The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

Happy Spring!  In New Orleans the azaleas are blooming and the night air has begun to fill with the aromas of jasmine and sweet olive.  At the Citizen Participation Project, these are welcome reminders of why we continue to fight so hard for community voice.  In fact, we have created a new vision statement for our organization:  "Our vision is a New Orleans where everyone has a voice and every voice is heard."

The place where community voice is needed most right now is our ongoing Master Plan review and amendment process, and that has consumed a vast amount of our time over the recent months.  The New Orleans Master Plan was adopted just six years ago, after a process in which nearly 8000 New Orleanians participated; it is imperative that the Plan continue to be a document of the people, by the people and for the people.

Our first major task -- and thankfully, major victory -- was dealing with our mayor's attempt again to gut the Master Plan chapter on Community Participation.  Just as he did during the previous amendment process five years ago, he proposed an amendment to remove the entire community participation structure from the Plan and put it all under the control of city government.  Five years ago we defeated him at the final vote.  This time, we immediately talked to a majority of our City Council members, who quickly assured us that the amendment was not going to pass.  Then we had allies within City Hall who basically pointed out to the mayor that had has already spent most of seven years ignoring the multiple mandates for a Community Participation Plan in New Orleans; that he has only one year left in office; and that he ought to just let it go so the next administration can actually follow the will of the people (they might not have used that exact phraseology, but that was the gist of the message).  So, to our considerable surprise and delight, in late January he withdrew the amendment.  Given that the entire amendment process now looks like it will go well into fall, this would have been a major distraction requiring a lot of time and attention; to have it handled so quickly is a huge relief.

This also enabled us to turn our full attention to the Community Guide to the Master Plan Amendments.  With over 300 total amendments proposed, it is simply impossible for the average resident to even begin to understand the totality of the potential changes, and their likely impacts on everyday life.  Some amendments would basically rewrite entire chapters of the Master Plan; others would make very substantial changes to land use categories and maps.  So, we assembled a team of community organizations and individuals and have spent the past three months creating brief, plain language synopses of virtually all the amendments, along with equally brief and clear analyses of their impacts.  The first draft of this document will (at last!) be completed this very afternoon, and ideally will be ready for distribution within two weeks.  The timing works out well; the entire amendment process is already being dragged out considerably, and could easily carry into October.  In that our elections for our new mayor and City Council will be in mid-October, this creates a complex dynamic; and if the Master Plan process drags on past the elections, we have concerns about what this will do in terms of accountability.  Stay tuned as all this unfolds!

Even while working on the Herculean task of assembling the Community Guide to the Master Plan Amendments, we have found time to keep our work on connecting people to the city budget process moving along.  We have upgraded the information website, www.bigeasybudget.org, with the most recent city budget information.  This site enables any interested party to review the City of New Orleans' annual budget to actual spending going back to 2008.  Even more exciting, we have officially launched the 2017 Big Easy Budget Game (www.bigeasybudgetgame.com), the interactive website that gives any resident the opportunity to create his/her own version of the City's operating budget.  Last year we had over 700 people participate; our goal this year is to surpass 1000 players, and we had nearly 100 in just the first ten days.  We continue to get a lot of local, national and worldwide media attention for this great innovation in participatory democracy, and are working right now to get funds to upgrade the technology to make it even more easy to replicate in cities around the world.  We also have applied for a grant that would enable us to bring the Budget Game to nine Central and South American countries, so keep your fingers crossed for us.

Between the changes to the Master Plan, the municipal elections this fall and the opportunities with the Budget Game, this has the feel of a watershed year for New Orleans and for the Citizen Participation Project.  We are very, very grateful for the support of our GlobalGiving friends over the years, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you as this year unfolds.