The Mayor Is Wearing No Costume

posted by m.d.


At the end of an article entitled "National Guard patrols slated for Endymion parade":

Chatting with reporters in a hallway, Nagin said he hasn't decided what his Fat Tuesday costume will be.

"Last year, people were asking 'Where is the mayor?' so I came as myself, " he said.

Is there a "C. Ray? Here I am!" t-shirt in the works?

The Mayor on the Pace of Recovery

Comments made yesterday by Mayor Nagin on ABC26 News, 3 minutes 11 seconds into the video:

Well, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, I think it is a six or a seven. It’s been hard. It’s been difficult. The dollars we thought we were going to get were slow to come. A lot of businesses and projects we thought we would move were hindered by insurance costs that are here.

I think that we are seeing the corner. We just haven’t turned it yet. Because the population continues to grow, we continue to improve on certain city functions everyday, and it’s just part of this long road that we’re on.

Link to video in Windows Media Player.

Link to ABC26 News website.

Nagin Annouces Future Location of Storm Shelters

Just outside Dallas, TX:

Records show the mayor bought a 1,700-square-foot townhouse in Frisco, about 25 miles north of Dallas. Sales prices are not public records in Texas, but the developer's Web site shows that models like the one purchased by Nagin start at just less than $200,000. The Nagins took out a mortgage for $157,490, records show.

Nagin declined Friday to comment on the purchase, calling it a "personal investment."

Last year, Nagin acknowledged that he was investigating a piece of real estate in the Dallas area, where his wife has relatives.

"If I buy it, it will be like a second hurricane home," he said then, calling the property "a little two-bedroom townhome that's very modest."

(actual announcement here)

Mayor Nagin Has Taken the Positive Pledge, Too

As I make an effort to be positive, I want to surround myself with people also trying to stay positive. I attended the Crime Prevention Roundtable (pdf) at Gallier Hall today, and I am glad to see that Mayor Nagin also wants to stay positive:

The media keeps beating on everything that happens that’s wrong. If we have a sensational event as it relates to criminal activity, that’s all you here about over and over and over again. And it’s rare that we have any balance to this. So this is our opportunity for us to provide some balance.

Most intelligent people out in our community are looking for that balance. Some folk is just negative and that’s just the way they going to be. And there’s nothing we can do about that. But for the majority of our citizens, it’s incumbent upon us to give you the truth and to give you the facts so you can really understand what’s going on.

And to my friends who keep trying to portray the city in its worst light: Stop. Even when they talk about murders and violent crimes, they link it up to other parishes around this area to make it seem like New Orleans is totally out of control.

Why are you doing that? I don’t know. But it would be nice if you would stop.

That’s my transcript and my emphasis.

Nagin also provided an accountability moment that BSJD or any other blogger might want to fact check when he commented:

So many of the initiatives that we talked about many months ago, six, twelve months ago, we have put in place. If you go back and check the record, just about everything we told the public we would do, we’re either doing or have done. And it’s starting to make some impact in our city.

He was, of course, referring to crime initiatives, of which here are the highlights:

Increased pay for police.
A record breaking 71 recruits in the latest class.
New police cars.
“Crime cameras up in most areas of the city.”
In-car cameras.
“…latest and greatest in technology to the NOPD.”
$7 million from state to NOPD.
Crime walks.
Increased checkpoints.
Federal partnerships.
Focus on kids, like the Cops for Kids Program.

I am not sure where the crime cameras stand. I am also not sure if they are “up in most areas of the city.” That’s one for Dambala.


Mayor Nagin also took the positive route on population figures, which is nothing new:

We as a community have to unite. We are 300,000 strong in this recovery and the numbers are growing everyday.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center estimated the New Orleans population at 300,000 using mail delivery numbers. But Greg Rigamer set the population at 274,000. Nagin has said in the past that Rigamer’s number does not include migrant workers.

Nagin also shed some light on maybe why he’s only “somewhat” worried about the New Orleans brand when it comes to the murder rate:

I know one murder is way too many. We are going to continue to try to bring this city to a zero point. But, just to give you an indication of the trends, this past July – which July historically has been our most violent month as relates to crime – this past July, we recorded 14 murders. Four of those murders were carryovers from somebody being shot in a previous month. Compare that to one year earlier, and there were 23 murders.

So, as you can see, we are starting to see some trends. And we’re not happy with it. But we’re starting to see some trends that suggest things that we put in place are starting to have some impact.

July had the second lowest number of murders of any month this year. February saw 13 murders by my count, but had three less days than July. So, yes, that is positive.

One month earlier in June, however, there were 19 murders by my count, the most of any month. And we are averaging a murder every other day for 2007 even with the lower total in July.

The fact that the population is going up but more people are not being murdered is a good thing. That could mean that our violent crime prevention initiatives are working. Or it could mean that the new population isn’t moving to areas where they might be killed.

I heard a lot of good things at the Crime Prevention Roundtable. If I have time, I will post more transcripts and good things.

And heed the Mayor’s words. Stop the negativity!

The Positive New Orleans Brand

Mayor Nagin defined the brand he thinks we can use to market New Orleans’ murder rate to the world:

Responding to a TV reporter's question about whether New Orleans' murder rate hurts the city's tourism economy, Mayor Ray Nagin on Thursday called the phenomenon a "two-edged sword."

"Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. Sure it hurts, but we have to keep working everyday to make the city better," Nagin said, according to a transcript of provided by FOX8.

So the headlines from this marketing campaign would look like this:

New Orleans’ Murder Rate Highest Per Capita; Mayor Says “Help Us.”

Here’s the headline I would like to see:

New Orleans’ Murder Rate Lowest Per Capita; Mayor Says “We Did It.”

What marketing campaign gets us those headlines? Let’s hire the ad agency that can make that the New Orleans brand.

Let’s make that our goal: Lowest Per Capita Murder Rate. Not “Lower.” With that as our goal, every time our leaders must make a decision related to murders and the criminal justice system, they can ask themselves, “If we do this, will it help us achieve the Lowest Per Capita Murder Rate?”

If Mayor Nagin had asked himself that question before he answered the reporter, he may not have responded that he was “somewhat” worried about the murder rate.

What is New Orleans’ current murder rate? According to the Times-Picayune, there have been 117 murders this year as of Wednesday, August 8, 2007. August 8 is 220 days into the year. If the murder rate remains the same, we would end the year with 194 murders. With a population of 274,000 people as of July, that gives us a murder rate of 70 murders per 100,000 residents.

According to 2006 FBI statistics, Plano, TX, had the lowest murder rate per capita of cities with between 250,000 and 300,000 residents. Its murder rate was two. There were four murders in Plano in 2006. That’s our goal: a murder rate of two. That would be only five murders in the City of New Orleans for an entire year (at the July population numbers).

I hear the doubters already. Yeah, I know. I hear you.

“Plano is this; Plano is that.”

“New Orleans is this; New Orleans is that.”

“A hurricane hit us!”

No excuses. It is just harder for us, but not impossible.

This is all part of my new positive outlook. I am not sure how long it can last. But I’m keeping positive about it.