Tag Archive

“Bad choices based on bad options”

By Brian Denzer

Mayor Mitch Landrieu proposed that all city workers take 11 unpaid furlough days this year in order to help balance a projected $67 million deficit in the 2010 budget.
“This is not a proud moment for the city of New Orleans,” Landrieu said. “I am particularly angry as a citizen and now as the chief executive… »

Tensions rise between street musicians and the NOPD in the French Quarter

By Brian Denzer

Post revised on 6/18/2010 to include the full statement by Chief Serpas, a statement issued by Mayor Landrieu and Councilmember Kristen Gisleson-Palmer, and a Gambit blog story about a protest in Jackson Square led by musician Glen David Andrews.
Don’t Stop the Music. Let New Orleans Street Musicians Play is a newly-formed advocacy effort to support… »

Garbage in, garbage out

By Brian Denzer

New Orleans remains the most blighted city in America. The factors that produced an estimated 57,000 blighted properties are historic outmigration, exacerbated by flooding after Hurricane Katrina.
Despite the overwhelming need to revitalize neighborhoods by bringing property back into commerce, there are tremendous investment opportunities in the city, with attractive, historic architectural gems distributed throughout the… »

Landrieu reforms budget process

By Brian Denzer

Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued an executive order yesterday in City Council chambers to create a more “transparent and accountable process” for producing the annual budget.
Responding to criticisms of the previous administration’s budgeting process, Landrieu promised to obtain community input in determining budget priorities, and to provide more informative descriptions of revenue sources and the purpose… »

Mayor Landrieu to adopt NolaStat open data recommendation

By Brian Denzer

It’s become clear since his May 3rd inauguration that Mayor Landrieu will be adopting a performance management policy, like Baltimore’s CitiStat model, to improve the delivery of city services to the public.
Times-Picayune reporter Michelle Krupa has been following government reforms being implemented by Mayor Landrieu to shift away from the closed government policies of… »

Time to transition from advocacy to action

By Brian Denzer

The Times-Picayune story about Mitch’s policy shift toward a statistical approach to governance read like the NolaStat policy research paper.
Implementing a data-tracking program will require major improvements in computer technology across city government, Kopplin said. “Everything is paper, and what we put in computers, the systems don’t talk to the systems in other agencies,”… »

City Business: ‘Nasty decisions’ expected from city’s interim tech chief

By Brian Denzer

New Orleans City Business reporter Jennifer Larino wrote an excellent article a couple of weeks ago on the reforms Mayor Landrieu will need to tackle to in order to modernize the city’s IT infrastructure.
The administration has already begun to shift toward adopting NolaStat recommendations:
One of the more significant changes the interim CIO is expected… »

Victory

By Brian Denzer

More than three years ago, Citizen Crime Watch was created to advocate for improved public access to 911 calls for service crime data. With heightened public concerns about rising crime after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Police Department was doing a poor job of keeping the public informed about shifting patterns of crime. The calls… »

More agile human resources management needed to reform civil service

By Brian Denzer

The civil service system used in New Orleans city government is decades behind the times, and is in desperate need of an overhaul, according to a report prepared by the George Bush School of Government & Public Service for the Business Council of New Orleans.
That conclusion should come as no surprise to anyone in New… »

Mitch looking at reform models in other cities

By Brian Denzer

Mayor Landrieu is looking at performance management models in other cities, he said today on WWL. Among the models he likes are the Baltimore CitiStat performance management process, and the D.C. CapStat process — both inspirations for the NolaStat reform recommendations.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino recently demonstrated to Mitch how the Boston 311 system works…. »




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