The New Orleans Citizen Participation Project

Long-time followers of the NOLA CPP project will remember that our team submitted the NOLA CPP model to New Orleans city government in September 2010, and that the subsequent response led us to believe that a final CPP would be adopted by June 2011.  You will also remember that in March 2011, Mayor Mitch Landrieu put a complete halt to the process, and with the exception of the adoption of the "Early Notification" component by the New Orleans City Planning Commission, it has languished since.

When it became apparent five years ago that Mayor Landrieu was going to be re-elected to a second -- and, per our city charter, final -- term, we began preparing for the 2017 elections that would produce his successor.  Qualifying for the elections ends today, July 14, and we are extremely pleased to say that everything we have been working on over the last five years to position the CPP as a focal point for this election is falling into place perfectly.  The top three pieces of this thus far are:

- The most significant coalition player in the New Orleans elections is Forward New Orleans.  During each election cycle, Forward New Orleans puts out a platform; asks all the major candidates for mayor and City Council to review the platform and sign off on those pieces that they will commit to implement (and few candidates do anything but sign off on the full platform); publicizes the candidate responses; and conducts bi-annual progress audits, with published reports and high-level media coverage.  FNO has significantly scaled back the scope of its platform this cycle, which gives the items in the platform even more visibility and clout, and the CPP is in this platform.  This puts the combined weight of multiple business, neighborhood and community organizations behind the CPP.

- CBNO has conducted one on one conversations with each of the major mayoral candidates to give them a full briefing on the CPP (along with other issues of core importance to us), making sure that each understands the comprehensive benefits of the Program as well as the multiple existing mandates for it.  We have stopped short of asking for an outright commitment, knowing that the ask would be made via Forward New Orleans, but each candidate has responded very positively.

- We have an exclusive agreement with the #1 local television station to air live candidate debates for mayor one before the election and City Council-at-Large two weeks before the election.  This will enable us to have the candidates make one final, live commitment to the CPP in front of what will be the largest single audience of the entire election cycle.

After Mayor Landrieu squashed the CPP in 2011, there were many who suggested we simply drop this project.  We could not do that.  We are now poised to get an unequivocal commitment from the next mayor to implement the CPP, with mechanisms in place to ensure that the commitment is followed through on with action.  This is not yet victory, but it is a vindication of our tenacity, a validation of our strategy, and a major step forward to getting a true civic engagement infrastructure in place for the people of New Orleans.

While all this has been going on ... we have continued to engage the community about the ongoing Master Plan review and amendment process, turning out more than 100 residents for a City Council hearing earlier this week.  We are approaching 400 players for the 2017 version of the Big Easy Budget Game, and feel confident that we will have at least 1000 players this year.  This will give the resulting People's Budget that much more value as a guide for our City Council to use as they finalize the 2018 city budget.  We are pleased with progress on both these engagement fronts, even as they are overshadowed by the election work.

As we continue through the election and the transition period to the new administration, CBNO will be building a new coalition of neighborhood, community, faith and business organizations to ensure that not only is the CPP adopted, but that the final version is as strong, inclusive and accountable as possible.  This is going to be time-consuming and labor-intensive, yet it is utterly necessary to really cross the finish line successfully.  In these reports, we always express our appreciation to our supporters for getting us this far.  This time, we need to add a request to help us finish the job.  The resources need for this last phase are, frankly, a little daunting; your help in enabling us to assemble these resource will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks so much from the NOLA CPP team!