Uptown Messenger (https://uptownmessenger.com/tag/stacy-head/)
Film screening at this weekend’s filmOrama explores Head’s controversial role as “lightning rod for all things racial” in New Orleans politics in 2010.
LaToya Cantrell was endorsed Tuesday morning in her bid for the District B seat on the City Council by Council President Stacy Head, a popular and influential voice in Uptown politics who twice won the seat in 2006 and 2010. Head has been a political rival of Mayor Mitch Landrieu on a number of issues lately, and her endorsement of Cantrell stands in contrast with Landrieu’s earlier endorsement of Dana Kaplan, whom Cantrell faces in the Dec. 8 runoff. Head also represents the second major endorsement Cantrell has received since the Nov. 6 primary election, following that of third-place finisher Eric Strachan earlier this month.
The race to fill the remainder of Stacy Head’s term representing the Uptown-based District B on the New Orleans City Council is now likely to be a three-way contest, with juvenile-justice advocate Dana Kaplan’s confirmation Thursday morning that she will be running. Kaplan was exploring a bid as early as May with a neighborhood association visit, and two weeks ago her supporters said they were launching a drive to get 1,000 signatures on a petition to add her to the District B ballot. On Wednesday morning, Kaplan’s campaign announced that the petition drive would continue, but that she was confirming her intention to run. Kaplan will face two other announced candidates for the seat, Broadmoor Improvement Association president LaToya Cantrell and former Stacy Head chief of staff Eric Strachan. The seat is currently being held until the Nov.
With the 30-day deadline expiring last week for the City Council to choose a temporary successor to Stacy Head for the District B seat, the job falls to Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Who should he pick? Head’s nominee was urban planner Errol George, and she and the other three council members who supported him have urged Landrieu to honor the council’s choice. Amid the council standoff, however, The Lens reported that Landrieu’s preference is former state Sen. Diana Bajoie, who unsuccessfully sought the interim at-large seat last fall. In more recent days, speculation has focused on attorney Jason Williams, described as a “Michael Jordan” of the courtroom during his unsuccessful run for District Attorney in 2008.
Citing her experience with crime, quality of life and development issues as leader of a neighborhood that has been emblematic of the city’s recovery, the president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association announced her candidacy this week for the District B seat on the City Council. “Based on the great training ground of Broadmoor in terms of working with a diverse community on every level, I would like to expand my scope of leadership to the next level, which is district wide,” said LaToya Cantrell in a telephone interview Thursday afternoon. Broadmoor was at the center of the only infamous “green dot” placed Uptown after the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina, designating the area for a return to green space instead of rebuilding. Cantrell, who had already been president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association for several years at that time, was instrumental in a recovery that has seen the rebuilding of not only homes but a prominent local school, library and soon a community health clinic. “Some people had the feeling they were not wanted back in the city — poor people,” Cantrell said.
A Rust Belt-style earnings tax on Orleans Parish workers proposed by one candidate for City Council would simply drive more of our businesses into the suburbs.
One of the ways to tell the future of any city or neighborhood is to find out if investors are willing to put up their money to underwrite new ventures. By that criterion, New Orleans’ Warehouse District is on a roll. There is, for example, the new Rouses Supermarket in the 700 block of Baronne Street. A multi-million dollar investment by the Rouse family of Thibodeaux, the store – designed by John Williams, a New Orleans architect with offices in the Warehouse District – is a beauty, frequently filled with shoppers who live, work or pass through the Central Business District. On one recent afternoon, Danae bought a delicious-looking apple pie while I was drawn to the sushi prepared by an attentive Rouse’s chef behind the counter.
Stacy Head, who represents much of Uptown in her District B seat on the New Orleans City Council, was among the first candidates to formally sign up to run in the March 24 election for the open at-large seat vacated by the retirement of former Councilman Arnie Fielkow, state records show. At the end of filing Wednesday, the only other candidate to file is Eugene Green, a former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and former economic development chief to New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial. Green finished third, with 10 percent of the vote, in the 2010 Democratic primary that led to the eventual election of U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond. Fielkow’s seat is temporarily held by his former chief of staff, Eric Granderson, but he is precluded from seeking the seat permanently. Qualifying resumes on Thursday and ends Friday at 5 p.m.
Concerns about what neighbors described as repeated disruptive block parties at a Jackson Avenue chicken wings restaurant led the Coliseum Square Association to withhold its support for a liquor license at the establishment Monday night. The owner of Finger Lick’n Wings, Marlon Horton, has said that he originally envisioned his competition for customers as small sandwich shops in the neighborhood, but discovered that many customers prefer takeout orders or delivery because he cannot sell alcohol with his food. On game days, “it’s like crickets” in his restaurant, because sports fans are all at restaurants like WOW Cafe and Wingery that can sell alcohol. Horton extolled the good behavior of his business, noting its well-kept storefront and dedication to fighting litter, but many neighbors complain that he has frequently held large parties that consume all of Jackson Avenue. Horton replied that his local fame as bounce artist 10th Ward Buck means that any event at his store draws a large crowd, but said he was willing to sign a good-neighbor agreement to stop having any parties.
What a neighborhood like Central City needs is good, old-fashioned commerce. I’m talking about businesses that make no bones about wanting to earn profit, first and foremost. Central City needs to generate wealth, not just shift money around.
