Monday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell will join with CAO Gilbert Montano to announce the preliminary plans at re-opening the city and restarting the local economy.
The move comes a full two weeks after surrounding parishes have already started to relax restrictions in the hopes of getting businesses back to work.
Meanwhile, as New Orleans waits to hear if the restart will begin May 15, other states and large cities are already deep into restarts of their own.
One economist warns if New Orleans city government doesn’t act decisively with its restart it runs the risk doing permanent damage to the industries which keep it afloat.
“We’re already a bit toward the back of the pack, right now,” says Real Estate Consultant and Economist Wade Ragas. “Lots of other areas are moving toward completing Phase One. And Phase Two opens up much more of the retail market and housing market.”
Ragas says young technology workers, who have moved here in droves as the City’s tech growth has driven a downtown real estate boom is a different kind of employee, than tradition suburban workforces.
“We have so many young people that are bright and very technologically oriented who have moved here in the last few years, who are jarred by having furlough or layoff notices, so the result is they have to find employment.”
Ragas says New Orleans needs to make a great leap forward to get its work base back on the job:
“If we don’t do things for them to find work here, then they have to go where they can to find work.”
Just as with previous worker’s exodus following oil and gas busts and post-Katrina, Ragas says it’s entirely possible it could take place again.
“It is a difficult situation to fall too far behind the pace of places like Texas and Florida, which are so well run.”
Ragas also takes issue with the Mayor’s call to cancel celebrations and festivals: “It is not good to be eliminating this far in advance all of these festivals that employ so many people.”
Right now a study suggests 1-in-4 residents are jobless, with unemployment rates for the state running well above the national average.
When the Mayor announces the re-opening plan for the city, Ragas says he’d like the Mayor to announce: “New Orleans wants you HERE, going to do whatever we can to encourage you to be HERE.”