There was a lot of controversy over the weekend, as several local businesses leaders signed on to a letter published as a full-page newspaper ad calling on Mayor Cantrell to start re-opening some businesses as early as May 1st, and to think more regionally in her decision-making.
They're right. I wrote a blog last week that canceling events in the fall and forecasting out five or six months in the future is not a healthy exercise by any stretch of the imagination, because some of the information we have relied on in the last few weeks, we are already no longer relying on. The pandemic is very dynamic and fluid, and we have new, leading-edge information being made available to us every day. So why would we want to go out and make representations about what we think is going to happen in the fall?
I was right when I suggested that these activities were going to cancel anyway, that the event leaders and managers were already in deliberations to do so and had probably already articulated to the Mayor what they were thinking. They were not going to be able to meet the production challenges of putting these major events on. So why would we want to go out and start making statements that don’t take the whole region into consideration?New Orleans is very much dependent on the region. When you start looking at the spend that’s made in the city by those in the suburbs and near vicinity, it’s a big number. We will all succeed together, or fail together. Regional cooperation is going to be the key ingredient necessary to squelch the need for regional competition.
Here’s what I mean by that: small business is hurting, and it’s hurting bad. The situation is begging for a coordinated regional plan. It’s absolutely necessary for these businesses to re-enter the stream of commerce. But too much of what we have seen in our government response to the crisis is not coordinated - it’s fragmented at every level. It will end up pitting us against one another at a time when we need to come together.
Timing is everything. Large differences in the timing of when businesses are allowed to re-open could be the death knell for some businesses. If you have two similar businesses, one in Jefferson and one in Orleans, and the one in Jefferson is allowed to open and the one in Orleans is not, who’s got the competitive advantage? This will begin to add unnecessary pressure to our community on all fronts, and we have enough challenges to face already.Consider remediation requirements for small businesses. It absolutely has to be consistent. Any overburdensome inconsistencies place our businesses in an untenable competitive position. Why would we not want to talk about that on the front end? Why would we not want to have regional competition on those issues? Why would we want to create this friction in commerce, while we are depending on one another to succeed?
Who thinks it actually looked good when the Governor was asked if he had a conversation with the Mayor about the Saints possibly playing to an empty stadium, and he answered that they hadn’t spoken about that? The Saints play in a state facility, the managers of that facility have a contract with the state. A lot of the facilities including the Convention Center, the Superdome, the Arena, the state universities and their arenas are all managed by the state. Why would we not want to have these conversations? This doesn't make any sense to me.The Mayor points out political accountability, and she may be right about that. She should be held accountable, but who would do that in a negative way if she acted as a willing, forward-leaning participant in a regional response? Nobody is asking her to sell her soul and do something that doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you want everyone in the region on the same page? Every expert says that regional response is going to be key to surviving not just the public health crisis, but the economic crisis as well.
New Orleans doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s time for the Mayor to stop acting as if it does.
