The New Freret business and property owners’ association will hear plans for the Freret Street Festival, and update on the sidewalk repairs and a presentation from ProjectNOLA on security cameras at the association’s quarterly meeting tonight (Monday, March 19). Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
The at-large city council election to replace departing Councilman Arnie Fielkow is looming, so none of the candidates are too anxious to commit any embarrassing political gaffes. Councilwoman Stacy Head, for example, is smartly avoiding the issue of traffic cameras (although Head is generally a good egg, her support of these things is baffling).
Rep. Austin Badon, however, recently laid out a daring and potentially polarizing policy proposal: an earnings tax. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
The victory in the 2012 Presidential race may very well go to the side that does the best job of organizing and mobilizing its women voters and supporters.
It is expected that 53 percent or more of the voters who will go to the polls in the 2012 Presidential election will be women. In 2008, 56 percent of female voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama. From his point of view, it was a good thing they did — because the majority of male voters cast their ballots for John McCain. In the 2010 Congressional elections, a narrow majority of women rejected the Democrats and cast their ballots for Republican candidates, costing the Democrats their majority in Congress. Continue reading »
The Singha Song restaurant on Maple Street. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
The Singha Song restaurant in the 7700 block of Maple won approval Tuesday from the City Planning Commission to serve alcohol, after agreeing to restrict drink sales to food orders and to continue its current closing times of 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends. Continue reading »
The League of Women Voters is hosting a candidates’ forum for the City Council At-Large race at 7 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, March 13) at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 5212 S. Claiborne Ave. The forum will be moderated by Errol Laborde and is free and open to the public.
By Nick Kindel
Over a year ago, to the surprise of nearly everyone in the surrounding neighborhood, construction began on the Romney Pilates Studio on Magazine Street.
In hindsight, this situation is a clear example of how the city lacks a formal structure to communicate and inform residents about projects and proposals that will affect them — at the beginning of these processes, instead of after a project is already under construction. For many years, the Committee for a Better New Orleans has been working on a formal communications system that would address the types of problems highlighted by the Romney Pilates Studio development. Called a Citizen Participation Program (CPP), it will protect neighborhoods while moving good economic development projects forward. Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
I never knew. Apparently, in Jefferson Parish you need an occupational license to hand out free water.
The source of this revelation was an incident that occurred during Carnival, or “Family Gras” as they call it in Metairie (the literal translation of which is “fat family,” which seems ominously appropriate if you believe in popular stereotypes about suburban families). Continue reading »
Sponsored by City Councilwoman Stacy Head, local neighborhood improvement groups and the NOPD Sixth District, the beautification efforts will start at 9 a.m. Saturday. Continue reading »
Monsters
Ones that creep, crawl and cry,
Ones that howl, hurt and terrify,
Ones that live in the deep dark hole
That feed on your flesh, as well as your soul.
People tell me they aren’t real,
But I greatly disagree,
For monsters who hurt and cause so much pain
Aren’t always ones with horns and fangs.
Yet they are the ones that creep and lie,
That destroys, hurt and terrify
They live in the holes of our depression
And they consume our souls; a monsters impression.
— Tiane Marie Oliver
Cecile Tebo
This poem was written by a 13-year-old girl who has suffered greatly with depression since Hurricane Katrina and read aloud by her mother at the conclusion of the most recent City Council mental health committee meeting. On the panel that day were those who govern our mental health care discussing the impending closure of emergency and acute mental health services at the LSU Interim Hospital as a means of balancing their recent budget. However, as the poem was read, most who are responsible for making these cuts had already left the room to return to their enclosed offices in the bowels of City Hall — shut away from the reality of this nightmare soon to wreak havoc on our city streets. Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
The new motto of the City of New Orleans may as well be “do as I say, not as I do.” In a stunning and blatant show of hypocrisy and cronyism, the city has announced that it will forgive all traffic camera tickets issued to city employees to date. Continue reading »
Six of the 11 new traffic cameras being installed around the city of New Orleans will be placed on busy Uptown thoroughfares, officials announced last week. Continue reading »
The proposed Upper Marleyville Security District would run along both sides of the street along Vendome Place, State Street Drive, Walmsley and Fontainbleau. (map via google.com)
A proposal to hire more security officers to patrol a small section of Fontainebleau through a mandatory surcharge on property tax bills in the area drew both ardent supporters and opponents Tuesday night in its first public airing. Continue reading »
Though often cautious when it comes to approving new alcohol-selling businesses within its boundaries, the Coliseum Square Association voted overwhelmingly Monday night to oppose the idea of banning 18-to-20-year-olds from existing bars. Continue reading »
The New Orleans City Council is considering an ordinance that would raise the age to enter a bar to 21 across the city, instead of the minimum age of 18 that many bars currently allow, according to our reporting partners at WWL-TV. Reporter Monica Hernandez finds that some people running Uptown college bars oppose the idea, saying it would unfairly restrict younger patrons from participating in other activities the bars offer, while other bar managers believe it would help them prevent underage drinking.
The owners of Mayas restaurant plan to add tapas, live music and salsa dancing to the offerings at their Magazine Street restaurant, and will discuss the idea with the Coliseum Square Association at a meeting tonight. Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
New Orleans received a much-needed bit of positive economic news last week as the General Electric finance division announced that it would be opening an information technology office here, bringing an estimated 300 jobs in this city. GE also claimed that the office would lead to 301 “‘indirect jobs’” around New Orleans (which is a bit more dubious because it seems to assume that every new employee will create at least one additional job, as if each will hire their own personal assistant).
In any event, this news was especially good because it fit the narrative announced by Reuters news service last December – that New Orleans is becoming a “Silicon Valley on the Bayou.” Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
Although it did rain at times during Mardi Gras 2012, it certainly didn’t dampen the spirit of one of the best Carnivals of all time.
The hotels were full, the crowds were huge, the parades may have been the best ever, millions of throws filled the air, the publicity was almost all positive and it sent forth a clear message: Metro New Orleans is back, better than ever. Continue reading »
The sun sets over St. Charles Avenue after the end of Carnival. (Jean-Paul Villere for UptownMessenger.com)
Jean-Paul Villere
Each season’s close arrives inevitably, and no party ends without some amount of waste. At Mardi Gras, “the world’s biggest free party” as my old man used to say, the amount of refuse generated can absolutely stagger the synapses. Until you witness the end of Fat Tuesday on St. Charles Avenue as the sunset breaks into dusk, you can only imagine. The caucophonous whir of hand-labored rakes amid clean-up banter, flashing hazard lights, and heavy equipment shoveling all the gras doo to where? Throws often attain second and third lives, but those are what’s caught. What gets trampled underfoot will likely be set adrift on a garbage barge near you. Continue reading »
Craig Giesecke
When I was a kid, one of my favorite records was by The Three Stooges, called “I Caught A Cold For Christmas.” I played that little yellow piece of vinyl until the needle nearly wore through, even though the Stooges were huffing into their later years. I’ve been reminded of that this past week, though I could have been singing “I Caught The Crud For Carnival.” TBK and I have been battling an upper respiratory thing that forced us to miss the Wednesday night parades and, unless there is a sudden healing as I write this, Muses et al. I am sure you at least know several who have had it. Continue reading »
Daniel Galindo, 5, Nicholas Scandurro, 5, and Anthony Scandurro, 3, play in front of the Latter library at the First Annual Children's Book Festival in December 2010. (file photo, Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
A series of ongoing repairs and refurbishments to the Latter branch of the New Orleans Public Library are scheduled to pick up in the coming months, according to representatives from the Mayor’s office, the New Orleans Public Library, and the architecture firm hired to complete the project.
At a crowded meeting at the library on Thursday night, officials gave a progress report on the first phase of the work, executed over the past three years, and offered a timetable of the second phase, slated to begin shortly after a contractor is chosen later this month.