Over the weekend New Orleans City Council member Helena Moreno sent a letter explaining the need for New Orleans to mobilize its leadership to fight the crime problem.
She proposed a number of suggestions about how the City Council and the Cantrell administration could come together to craft ways to address the spiraling crime rate.
“When I sent the letter I had already talked to members of her administration days before,” Moreno said speaking with WWL’s Newell Normand. “About the fact that we needed to respond to the crisis of crime in the city, like it’s an emergency.”
Moreno said the response to soaring crime should be handled in the same manner as an emergency activation during a hurricane.
“Just like we do during hurricanes when we’re all at the Emergency Operations Center, every single person shows up there in the morning; We begin our day and every agency and council members, have their tasks as to how we are going to address this crisis we are facing.”
Moreno says she envisioned everyone having a seat at the table, agency heads, the council, criminal justice stakeholders.
Taking a look at Mayor Cantrell’s implementation of her task force, Moreno finds flaws in the setup.
“I think that this was an attempt at that,” she says. "But I do believe a critical piece was excluded and that’s the New Orleans City Council.”
Moreno says she believes the City Council should play an integral part in how crime crisis management should work. “At the end of the day, legislative initiatives are going to be brought to the City Council,” Moreno explains. “Why not be there, already at the table on the front end...to move these courses forward, along with the budgeting.”
“That’s discouraging, but at the end of the day, the Council is now prepared to now of course, hold this taskforce accountable.”
Moreno says the City Council is moving to call an emergency council meeting next week regarding crime, and plan to call the taskforce before the council and require them to give an update on what is going on moving forward.