the City of New
Orleans. A fundamental tenet of successful performance management initiatives in these examples is that they didn’t wait for investments in complicated systems, but started measuring and reporting what
was available to them immediately in order to send the signal that from the mayor down, accountability for results would be the what government is doing.

Improve the process over time. The citizen constituents who pay taxes and actually pay for government’s operation should be entitled to easy,
understandable access to performance information on a consistent basis. Citizens have a right to expect excellence in performance management from day one.

Summary comments
To summarize this update on the Landrieu administration’s adoption of NolaStat reform recommendations, there are some truly exciting projects underway that should satisfy NolaStat supporters. Mayor Landrieu and Deputy Mayor Kopplin deserve high marks for being receptive to the public demand for change. The goal of the NolaStat advocacy campaign was for the city to adopt a set of four specific recommendations that would institutionalize a culture of improving the quality, efficiency, and equity of city services. The early signs of progress toward these goals are very encouraging, but much remains to be done.

The decidedly positive general impression that NolaStat supporters should acquire from the findings of this report is that the administration has, in fact, initiated in spirit the reforms that were the purpose of
the NolaStat recommendations in the first place. There is significant room for improvement, but it appears that changes being made now have the potential to produce dramatically positive results in the
near to mid-term, but only if they are followed up by consistent attention to measures, outcomes, goals and include the input of citizens to help determine the priorities of this government. It should be a
bottom-up approach, not top-down.

The great merit of a transparent, accountable, performance management process is that it forces coordination of activity, and drives a citizen-driven, results-oriented focus. Let the data tell the story of
the city’s progress, report that story to the public, engage the public in the development of their narrative for the future, and let them tell their story of where the problems are – what they want the story to be — and either the way business in City Hall is conducted will change for the better, or voters will choose a better person to run the city.

We should all hope that change for the better results in another four-year term for Mayor Landrieu. That might be the best measure of performance success, but we need to see the tangible, measurable
results that lead toward a qualitative improvement in the quality of life for all New Orleans citizens. The road might seem bumpy now, but the Landrieu administration appears to be on the right track for now with respect to the adoption of NolaStat recommendations.

1 Sunlight Foundation, Ten Principles for Opening Up Government Information, 11 Aug. 2010,
http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/ (accessed 5 June 2011).
2 Jon Gant and Nicol Turner-Lee, Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory
Government, A project of the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation, Feb. 2011, http://www.knightcomm.org/six-strategies-for-government-transparency/
(accessed 5 June 2011).
3 Paul Murphy, “NOPD unveils new system for crime maps, ” WWL TV Eyewitness News, 2 June, 2011,
http://www.wwltv.com/news/NOPD-unveils-new-system-for-crime-maps-123060858.html (accessed 2 June 2011).
4 City of New Orleans, Master BlightStat Presentation, 5 May 2011, http://bit.ly/jb4hxL (accessed 22 May 2011);
City of New Orleans, Office of Performance and Accountability Business Plan, 7 April 2011,
http://www.nola.gov/GOVERNMENT/Chief-Administrative-Office/Office-of-Performance-and-Accountability/,
(accessed 5 June 2011).
5 Charlie London, “BlightStat 13,” Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association blog, 5 May 2011,
http://business.fsjna.org/2011/05/blightstat-13 (accessed 5 June 2011).
6 Michelle Krupa, “City Hall pushes to end policy where laid-off workers can ‘bump’ others with less seniority,” The
Times-Picayune, 31 May 2011,
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/city_hall_pushes_to_end_policy.html (accessed 5 June 2011).
Brian Denzer Page 18 6/8/2011
2011 NolaStat Progress Report
7 City of New Orleans, Administration Holds to Commitment to Pay Increase for City Employees, 16 September
2006, http://www.nola.gov/en/PRESS/City-Of-New-Orleans/All-Articles/Nagin-Administration-Holds-to-
Commitment-to-Pay-Increase-For-City-Employees
(accessed 5 June 2011).
8 New Orleans First Deputy Mayor/CAO Andrew J. Kopplin, Letter to Civil Service Commission Chairman William R.
Forrester, Jr., 31 May 2011, http://media.nola.com/politics/other/2c691a61.pdf (accessed 5 June 2011); New
Orleans First Deputy Mayor/CAO Andrew J. Kopplin, Memo Re: Proposed amendment to Civil Service Rule XII, 2
May 2011, http://media.nola.com/politics/other/letter%20to%20Civil%20Service%20Commission%5B1%5D.pdf
(accessed 5 June 2011).
9 City of New Orleans, Executive Organizational Chart, 21 March 2011, http://www.nola.gov/HOME/Mayors-
Office/Executive-Staff
(accessed 5 June 2011).
10 Michelle Krupa, “New Orleans City Hall dysfunction leaves specialist ‘shocked’,” The Times-Picayune, 3 March
2011, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/03/new_orleans_city_hall_dysfunct.html (accessed 5 June
2011).
11 Monica Hernandez, “Demolition of jazz legend’s home pushes advocates to strengthen preservation,” WWL TV
Eyewitness News, 10 Nov. 2010, http://www.wwltv.com/news/Demolition-of-historic-jazz-home-is–
107087878.html
(accessed 5 June 2011).
12 New Orleans City Planning Commission, Neighborhood Participation Program (NPP) Scope and Schedule, 17 Feb.
2011, http://bit.ly/lSv5b1 (accessed 22 May 2011).
13 Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, “CitiStat Enhances Baltimore
Performance: Innovator’s Focus,” Visionaries, 2004, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0YDKgpAtOg, (accessed 5
June 2011).

Click here for a PDF of Brian Denzer’s report

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: allen square, andy kopplin, bayou st john, blight, BlightStat, brenda breaux, brian denzer, Charlie London, clean, cynthia sylvain-lear, david wolcott, demolition, faubourg st john, FEMA, fsjna, Hillary Carrere, jeff hebert, joyce wilkerson, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, landrieu, meetings, miles granderson, neighborhood, New Orleans, nora, oliver wise, paul may, tyler gray, winston reid

BlightStat 15

June 2, 2011 by Charlie London

by Charlie London
***

A SHERIFF SALE IS HAPPENING TODAY, June 2nd, CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SHERIFF SALES.

    Fighting Blight with Sheriff Sales

The auction date for properties is advertised in the Times Picayune, the official newspaper of record, thirty (30) days before the auction and again on Monday, the week of the auction. Upcoming lists of properties for sale are available in the Real Estate Section of the Sheriff’s Office three (3) weeks prior to the actual auction of a piece of property and on the Sheriff’s website under the heading, “Real Estate Sales Lists.”

***

FIGHT THE BLIGHT DAY SATURDAY, JUNE 4th

Click here to sign up!

This Saturday, the City of New Orleans is planning the 3rd “Fight the Blight” Volunteer Day from 10:00am– 1:00pm. Throughout the past year, residents have made it clear that they are serious about fighting blight.

The comprehensive blight strategy, including organized volunteer efforts, has resulted in marked progress, but it will continue to take all hands on deck to truly rid our city of blight. Saturday’s “Fight the Blight” Volunteer Day, just like the previous two, reflects a true partnership between the City, local neighborhood organizations, local non-profits and volunteers from throughout the community.

Efforts will be targeted within a five-block radius of open schools, playgrounds, and high-traffic commercial corridors.

The five locations for the 3rd “Fight the Blight” Volunteer Day will be:
George Washington Carver Park, 7424 Prytania St. at Leake Avenue. (District A)
Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Corridor, 1529 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (District B)
St. Roch Playground, 1829 St. Roch Street (District C)
Union Playspot, Corner of St. Roch and Humanity (District D)
Di Benedetto Playground, 4700 Papania (District E)
Activities will include litter abatement, strategic demolitions, grass-cutting, neighborhood beautification, code citing, and painting. Volunteers are encouraged to bring gloves.

***

Click HERE to view the City’s BlightStat presentation

This was the fifteenth BlightStat meeting where the public was invited to attend.

The City continues to march toward its goal of eradicating 10,000 blighted properties within three years. City departments that can help with this process meet every two weeks for a “BlightStat” meeting.

Goals have been set for each department and a presentation is made at each meeting to show how each department is doing toward meeting those goals.

BELOW ARE NOTES FROM THE JUNE 2nd BLIGHTSTAT MEETING

Code enforcement inspections remain high with 1299 inspections this bi-weekly period. The bi-weekly goal for inspections is 1200. Hazardous Waste dropoff at Elysian Fields facility on Saturday, June 11… paint, oil, lightbulbs, etc.

Report from WH Reid, same report as last week. Strategic demo pipeline and FEMA pipeline. Chipping away at inspections backlog. Focusing on very old inspections.

Mr. Andy Kopplin – Now we have accurate data to help keep inspections current. So, now what’s next? WH Reid – during the summer grass becomes an issue as do falling buildings.

Ms. Kristin Illarmo – still below target but hearings should pickup during July. Currently working on cases for July 12th sale. Need more people. Cases coming out now are quality cases and Kristin is reviewing each one. Quality takes time and they are doing well. Quality is essential to getting problem properties to Sheriff Sale. Need more people to get quantity. 7 case managers with support staff.

Hearing outcomes – cases have fewer resets. Better quality info going to adjudication. A. Kopplin – let’s get quality assurance going – WH Reid to assist with re-inspections

Mr. Jeff Hebert – hearing results are not updated online. Will work on it.

Mr. Carrere – large complexes on Michoud and Chef Hwy torn down.

Reinspecting properties denied by SHPO. Mr. Jeff Hebert – SHPO denials that fall down, catch on fire, etc – need stats. Hillaire will get info.

Demo of condos is a problem. Many in the East do not have firewalls. Built in 70’s – the code is better now. Project Home Again is helping. Labor intensive problem. If one condo is demolished the process can affect other condos.

LLT has spent most of its demo money.

FEMA demo report – Dean Wolcott – owner notifications and historic review slows FEMA demolitions but process is moving forward. Utility cutoffs and asbestos testing is part of the process. Some waiting on hearings and re-inspections.

65 FEMA trailers remain.

Lot clearings 28 cleaned 18 complied

Ms. C.S. Lear – illegal dumping sites- working with DEQ and QOL officers. Tire dumping getting worse. Working with small tire shops. No more than 20 tires on site. Some houses are full of tires. Expects number of tires to increase.

June 11 – 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. – 2829 Elysian Fields- household haz waste day. More waste in canals and dumping in storm drains.

Recycling saves money for city. Door hangers were distributed in Faubourg St. John today and are also available at Terranova’s.

Increase in enforcement has the negative effect of more dumping and storage in unacceptable areas. 4 tires will be picked up in front of residences.

Sheriff Sales – steady improvement. Myles Granderson -& Tyler. Civil Sheriff to have education program about Sheriff Sales in September.

Liens are being collected as property goes to Sheriff sale. Collected 200,000 in fines in the last few months.

Mr. A.Kopplin – clearly Sherrif sales are getting people to pay fines and begin taking care of property. Do fees cover costs? Needs to be investigated.

LLT accepting bids on properties. Investigate grants and loans. Credit tight. Mr. Andy Kopplin – let’s think out of the box to see who can help.

Hearings remain below the target of 450 with 88 hearings this bi-weekly period.

Clearly code enforcement hearings are holding the blight eradication process back. With 1200 inspections every two weeks and less than 100 hearings every two weeks, it will be a century before the goal of 10,000 units of blight will be eradicated.
***

BLIGHTSTAT MEETING (every 2 weeks)
WHO: Key blight policy and code enforcement staff

WHEN: Thursday, June 16, 2011
8:00-9:30 AM CST

WHERE: 1340 Poydras Street
9TH Floor—City Planning Conference Room
New Orleans, LA 70117

BlightStat Meetings
Nov 4, 2010 | Nov 18, 2010 | Dec 2, 2010 | Dec 16, 2010
| Jan 13, 2011 | Jan 27, 2011 | Feb 10, 2011 | Feb 24, 2011 |
Mar 10, 2011 |
March 29, 2011 | April 7, 2011 | April 21, 2011 | May 5, 2011 | May 19, 2011| | June 2, 2011

Filed Under: BlightStat Meetings Tagged With: allen square, andy kopplin, bayou st john, blight, BlightStat, brenda breaux, Charlie London, clean, cynthia sylvain-lear, david wolcott, demolition, faubourg st john, FEMA, fsjna, Hillary Carrere, jeff hebert, joyce wilkerson, keith ferrouillet, kristin illarmo, landrieu, meetings, miles granderson, neighborhood, New Orleans, nora, oliver wise, paul may, tyler gray, winston reid

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