Jimmy’s, neighbors hope to reach common ground before City Council meeting next week

Maybe it was just a pot of jambalaya, or maybe the calm before a storm, but by all accounts Wednesday night was a positive step on the road back for Jimmy’s Music Club — about 30 supporters, neighbors and city officials all sharing a bite to eat and some casual conversation before heading into a week that could bring a formal operating agreement and approval from the city to reopen. Jimmy Anselmo and the club’s new operators threw the club’s doors open Wednesday evening for an open house that was well attended by many of those involved in the complicated set of decisions that will determine with the venue can reopen. Deacon John Moore, president of the New Orleans Musicians’ Union and a stalwart Jimmy’s supporter was there. So, too, were members of the Carrollton-Riverbend Neighborhood Association and the nearby Maple Area Residents Inc. And two staff members with Councilwoman Susan Guidry’s office used the evening as an opportunity for an on-site visit with Anselmo. The club owners and the neighbors are meeting Sunday in hopes of working out a good-neighbor agreement, and the formal request for permission to sell alcohol at the club is scheduled to go before the City Council the following Thursday, July 25.

Jimmy’s Music Club hosts “open house” Wednesday for neighbors, officials

As the operators of Jimmy’s Music Club proceed with their request for liquor sales that would allow the venue to reopen, they are inviting neighbors and city officials to join them for an open house Wednesday evening. The operators deem the event — 6 p.m. Wednesday at the club at 8200 Willow Street — an opportunity to introduce themselves personally, to discuss the plans for the club, “to address concerns and answer any questions,” according to the invitation. Club owner Jimmy Anselmo said he also hopes it will be a forum for neighbors to show their support or perhaps sign a petition, as well as discuss the club’s operations. In addition to neighbors and members of the surrounding Carrollton-Riverbend Neighborhood Association, City Councilwoman Susan Guidry has also been invited. The event is open to the public, Anselmo said.

Hevron declines to challenge Guidry for District A seat on City Council

Marshall Hevron, a local attorney and an organizer of the reborn Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Uptown New Orleans, has decided not to challenge Susan Guidry for the District A seat on the New Orleans City Council, he recently announced. Guidry is facing her re-election in the spring of 2014 after a first term that has been characterized by an aggressive and sometimes-controversial support for neighborhood organizations, notably on the Tulane University football stadium but also regarding alcohol establishments on Maple Street and most recently at Jimmy’s Music Club. District A runs from Lakeview through Mid-City, down into the Audubon area of Uptown New Orleans. The seat has been held by Republicans in the recent past, but Shelley Midura won it back for Democrats in 2006 and, after she declined to seek re-election, Guidry’s runoff victory over former Councilman Jay Batt in 2010 kept it in Democratic hands. Hevron had been a rumored challenger to Guidry from within her party, but he ended that speculation in a recent email to friends and supporters:

“Over the past few months, I have spoken to many of you about the District A City Council race.

Allan Katz and Danae Columbus: Is it time for a female sheriff of Orleans Parish?

It’s no secret that Sheriff Marlin Gusman is embattled. Escapes, deaths, and many normal prison problems have plagued his term. Gusman has even admitted that the pricy new jail does not have the special facilities needed to best treat sick and mentally-ill patients in this phase. Let’s not forget that Orleans Parish sheriffs have traditionally kept their finances close to the vest and not readily available for full scrutiny by mayor and council. There’s not much transparency at the prison these days.

Jimmy’s Music Club may be on its way back to presenting live music

When the New Orleans Alcoholic Beverage Control Board rejected a request by Jimmy’s Music Club last week, it may have seemed like the hand of The Man slapping down the former punk rock haven once again. The reality, however, is that attorneys, city officials and even the club’s neighbors agree that Jimmy’s may be closer to reopening than it has in the last year. Technically, club owner Jimmy Anselmo and his partners in Lucky Tab LLC were requesting on May 21 to appeal the denial of their application for a liquor license last year. Their argument — an unusual one — was that when liquor license applications are denied, they must be appealed to the city’s independent Alcohol Control Board. And because the basis for that denial was a moratorium preventing any new businesses from selling alcohol in the Carrollton area without permission of the New Orleans City Council, Anselmo was essentially asking the board to declare the City Council’s moratorium illegal.

Uptown residents remain concerned about looming loss of ladder truck

Despite official assurances that the removal of a ladder-equipped fire truck from the station on Arabella is part of the best possible future for the New Orleans Fire Department, Uptown residents who live nearby continue to worry that their level of fire protection is being reduced. As part of a general redeployment of firefighters around the city, the ladder truck at Arabella will be taken out of service around the end of June, fire officials have said. A pumper truck — which actually delivers water, and is considered the most important to have on scene at any fire — will remain active at the Arabella station, and the rare fire calls that require a ladder will still be sent one from either the station at Carrollton and Claiborne or the station on Martin Luther King Boulevard. “Companies are still coming,” said Assistant Superintendent Tim McConnell of the ladder trucks. “It’s just going to take them a little bit longer to get here.”

Children’s Hospital says NOAH lease was ‘opportunity’ for further negotiations to buy building

Children’s Hospital signed a lease in January for the former New Orleans Adolescent Hospital that required mental-health services there as a way to continue negotiating to purchase the building outright, but planned all along to keep its psychiatric services at the DePaul campus nearby, hospital officials told the New Orleans City Council on Thursday morning. The NOAH site sits directly adjacent to the Children’s Hospital main campus on Henry Clay, and Children’s has been wanting to acquire that property for expansion for years, hospital Vice President Brian Landry told council members. Last year, the hospital asked the Jindal administration for the opportunity to buy the property, and a bill was submitted to the state legislature to allow that, Landry said. Before passage, however, it was amended to allow a lease, not a sale, and to require that Children’s Hospital to provide mental-health services on the same level as when the state closed NOAH in 2009, Landry said. That amendment “created a real difficulty” for Children’s Hospital, Landry said, because the renovations to accomplish that would cost $20 million.

All streetlights on Carrollton Avenue to be repaired in 90 days, councilwoman says

The prolonged stretches of darkness that have regularly fallen over Carrollton Avenue after sunset will soon be a thing of the past, City Councilwoman Susan Guidry told residents Monday night, reporting that the city plans to have all of the thoroughfare’s streetlights repaired within 90 days. The lack of light on Carrollton Avenue has been a concern for at least a year — last February, Uptown-based police officers speculated that the darkness could be providing cover for a wave of armed robberies in the Carrollton area. Some temporary lighting was installed during the Super Bowl/Mardi Gras period, City Councilwoman Susan Guidry said, and it will remain in place until permanent repairs are made. In the coming weeks, the city’s Department of Public Works will embark on a project to repair all the broken lights on Carrollton, installing new underground wiring and rebuilding circuitry where needed to get them all turned back on, Guidry said. The project is expected to take 60 to 90 days, Guidry said department officials told her during a recent meeting.

Councilwoman Guidry to hold town hall meeting for Carrollton residents

City Councilwoman Susan Guidry will hold a town-hall meeting for Carrollton-area residents at 6 p.m. tonight (Monday, Feb. 25), her office announced. Guidry plans to discuss topics such as the Costco store under construction, the Mid-City Market, the Monticello Canal, area drainage projects, food trucks, issues before the criminal-justice committee that she chairs, and work on animal-cruelty ordinances. The meeting will be at Lafayette Academy Charter School, corner of South Carrollton and Walmsley. The meeting was organized by the Carrollton Area Network.