YatBazaar

The politics of the non-endorsement are an old game, and Rep Anh Cao (R-LA02) is merely the latest politician to play them. You would think that a Republican who is Catholic would not need to publicly claim support from the Church, but Cao needs to raise money from conservative Catholics next door in the burbs (which are in Scalise's LA-01).

The problem is Archbishop Aymond knows the dangers of public political endorsements, so he came down hard on Cao:

U.S. Rep Anh "Joseph" Cao, heading into a difficult re-election campaign, has apologized to New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond for sending out a fundraising letter that strongly implies that Aymond and the local Catholic Church have endorsed him for re-election.

In response, Aymond said he will release a clarification through the Clarion Herald, a Catholic newspaper, underscoring the church's neutrality in the November election.

The archbishop is a good guy, and I'm willing to take him at his word that he and the officials of the archdiocese will remain neutral.

Enter the nudge-nudge-wink-wink:

In 1996, retired Archbishop Philip Hannan famously announced "that no Catholic should vote for" President Bill Clinton or Mary Landrieu, then running for the Senate, because of their support for abortion rights. But within hours of that announcement, the archdiocese issued a statement asserting that it is neutral regarding candidates in elections and that Hannan, in retirement, was speaking for himself.

Archbishop Hannan is New Orleans Royalty. There's a high school named after him (was originally in Da Parish, since the storm, it's across the lake). Hannan was archbishop here when Abp. Aymond was a deacon and I was one of his altar boys at St. Angela Merici. When Hannan says something, it carries more weight than most papal pronouncements. Archbishop Aymond doesn't need to say a word on an issue if Hannan is speaking to it.

The politics of nudge-nudge-wink-wink can be dicey for the Church. Many families in the area are still unhappy about the $20+ million the local church had to pay out to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits in the 1990s. Catholic Charities is a huge part of the relief effort in the wake of the BP oil disaster. Now is not the time for the Church to go all-in on a single issue.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Hey, Vitty-cent, your stonewalling shtick is getting old. Time for you to explain a few things.

With all due respect to my friends who say they smell the #oilspill, I'm not sure that's what you're smelling.

Bear with me here, please. I'm not saying y'all are a bunch of psychosomatic wackos. Indeed, many of y'all are feckin nuts, but for a myriad of other reasons. I firmly believe you're smelling oil, but consider:

• "Oil awareness" is at an all-time high. Just going to the gas station and smelling the fumes from the pump bums me out. I can see the same thing happening to others when an oil-burning older car goes by, someone cuts their grass with a cheap lawnmower, you name it.
• Refineries. BP down at Jesuit Bend, Chalmette, Norco. We've been surrounded by oil smells all our lives here. Maybe "oil awareness" is heightening things you've smelled all along?
• Crude vs. Refined. Have any of you ever smelled unrefined/crude oil? It's not the same as the various petroleum products you live with daily.
• Chemical Plants. If you think the refineries are bad, the chemical plants like Cytec and Monsanto make some really nasty shit.
• Wind/weather patterns. NOLA has variable winds on a daily basis. The oil spill started 90 miles off the LA Coast, and that coast is 80-90 miles (as the crow flies) from the metro area. The reports of oil smells down the bayou aren't even consistent enough to conclude that fumes are making their way this far north in quantity.

There are two reasons I bring this topic up. First, some of you are making yourselves miserable over this. I firmly believe you're smelling something, but I don't think it's as serious as you make it out to be. I hate to see people I admire and respect worrying themselves to death.

Second, I don't see where this olfactory freak-out serves any common good. Air quality? Public health? C'mon, three refineries and Shell Polypropylene in the region, our air quality was shit before 22-April. Cancer issues? Anyone who is fighting lung cancer and lives in NOLA has made a lifestyle choice that this oil spill is not threatening any more than the existing problems.

Some of you may think the people complaining, like this McClelland woman, are doing the Lord's Work on the spill, but if they make New Orleans look like an eco-apocalypse, what little business and economic development we have left will be destroyed.

Collaborative blogs can be a challenge. Even without ego clashes, trying to get a bunch of bloggers to move in the same direction is like herding cats. In spite of these challenges, NOLA Femmes has done a great job of making the concept work. Whether it's photo essays, relaying what other local bloggers are up to, profiles of successful local women, or supporting local causes like our musicians, these ladies produce some good stuff.

And you should be reading them!

www.nolafemmes.com

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Da Twittah: @NOLAFemmes

Perley A. Thomas streetcar number 939, operated by New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated, on the West End line, 1946.

It's hot in New Orleans in the summer. Visit here for a day and a half in June/July/August and you figure that out pretty quickly. Back before the days of near-universal air conditioning in homes and offices, folks needed an escape from the heat. One of the things families would do was to head out to West End for a day trip. The New Orleans & City RR Company began running steam train service down Canal Street to West End in the 1870s, along with their mule-car service to the cemeteries. It was all streetcars after electrification in 1895, but the idea was still the same: escape to the lakefront!

It's 1946 in this photo. NOPSI operated the Perley Thomas 800- and 900-series streetcars exclusively by now and was actively discontinuing electric transit service in favor of buses. You can see the motorman-conductor team as they pose for the picture. The requirement by the city that NOPSI use two-man crews hastened the demise of street railways in the city.

Still, it looks like a lovely (albeit hot) day in New Orleans. A trip to the lakefront to catch the breeze at West End Park is something I could use right now.

I've been trying to find an ulterior motive for Lawrence Chehardy's announcement he'll resign at the beginning of next year. In spite of all the investigations, rumblings, and resignations in Jefferson Parish government, rising all the way up to the top, Mad Aaron Broussard, Chehardy appears to be totally off the radar of USA Letten.

Da Paper's Drew Broach waxes poetic about Chehardy the chess-master, analyzing the political ramifications of his departure:

And yet Chehardy is a proud man. If he really wants to get beyond the stigma of having inherited his office, and the suspicion that he's plotting to bequeath it to an heir, he won't appoint Capella or any other high-profile politician as acting assessor. Instead, he will appoint a professional real estate appraiser as caretaker for three months, with a public vow that this person will not run on the April 2 ballot.

Or here's an even wilder idea: Between now and Jan. 1, Chehardy appoints himself chief deputy assessor. Then he remains as acting assessor until voters chose his successor on April 2. It's not pristine, but it helps him avoid the handoff stigma and be remembered as a champion of democracy.

Broach has become captive to the cult of personality that many political reporters fall into, and bases all his speculation on the notion that Chehardy's career has been one of success and good for Jefferson Parish. He believes that Chehardy has something to bequeath to a successor. In reality, what Chehardy leaves behind for his successor is a huge fiscal and political mess.   Chehardy's opposition to property taxes forces the parish to rely on sales taxes, and that's becoming a serious problem:

Meanwhile, [JPSO CFO] Rivera said, revenues are stagnant. Sales tax receipts and commissions, which soared in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, have been slowly sliding back to pre-storm levels. Last year, the Sheriff's Office took in $18.6 million in sales tax revenue, the same amount collected in 2004-05, before Katrina. Rivera projects a 2 percent drop in sales tax to $18.2 million in the new year.

"For the last two months in a row, we've been even," he said. "We've bottomed out. That's the hope."

Video poker receipts are down, and motor vehicle taxes have hit their lowest levels in 30 years, he said.

Property tax revenue is expected to increase 2 percent, to $27.4 million. But Rivera called it a wash considering the other declines.

Jefferson Parish has changed dramatically in the years since "Big Lawrence" Chehardy pulled withdrew his qualification papers a few minutes before the deadline for the 1975 election cycle, leaving his 22-year old son as the only candidate in the race. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, new housing construction was booming, and the Archdiocese of New Orleans was building an education infrastructure in direct competition to public schools in several parishes. "White flight" families in Jefferson didn't want high property taxes because they were paying tuition to those Catholic schools, and the Chehardys were there to see they didn't. The current assessor has raised opposition to taxation to a form of zen:

Every time legislators in Baton Rouge reopen their perennial debate about raising Louisiana's homestead exemption, Jefferson Parish Assessor Lawrence E. Chehardy is sure to be there, as he was during the 2009 legislative session when he spoke at committee meetings and even spent his own campaign money on advertisements pushing to shield a larger share of residential property value from taxation.

Whenever a government body in Jefferson Parish proposes a property tax increase, Chehardy will likely emerge to snuff the idea, as he did last year when Kenner Mayor Ed Muniz and the Jefferson Parish School Board called for higher millages.

Any time the School Board, the Sheriff's Office or any other Jefferson Parish agency engages in the practice of restoring its property tax rate to collect more money from rising real estate values -- opting against keeping the rate lower and collecting the same amount -- Chehardy can be counted on to respond, customarily issuing statements panning the decisions.

This position is all fine and dandy if a) you don't use public schools and b) when the crime rate doesn't require increases in law enforcement expenditures. Neither of these conditions exist any longer in Jefferson Parish, so Chehardy's bailing.

In terms of education, more and more Jefferson Parish parents are rejecting their neighborhood Catholic elementary school in favor of better-quality Catholic schools in New Orleans or "magnet" public schools. Parents under 40 are quite the different generation than their parents. Many see value in giving their children the best educational opportunities available, even if that means the child might have to sit next to a black or brown kid. The sense of urgency of religion classes is less and less since Catholic schools no longer are staffed by priests, brothers, and nuns. Putting your child into the hands of the religious reactionary who lives three streets over for six or seven years just doesn't make sense to them.

On the law enforcement front, Metairie would be the third largest city in Louisiana if it was incorporated (behind New Orleans and Baton Rouge). The mission of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office has changed radically since the days when Harry Lee would say his main job was to keep blacks in rinky-dink cars out of the parish. Particularly since the storm, the racial/ethnic makeup of the parish has shifted, fully establishing the need for a well-trained urban police department, not merely a bunch of guys indebted to the sheriff to the point they spend a significant amount of time fund raising for him.

At a time when parish residents demand more from public education and law enforcement, the government agencies charged with providing these services are running out of money. Both the School Board and JPSO announced major cutbacks for the coming fiscal year.

The tax base Chehardy bequeathed on the parish is either static or shrinking.  Voters won't agree to further increases in the sales tax.  At 8.75% (aggregate, state and local), it's already too high for such a regressive tax.  The homestead exemption at $75,000 makes it next to impossible to establish a property tax base that other states use for funding public education.  Increasing millage rates on property valued above the homestead exemption (as well as commercial property) can only go so far.

A sea change is coming to Jefferson Parish, one that will reveal Chehardy's policies and positions to be self-serving and not in the best interests of the people who regularly re-elected him without opposition.  When people can't find decent public schools for their kids, they're going to want an explanation.  Chehardy wants that to come from someone else while he spends time with his family.

Of course, there's still the possibility that USA Letten and his FBI investigators have something on Chehardy and he'll be joining Mad Aaron in Club Fed.  This is Jefferson Parish we're talking about, after all.

Ghana will be no pushover, but it's time for USMNT to step up.

VAMOS USA!

I wonder how the entertainment weekly would feel if someone did this to one of their events:

Oh well, maybe they had something else in mind for the spillover crowd.

UPDATE Da Paper reports that Chehardy has submitted a letter of resignation, effective 1-Jan-2011, in an effort to force Piyush to put the Assessor's race on the October-2010 ballot.

Da Paper's right, the permutations of what's going on in terms of the resignation of Jefferson Parish's assessor, Lawrence Chehardy.

Chehardy's career has been about power from the beginning. His family's ability to circumvent the democratic process in Jefferson Parish was clearly illustrated in 1975, when he took office. His father, Lawrence (father and son have different middle names) was the parish's assessor at that time, and ran one of the two main political factions in the parish at the time. It was Chehardy and his allies versus Tom Donelon, then parish-president and father of current state Insurance Commissioner Jim, then-Sheriff Alwyn Cronvich, and State Senator Jules Mollere. The two factions were classic precinct-and-ward-level political machines. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was only one political party of note in the parish, the Democrats. Politicians didn't start jumping ship to the GOP until Reagan.

The power of the Assessor's office was so great that Chehardy was truly a kingmaker. I'm not privy to why the elder Chehardy wanted to retire in 1975 (he later became a state appellate judge before he passed away in 1999), but it was clear he didn't want to give up power. On the last day of election qualifying for the state election cycle in 1977, the elder Lawrence was the only one who had signed up to run for assessor. At 4:57pm, the younger Lawrence walked up to the desk and presented qualification papers to run for the job. At 4:59pm, the elder Lawrence withdrew his documents. Qualifying closed and the younger Lawrence was elected without opposition.

Now Chehardy says he wants to retire:

The job of assessor is unique. Every four years, assessors are required to revalue all property for tax purposes. The appraisal process is complicated and takes several years to complete. By announcing my decision to resign at this time, an election can be held this year to fill my pending vacancy. A delay in the transition of administrations would be a disservice to our citizens. This decision and timing will allow the newly-elected assessor to begin serving January 1, 2011, giving him or her ample time to properly conduct the 2012 reassessment.

This is a very noble sentiment, Chehardy's desire to manipulate the democratic process continues, however. He wants to resign on 1-1-2011, which would mean the earliest time a special election could be held is April of next year. Chehardy wants his successor chosen on the October ballot, when voters of the parish will choose the successor of future Club Fed guest Mad Aaron Broussard.

Why the October election? The governor can't order an election for a vacancy/unexpired term until that vacancy actually happens. Until he actually packs up his office and resigns, there's no vacancy. If the concern is for the 2012 reassessment cycle, surely an election held in April of 2011 will give the next assessor ample time to ramp up for the process.

With both Parish President and Assessor on the ballot at the same time, there would be a true opportunity for an alliance of politicians to build a true 60s-style machine. With the two staggered, October and April, it's possible that the loser for president could run and win the assessor's job. That's often how things work, of course. Mary Landrieu lost to Murphy Foster in the governor's race in 1995, and she turned around the next year to become one of Louisiana's senators.

Chehardy wants to circumvent this process by holding the elections simultaneously. He wants to rig the process.

Just like his dad did for him over 30 years ago.

Warren Easton High School on Canal Street, ca. 1910

The best place to kick off some more-or-less regular blogging about schools in metro New Orleans is to outline the current structure of the system in the city.

Louisiana organizes "school districts" by parish, so the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) is a state-chartered entity that derives its authority from the state's constitution. The school year had not started for the district at the time of the storm, but they expected about 65,000 students. Things had sunk so badly for the district that OPSB was forced by their critics to hire a "turnaround consulting" firm to work with the worst of the schools. Many in the state were ready to wrest control of a number of the worst-performing schools from the board.

Hurricane Katrina changed all that, literally washing away the district's poor performance along with its infrastructure. In the wake of the storm, the state legislature formed the Recovery School District (RSD), placing control of 70 school there. OPSB maintained control of 16 schools, and two charter schools are under the direct control of the state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE).

Of the 70 schools under RSD control, 33 are run directy by the district (11,900 students), and 37 are operated by independent, non-profit boards chartered by RSD. Those charter schools enroll 14,800 students.

OPSB's runs four schools dirctly with 2,800 students and 12 charters with 7,600 students.

The two state-run charters enroll 900 students.

Since 2006, public school enrollment in Orleans Parish has grown from 25,651 in 2006 to 38,051 last year.

Ninety percent of students enrolled in Orleans Parish public schools are African-American.

If you're wondering where the white kids are, they're enrolled in private schools, as well as the eleven Catholic high schools in the city.

Prior to the storm, OPSB spent $7,893 per pupil, supplemented by $7,630 per pupil from the state. In 2008, those numbers increased to $15,557 by OPSB/RSD, supplemented by $9,966 by the state.

Next time: How schools in Orleans Parish are administered.

Thanks to the Cowen Institute of Tulane University for the data in this article.