The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

We've had just the first few hints of fall here in New Orleans.  The end of the summer heat is refreshing for everyone, and that is certainly true for the NOLA Community Participation Project.

We recently released the mid-season report on the 2019 Big Easy Budget Game; that report is attached and can be accessed below.  Among the key findings:

   - Residents continue to want to spend more on our city's aging infrastructure.  We had several rainfall flooding events over the summer, which no doubt raise this category among people's priorities.

   - Support also remains strong for more funding for mental health care, something that is difficult to locate and access in New Orleans.

   - Participants again reduced funding for police, firefighters and the city's prison.  While crime remains a major issue in the city, we consistently find that people want a proactive rather than a reactive approach to solving the problem.

   - One of the more interesting findings was that people want to spend more on improving government efficiency, transparency and accountability.  Allocations were increased for civil service, the inspector general and the police monitor.  Given that for the most part, these only impact people's daily lives on an indirect basis, it shows that our community really is looking at the big picture.

We continue to build on the increased number of Budget Game players that we have had to date, and the final report will be released near the end of the year.

On our other big project, the neighborhood boundary mapping, we have a meeting with Mayor Cantrell scheduled to plot the course forward.  It has taken a good deal longer than we had hoped to get to this point, but this meeting should at last break the logjam and allow the work to get going.  There are myriad reasons why this is so essential to our city, over and above being a necessary first step to implementation of the full Community Participation Program; perhaps the most timely is that we need to have accurate neighborhood boundaries defined prior to the redistricting that will take place after the 2020 census.  To the highest possible degree, we need to avoid splitting neighborhoods among multiple City Council or School Board districts.  We look forward to reporting real progress on this in the very near future.

This week we launched the annual Bryan Bell Metropolitan Leadership Forum.  For more than fifty years, this has been the premiere leadership training program in the city, and we work very hard to include individuals who might not otherwise have a path to developing their leadership skills.  A key part of empowering neighborhoods and residents is developing leadership from within them, and the BBMLF is a powerful tool for accomplishing this.  The Forum takes an in-depth look at key issues facing New Orleans, such as health care, education, housing, and public safety.  It also includes a workshop on leadership itself (which we also offer as a stand-alone to businesses and organizations in the area), along with class service projects.  Assisting emerging leaders in building their knowledge, skills and networks is something we are very proud of doing each year.

We continue to get so much positive feedback from all sectors about key projects such as the Budget Game and the neighborhood boundary mapping, which tells us that -- while our work may not be as sexy or obvious as that of many other organizations -- we are doing vital work for our beloved city.  As always, we are so grateful for the support of our donors, and we hope that you had a great summer and are looking forward to the bounty of fall.

Best regards,

The NOLA CPP Team

• 2019 Big Easy Budget Game Mid-Year Report (PDF)