The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

Good news and bad news for citizen participation in New Orleans.

The good news is that we are preparing our report on the People's Budget for delivery to our City Council next week.  600 people used our Big Easy Budget Game to create their own version of the city's budget, meaning we have a strong sample size to bring to the Council as they begin their budget deliberations.  The Budget Game was a major success in terms of informing people about the budget and getting their input for the People's Budget.  We also received wonderful local and national coverage for it; the most recent example was the online website Progrss, which in an article on the use of games in civic engagement covered the Budget Game along with examples from Oslo, Mexico City and Jakarta (see link below).  We will issue a final report in December, contrasting the adopted New Orleans budget with the People's Budget, and are already laying plans to build on this success in 2017.

The bad news is that, while New Orleans is in its mandatory review and amendment process for the Master Plan, our mayor is trying again to gut the Community Participation chapter and place all control over civic engagement within city government -- a complete violation of all best practices.  Even worse, after six and a half years of largely ignoring the Master Plan, Mayor Landrieu is trying to rewrite it almost completely as he enters his final year in office (term limits do have their virtues); and he is doing so in a completely top-down matter.  CBNO has done everything we can to work with the administration, despite its complete refusal to open up any communication about community participation and despite its previous attempt to eliminate community participation from the Master Plan, which we defeated five years ago.  This has led CBNO to the reluctant conclusion that collaboration is simply no longer possible.  Instead, we are leading a very public, full-throttle effort to defeat the amendments to the Community Participation chapter of the Master Plan and to get the entire community to weigh in the rewriting of the rest of the plan.  The opening salvo in this effort was an op-ed piece in our daily newspaper, the Advocate, published earlier this week (see link below).  Fortunately, we have already spoken with several City Council members about this (they will be the ones who ultimately cast the final votes on all the amendments), and have received assurances that they will move the entire process forward at a pace that allows for meaningful community involvement.  We've also received assurances that the Council is very unlikely to support the gutting of the Community Participation chapter.  However, this process will take at least six months and probably most of a year to play out, and we will be fully diligent in protecting the voice of the people of New Orleans until the final vote is taken.

It is beyond disappointing to have to play defense on such a basic right as community participation, but we will do so for as long as necessary.  And the possible silver lining is that by overreaching so badly, the administration may provide us with the opportunity for a "slingshot effect", where we actually build more support for real community input opportunities in New Orleans.  We most certainly will use all of this to make meaningful civic engagement a major issue in our 2017 municipal elections.

All this does not make for a happy time here at the Citizen Participation Project, but we know we are doing the right thing.  The financial and moral support from our many backers truly makes a difference, and we cannot thank you enough for standing with us.

Links:

• Progrss piece on games for civic engagement
• CBNO op-ed on New Orleans Master Plan amendments