city government
Neighbors vent about Carrollton Boosters soccer complex before City Council, to little avail
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More than three hours of impassioned arguments by neighbors Wednesday against the Carrollton Boosters’ proposed new soccer complex on The Fly garnered little more from the New Orleans City Council than a promise to provide better advance notice in the future and a scolding for the tenor of some of the complaints about it. Last year, the Audubon Commission signed an agreement allowing the Carrollton Boosters to build a new complex with an Astroturf field for soccer and other sports adjacent to its baseball facility on the Riverview area known as The Fly. The plan attracted little attention until January of this year, when the Carrollton Boosters sought to tear down an old cinderblock bathroom building in the site’s footprint — leading to the formation of a Save The Fly activist group, a formal expression of concern from the Carrollton Riverbend Neighborhood Association, and a picnic rally Sunday at the public-art structure that will also be removed to make way for the complex. On Wednesday, City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell summoned the Audubon Commission and Carrollton Boosters leadership to appear before her Community Development Committee to explain the project. She began with stern words of displeasure about the lack of information shared by either entity about their plans — even with the City Council.