The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

Dear Citizen Participation Supporters,

Summer got off to an early start in New Orleans, but even though it seems like the sidewalks could start melting at any minute, we are not letting the heat slow down our work to amplify community voice in our city!

We are off to a great start on the Big Easy Budget Game.  Right now we are on pace to double last year's number of participants, assisted by numerous community partners with whom we are co-hosting Budget Game events.  In a city like New Orleans, where there is a substantial digital divide, it is imperative to bring any type of technology out to the community.  Making sure that we include senior residents, students, non-English speakers and others who seldom have access to technologies -- or any form of input opportunities -- is essential to ensuring that the demographics of the Budget Game players do reflect the demographics of the city.  We are also again partnering with most of the City Council members to expand our reach; this has the added advantage of providing the Councilmembers with an opportunity to hear directly from their constituents not only what their spending priorities are but why they feel this way.

We are also excited that we have a lot of interest from other locations to bring the Budget Game to them.  We are presently in conversations with folks in Gambia, Canada and Tunisia.  The Budget Game was specifically designed to be replicable virtually anywhere in the world, and we are thrilled to bring this powerful community participation tool to other peoples and places.

While it seems like this has been dragging on forever, we are at last in direct communication with Mayor Cantrell about launching the neighborhood boundary mapping.  Among many other important rationales, redoing our city's antiquated neighborhood boundary maps has significant implications related to the 2020 census.  We have been increasingly emphasizing that connection as a way to create urgency for moving forward with the mapping project, and it seems to be getting through.  Just yesterday the mayor reached out to us with what we hope is one final question.  Keep your fingers crossed, but by our next report, we should be reporting on real project progress.

The community meeting faciliation projects we are working on are also going well.  In particular, we have been assisting with a project relating to one of New Orleans' classic old movie theaters, from the golden age of cinema back in the 1930s.  The building is not in good shape, and the theater itself is completely not viable for returning to its historical use.  We have been working with the building owners, their architects and the city on their proposal to preserve the theater while building significant new construction around it; specifically, we are managing the community input required as part of the city decision-making process (a requirement that exists because of our previous Citizen Participation Project work).  While we do not take a specific stand in these situations, we do work to make sure that everyone involved is clear on the details and issues, and to maximize community understanding and input.  Needless to say, this produces better outcomes for all stakeholders most of the time.  Further, every time we demonstrate the value and success of a large-scale community engagement process, we help advance the cause of expanding and institutionalizing participation processes.  This particular project is a very prime example -- plus we generate a little CBNO revenue along the way!

We really look forward to these opportunities to catch you up on our work, and again, eagerly anticipate real progress to report on the neighborhood boundary mapping by the next installment.  In the meantime, please be assured that our appreciation for your support is deeply felt -- not only does it enable us to do this vitally important work, it is great for our enthusiasm and morale when the obstacles inevitably pile up.  Thank you so much, and have a wonderful summer!

The NOLA CPP Team