Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
With the 2013 Super Bowl scheduled for New Orleans next January and the ever growing list of conventions coming to the Crescent City, it is no surprise that Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the City Council recently passed a package of 23 mandatory upgrades for the taxi cab industry. Continue reading »
Low water pressure will persist around Leonidas and Claiborne through Thursday because of ongoing construction in the area, officials said. Continue reading »
LaToya Cantrell loaned her school-board campaign $20,000 in 2004, triggering a requirement to keep filing campaign-finance reports that she overlooked for several years, she told Richard Rainey of the Times-Picayune. The state Board of Ethics agreed to suspend $7,600 of the resulting fines, and she paid off $5,600 in June, leaving only $2,750 in court costs remaining to be paid, Rainey reported.
Owen Courreges
Frank Lloyd Wright, the legendary architect, was blunt in his hatred of cities. Wright described city-dwellers as “human beings, all crawling on hard pavements like ants to hole somewhere or find their way to this or that cubicle.” They were, he believed, “herd-struck morons our present sky-scraperism has cultivated.” Continue reading »
A new Korean restaurant has opened on South Claiborne Avenue; it appears that the Rocky’s Pizzeria on Magazine may be replaced with another pizza place; and serious questions are being raised about the serious neon signage at a new Oak Street burger joint. Continue reading »
Low water pressure can be expected in the area of South Claiborne and Leonidas Monday and Tuesday as work continues in the area, officials said. Continue reading »
About four blocks of Belfast Street just off Fontainebleau Drive will switch to one-way traffic, preventing drivers from turning on to the street from South Carrollton for a six-month trial period starting Monday, city officials said. Continue reading »
Helena Moreno
Costco Wholesale will be reimbursed with $3.3 million of the sales taxes the new store collects over its first five years to help defray the costs of elevating the South Carrollton Avenue site to meet FEMA requirements, and the city will also make a number of improvements to the streets around the store, the City Council decided unanimously Thursday afternoon. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
This week’s announcement outlining the specifics of the most comprehensive consent decree ever enacted by the Justice Department is a breath of fresh air. With it will come more transparency, accountability and better policies, philosophies and practices. Continue reading »
Dana Kaplan
The International School of Lousiana’s Olivier Street campus in Algiers. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Meanwhile, the school’s governing board continues to discuss where to put solar panels on its Camp Street campus, and where to find additional space for the overflow of upper-grade students expected there in the 2013-14 school year. Continue reading »
Seeking reform to city laws such as those that require them to move every 45 minutes, a half-dozen members of the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition will assemble from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, July 24) to show off their skills and talk policy at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center at 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, reports Shay Sokol of NOLA Defender in an interview with Empanada Intifada owner Taylor Jackson.
A Thai restaurant’s request for alcohol sales at its Maple Street location and a proposed fast-food restaurant in a service station on South Claiborne Avenue will return to the City Planning Commission on Tuesday, after their initial trips through the city bureaucracy were derailed by the council standoff in May. Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
For those of you who have been under a rock since, well, ever, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO) don’t always see eye to eye. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where they just plain don’t like each other.
Part of the issue is that Landrieu has repeatedly said that the NOPD has sufficient manpower, while PANO argues that it has been chronically understaffed. The latest volley occurred recently when PANO released the results of a survey performed by Tulane Criminologist Peter Scharf. That study purported to show that an overwhelming majority of NOPD officers feel the department needs more officers and better equipment, and that morale is circling the drain.
Continue reading »
Craig Giesecke
Our (so far) week-long hiatus from the foodservice industry has allowed us to catch up on some sleep, watch a few movies and spruce up the house a bit. We‘ve also been able to check out a few potential opportunities and locations to get going again, and I’m sure we’ll crank up things again before too long.
I’ve received several suggestions about opening a pop-up operation or getting into the city’s food truck scene. But while I’ll never say never, I’ve got some severe reservations about both — and they have nothing to do with quality of the product or lack of customers. Matter of fact, we’d probably wind up doing okay with either approach. Continue reading »
The block of Magazine Street between Napoleon and General Pershing will be closed to traffic and water pressure will be low from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday while Sewerage and Water Board crews repair a leaking water main, the agency announced. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
Even those New Orleanians who have been around politics for many years and believe that nothing can surprise them (like us) were surprised by this week’s rash of political upheaval in what is usually a dull summer season.
And what a week this has been! What possessed Jon Johnson to use government funds to underwrite his campaign? His wife, who unfortunately died of cancer, was a physician. Surely they could have scraped together the funds needed. We feel sorry for Jon’s young daughter who has lost her mother and now will be separated temporarily from her father. Continue reading »
The new owner of a Maple Street college bar that last year struck a bargain with the city to stay open amid allegations of underage drinking and other violations is now being praised for his efforts to make peace with his neighbors. Continue reading »
Jean-Paul Villere
Monday morning I woke up with a crusty old ’90s grunge rock song rattling around in my head, which I suppose isn’t too big of a surprise. It was “Overblown” by Mudhoney. And unless you were or are a student of grunge, which I kind of was, or spun the soundtrack to the movie Singles more than a handful of times (guilty) you might never have heard this jangly noise bomb. It drives a careening beat and rhythm accompanied by these opening lyrics:
Everybody loves us
Everybody loves our town
That’s why I’m thinking lately
The time for leaving is nowHey, hey, hey, hey (x4)
It’s so overblown Continue reading »