Drainage strategies clinic Thursday sponsored by Capacity College

June 22 2011 Neighborhoods Partnership Network

Improve Drainage and the Appeal of your Street and your Neighborhood Clinic Part of the Capacity College Summer Leadership Colloquium

Learn how you and your neighbors can improve drainage in response to rainwater that collects on your street and in your neighborhood.

Space is still available, so register today!

This can help you maintain, protect, and even increase your property value.
Finally, learn from and ask questions of Sewerage and Water Board, state environment, and land-use representatives.

Thursday, June 23
9 a.m.- 11 a.m.
Mahalia Jackson Early Childhood & Family Learning Center
2405 Jackson Avenue, Board Room
New Orleans, LA 70113

Facilitators
Steve Picou, LSU AgCenter
Jeff Dauzat of the State Department of Environmental Quality
Scott Finnney, Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans
Jen Roberts, Bayou Land Resource Conservation & Development Council
Louis Jackson, CDM Engineering

Register now & pay online: http://www.npnnola.com/about/view/350/register-for-all-npn-events

NPN Members: $10
Non-Members: $15

Become a NPN Member now!
Questions? Call NPN at 504-940-2207
Email info@npnnola.com
http://www.npnnola.com

To register for NPN events and programs, go to ABOUT NPN on the website and click Register for NPN events.

Report: BlightStat 16 (Thurs. 6/9/2011)

From NPN member Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association -

June 16th, 2011
by Charlie London

This was the sixteenth BlightStat meeting where the public was invited to attend.

The City continues to march toward its goal of eradicating 10,000 blighted properties within three years. City departments that can help with this process meet every two weeks for a “BlightStat” meeting.

Goals have been set for each department and a presentation is made at each meeting to show how each department is doing toward meeting those goals.

BELOW ARE NOTES FROM THE JUNE 16th BLIGHTSTAT MEETING

Attendance continues to be sparce at the BlightStat meetings but interest from the public remains strong. Reports from various sources allow people to get the information without having to attend the meetings.

Mr. Oliver Wise continues to work as moderator for the meetings.
Mr. Jeff Hebert asked Ms. Lear to talk about Household Hazardous Waste day.

Ms. Cynthia Sylvain Lear – over 600 vehicles showed with up 5 tons of ewaste, 3,400 gallons of paint which was donated to the Green Project. City is committed to doing it again. Ms. Lear urged citizens to save their hazardous waste for the event.

Mr. Winston Reid – inspections remain above target in spite of Memorial Day holiday. Uptick in sweep levels. Targeting FEMA properties. Continuing demo pipeline and inspections for hearings. Continuing sweeps. Still working on backlog. Updated backlog by address with internal filtering to look for matches of properties already done.

Mr. Jeff Hebert – Kristin away. Slight increase in hearings but remains far below the target. JPHebert, AKopplin, and Brenda Breaux working together on a strategy to get cases moving. Dedicating two Saturdays to just go through files. Considering staff adjustments.

Mr. Andy Kopplin – there is a much bigger backlog than two Saturdays. Fill the capacity of hearings officers. Spend two Saturdays to fill the short term pipeline but that doesn’t remove the backlog. Suggested to go back to the bar association for help. Let’s get together to make a pitch to the bar association to Brenda Breaux…will do.

For the rest of the report as well as access to the City's BlightStat presentation, visit http://business.fsjna.org/2011/06/blightstat-16/

Register now for the Capacity College Summer Leadership Colloquium

NEW! Capacity College Summer Clinic

Improve Drainage and the Appeal of your Street and your Neighborhood

Learn how you and your neighbors can improve drainage in response to rainwater that collects on your street and in your neighborhood.

This can help you maintain, protect, and even increase your property value.
Finally, learn from and ask questions of Sewerage and Water Board, state environment, and land-use representatives.

Thursday, June 23
9 a.m.- 11 a.m.
Mahalia Jackson Early Childhood & Family Learning Center
2405 Jackson Avenue, Board Room
New Orleans, LA 70113

Facilitators
Steve Picou, LSU AgCenter
Jeff Dauzat of the State Department of Environmental Quality
Scott Finnney, Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans
Jen Roberts, Bayou Land Resource Conservation & Development Council
Louis Jackson, CDM Engineering

Limited Seating Available!

Register now & pay online

NPN Members: $10
Non-Members: $15

Become a NPN Member now!
Questions? Call NPN at 504-940-2207
Email info@npnnola.com
http://www.npnnola.com

To register for NPN events and programs, go to ABOUT NPN on the website and click Register for NPN events.

NOLA City Council Meets in Regular Session

NOLA City Council Meets in Regular Session Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 10 a.m. in the City Council Chamber, City Hall, 1300 Perdido St. Click the link below to access the agenda, and go participate in the process!

Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Engagement Updates

Thank you for a great success with our 3^rd Fight the Blight! City wide we had 250 volunteers give about 750 volunteer hours. At George Washington Carver Playground, (District A location), we had a great turn-out of 71 volunteers, including 13 city employees.

A huge thank you to Uptown Triangle Neighborhood Association, Rebuilding Together New Orleans, the LA West bank Warrior Football Minor League Team, NORD, Council Member Guidry, Chief Serpas and NOPD, Code Enforcement & Blight, and many others, especially residents of the neighborhood for your partnership with the City of New Orleans in this effort to fight the blight in our city together.

Successes included:

· Built 3 picnic tables

· Built 6 benches

· Painted two welcome signs

· Re-painted silver fence

· Spread clay on Baseball diamond

· Planted four new trees to provide shade

· Mulched new and old trees

· Picked up 5 bags of trash

· Removed a large old stump

· Fixed the bottom of the backstop of the baseball field

· Installed 4 new trash cans

· Removed old cut trees

· Re-painted the bleacher benches

· Uptown Triangle Neighborhood Association obtained and installed doggy bags boxes

Check out this out:

• New Crime Maps by NOPD! http://www.nola.gov/GOVERNMENT/NOPD/Crime-Maps/ Click “accept” and it will take you to the map. It is currently updated at 4:00 p.m. every day.
• Business Information Session with the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. Information, resources and opportunities helpful for business owners and entrepreneurs. June 16, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. at City Church of New Orleans, 13123 I-10 Service Rd. Free and open to the public.
• Please sign up for free recycling. Follow this link: www.recycle.nola.gov.

Please be in touch,

---

Katrina Badger

Neighborhood Liaison, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Engagement

Email: kebadger@nola.gov

Office: 504-658-4976

City Hall, Room 8W03

1300 Perdido St. New Orleans, LA 70112

Profile: John White, New Head of Recovery School District

News from Around the Neighborhoods

Profile: John White, New Head of Recovery School District

By Zoé Belden of Crosstown Conversations

On the June 9 episode, "Crosstown Conversations" featured newly installed superintendent of the Recovery School District John White. Replacing four year veteran Paul Vallas, at a mere 35 years old, White has already built a substantial résumé. Coming to New Orleans form New York where he served for five years as deputy chancellor of the city's school system, White spent five years before that as Chicago-area director of Teach for America, but began his career as a teacher in the post-industrial town of Jersey City, where he was placed in a high school of 3,000 students.

His passion for education began when he himself was a student; it was while writing a college English paper at the University of Virginia, where White spent his undergraduate years, (he is originally from Washington, D.C.), that his vocation became clear. While doing research for the paper, he came across a quote of William Faulkner's which, White says, has always stuck with him.

"There are three kinds of people in the world: there are people who don't know their problems at all, there are people who know their problem and choose not to do anything about it, and there are people who know their problem and say 'I'm going to do something about it...I'm going to change it.'" White's problem has become the focus of his career: the under-producing and often under-whelming education system in our nation's urban centers.

White says New Orleans education difficulties are a mere symptom of a greater decades-long illness nationwide, wherein education reforms are consistently lead by bureaucrats in the states' and nation's capitols.

A government employee himself, White insists he is a bureaucrat only in title. The general perceptions and stigmas attached to those in legislative positions White says don't apply to him. When asked by Crosstown Conversations host Jeanne Nathan whether he is aware of the waves of education reform over the past century, White says he acknowledges these historical precedents but says that his time spent in education taught him that true "reform must involve parents and educators and members of the community."

"Having schools that are run by communities run by educators and run by parents, that's where you get the reforms, that's where you get the innovation, that's where you get the people who know the kids best and what they need."

Repeatedly stressing the importance of community involvement in a child's education rather than strict guidance at the state or federal level (though he does make the point that state funding has been severely cut-$350 per child), how does White respond to the very vocal objections many in the community put forth? When queried by Nathan on how to deal with local resistance to his policies, White answers, indirectly, that he doesn't like to make the difference between charter and district, but rather "great schools and not great schools, and how do we do everything we can to make sure the not great schools become great schools?"

Consistently referring to pupils in the New Orleans schools as "our" children, White's over-arching message is that the success of a child's growth depends largely on the adults in their immediate environment, and not on those in office many miles away. It is White's conviction that children must be surrounded by grown-ups who nurture them scholastically and care for their overall well-being. This should be the primary concern when discussing education reforms, but "too often," says White, "adults let adult issues get in the way of being the safety net around that child."