You’ve all seen the video of the lawlessness and chaos at Canal and Bourbon this past weekend. A lot of people on the radio asked this morning - why doesn’t NOPD just put more police at that intersection?
More officers is one answer, but I don't think that is the only answer. It takes the assets and resources of a number of different agencies brought to bear on this issue. It's all about prioritization. What I talk about all the time is the fact that we fail when it comes to electing credible leaders. We only want to engage ourselves. We only want to engage ourselves into programs that we think that the public wants, as opposed to the evidence-based programs that we should be instituting in our community. And we don't do it because it isn’t always politically popular.
I'm not about soundbite politicians. I guess I've always been a little bit of a non-conformist my entire life in that way. In fact, people look at me like I'm a two headed Gila monster because I speak on behalf of adequately funding the Indigent Defender Board, because I recognize the importance of saying that we're not going to have a fair, just, and expedient efficient criminal justice system if we don't provide legal representation for indigent defendants. I'm all about fully funding the District Attorney's office, too - they aren’t mutually exclusive. Adequately funding one doeson’t have to mean that we inadequately fund the other
How do we get that conversation across to people? How do we get that narrative out of people's head?
We do it ourselves, you, me, the business people. That's why what's going on right now on Canal and Bourbon street is so important - the business community needs to speak up. They have got to speak with one voice that they're not willing to accept this anymore. We have got to set the bar high, and collectively and collaboratively together require our leaders to meet the needs and the priorities as identified by us, the voters, the people that live here, the people at work in the city.
One of the reasons I focus on the city is that our national identity as a state is completely and totally on the shoulders of the City of New Orleans. Nobody knows what the hell Metairie, Louisiana is. Nobody outside of this area cares what they know about Metairie. What they read about is the City of New Orleans. That's a big burden. It's a big challenge.
We need to elect leaders who are up to the challenge, and understand that the future of this entire region depends on them. I get a number of texts during the show with some variation on ‘You're just trying to hold the city accountable.’ Well, the city is the one who's always bragging about their national identity, and I just say to them - act like it! Do it! Make the tough decisions, set the priorities so that we can be in a position to receive those tourism dollars and keep our economy going.
In the city of New Orleans, we reward the culture of non-compliance. Just for one example, we let people set up trailers on the street and sell barbecue with no permit. They're not paying sales taxes. They're not providing workman’s comp. They're not doing anything to help the city. We have this alternate economy in the city and we embrace it and say, that's our culture.
Well, if that's our culture and non-compliance is what we want to perpetuate, then we're going to get exactly what we saw on Canal and Bourbon. We'll get that every day. It's not a question of if - it's a question of how much.
