All right, Madam Clerk, we are ready to start.

You want to go with roll call.

I have to read the letter first.

All right, ma'am.

On November the 14th, 2025, Laura Johnson, Clerk of Council, New Orleans City Council, 1300 Pedito Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70112.

Dear Madam Quote, pursuant to my authority in section 3-1075 of the Home Rule Charter of the City of New Orleans.

There will be a special city council meeting on Wednesday, December the 10th, 2025 at 9 a.m.

The meeting will be limited to the discussion and consideration of matters relative to the current financial condition of the city, included without limitation, the status of the general fund and any changes to expect revenue or funding.

And ordinance number 30,000 five twenty-two and any other matters that may properly come before the council.

Please make the necessary arrangements to have the special meetings cable cast live on government access television channel and tape for recasting in the future.

Sincerely, JP Morrell, President New Wallace City Council.

Roll call, Councilmember Morrill, Councilmember Moreno present.

Councilmember Jerusalem.

Councilmember Harris.

Councilmember King.

Councilmember Green.

We have six members.

We have a quorum.

All right, thank you, Madam Clerk.

I have a note here that I need to suspend the rules to start the 1218 meeting at 9 a.m.

to accommodate military day.

I'll move to suspend.

Seconded by Councilmember Green.

Okay, I think it's there we go.

Six years, no nays.

All right.

Adam, do I then take up a different date or is that pretty much it?

For all set there.

Okay, thank you, Adam.

All right.

Now with that, we can commence our agenda.

Up first is uh I think Abby, I think you're oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm filling in real quick.

Uh so first let me let me kind of go through the the rules for public comment.

Um the council usually allows 30 minutes of public comment per item under rule 47.

These weekly special meetings are extremely time sensitive and are focused on the narrow issue of approving payroll funding.

If the business of the council is not completed by 10 a.m.

City employees will not be paid timely.

Given this, we will limit public comment to each item to 10 minutes total and will retain the limit of two minutes per speaker in rule 47.

A reminder that per rule 45, all public comments must be germane to the agenda item being addressed, and this rule will be enforced.

All right, now with that, um Abby Brandy, uh, if you all want to come up um along with the legislative auditor team for the expenditure report.

Councilmember, we first have to suspend the rules to receive the legislative auditors report.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

Uh Councilmember King has moved to suspend the rules, seconded by Councilmember Jerusalem.

All in favor, aye.

And now we need to further suspend the rules to add it to our agenda.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'll move to suspend.

Can I get a second?

Seconded by Councilmember King.

All in favor.

Aye.

Six years, no nays good morning.

Good morning.

Uh Michael Svack, Louisiana Legislative Auditor.

Um, in accordance with the State Bond Commission terms and conditions for the approval of the 125 million dollar revenue anticipation note.

Uh we have we have reviewed this week's payroll request and drawdown.

And so as of 1210, 2025, our preliminary review in the case of city's request totaling 13, 786, 533 dollars.

Uh which is made up of six point five million to the Chase payroll card account and seven point two million to reimburse the city's general fund account as outlined below.

And below we note that six point five three nine ninety-seven dollars is payable to the chap Chase payroll funding account for the purpose of funding compensation and related employee and employer taxes for the pay period ending 126 2025.

The second bullet is we have 2.259066 payable to the general fund account to reimburse the general fund for the fringe benefits, including but not limited to health insurance, pension contributions, garnishments, et cetera, for the prior pay period ending 1129 2025.

That's noted in exhibit B.

The last bullet is 4.988369 payable to the city's general fund account for the Chase uh Chase account to reimburse the general fund for monthly payments to New Orleans Firefighters Pension and Relief Fund and Municipal Police Employees Retirement Some.

Uh that is noted in exhibit B.

And then furthermore, at the very last uh attachment, you'll note that we were tracking the balance of the you know the 125 million that was deposited into the special account as we sit here today after these transfers are approved, the balance will be 78 million one hundred and thirty uh roughly seventy-eight million dollars.

So that's what's left uh to fund uh future payrolls, which you know should cover January, and uh so anticipation that tax bills are going out, other revenues start coming in for the beginning of the year, we should be good.

Um I'll note that overtime was less than projected, so that's positive.

Um, and just you're gonna answer your questions if you have any.

Councilmember Thomas.

Yeah, sure.

Uh thank you, uh Mr.

Wagspeck.

First of all, uh I've kind of watched this process without uh saying too much, uh, but inputting a lot during the budget process and haven't had a chance to uh thank you for answering into this relationship.

You know, people view this city of New Orleans and the state many times, not in the best light, but you and your team have been ready to stand by and help us during this crisis.

But what people have asked me, I spoke to a group at one university last night.

We've heard from you in terms of accountability, the money, what you see.

But when you talk about this relationship, if you could for the public say, what are the terms of this relationship?

And it's a it's a it's a relationship out of need right now that we hope ends at some point.

So in your own words, if if you could talk to the people who've asked me those questions, what is it this relationship and what makes it end?

Well, I think that I think the primary mission is to provide some oversight uh you know, to to as kind of a condition for the uh for the bond issuance of the 125 million.

Uh but as we're doing that, we're also kind of playing a trusted advisor role.

So we're we're really uh you know, in advisory capacity, trying to find the efficiencies, find the savings, and and find the uh additional revenue, uh, collection of revenues, et cetera, as we move forward to try to solve this this this budget problem.

Um, we also gonna play an investigative role to look determine how do we get here.

Um and uh you know, where was the overspend?

What was the primary driver of that?

Uh where do we fall out of compliance?

Uh so that's so it's it's kind of a it's a it's it's a multifacet role, and I think it you know, once it at one point um, you know, once this this loan is paid back, I think we're we're sort of you know taking more of a back seat and playing more of an oversight as far as the what we normally do as a is auditors, we're the depository of your audit, we oversee, we approve your audit engagement with your external auditors, and so we'll but we'll still advise and being in a in an advisory capacity as needed, as requested by the council or or the mayor.

Yeah, I mean yeah, I shouldn't hit on what I was hoping, uh what especially as an as an as an advisor or role.

I mean, in basic accounting, I'm not an accountant, but you know, if one plus one doesn't give you two, then you have a problem.

And if you your projected revenue doesn't meet the expenditures of what you need, you don't you don't have to be uh as brilliant as you guys are with money to understand that that that's not gonna work out, or if you overproject and under receive, then that's another problem too.

Uh not to get you involved in some of the political uh uh uh soap opera mess around here.

I had done a letter to the farmer CAO asking him just to come to explain because you talked about advise and investigate.

It would be good to know how we got here, what were some of the oversight things that were missed?

Uh where were maybe some people folk kind of complicit, or maybe was the was the accounting wrong, so that this doesn't happen again.

Uh where would maybe some people folk kind of complicit, or maybe was the was the accounting wrong, so that this doesn't happen again, and and you know, uh being the great uh CPA uh counting man that you are, you it's gotta add up, right?

Do you think it would be helpful uh if we had heard from the pharmacy AO or if this council had subpoenaed the pharmacy AO and we've been agree this has been an aggressive council at demanding and getting people and threatening to subpoena people?

Would do you think it would be helpful to at least hear his side of the story so that while you're advising and investigating and recommending to the people who are going to be here just to make sure that this doesn't happen to this magnitude again?

I I think it would be very very helpful.

I I think what this council has uh not received is good timely information.

I think you need monthly financial reports, you need to basically see what what your spend is monthly and compare that to what was budgeted.

And and the budget has to be amended timely any time you have variances.

I don't think this budget has had a history of being amended.

I'm not sure that it's amended yet this year.

Uh so you know that that means that we're not just paying attention to the budget.

We're paying attention, we're paying attention what's into the checkbook, and that's not a good thing.

Yeah, and that's how we that's how we ended up here.

So you agree that that piece of the missing puzzle could be helpful and would be helpful.

It would be very helpful if we had that testimony or that information.

Oh, I would agree with that, yes, sir.

Thank you for everything that you've done.

I appreciate it.

All right, uh, at this time I will move.

We take a bib number five.

We have resolution R25610 by Councilmember Jerusalem by request approving and ratifying the release of 7,247,435.64 cents from the City of New Orleans employee emergency payroll fund to cover the payment of the friends benefits and other payroll related expenses for the payroll period beginning November 16, 2025 and ending November 29, 2025.

The foregoing authorization shall be subject to concurrence at a Louisiana legislative auditor in accordance with city code 70-415.347.

All right, so we're gonna take up the substitute resolution.

On this one, we have a substitute for 11, not for no, there should be a substitute for 10.

So what they did was they put the information.

They got it, they got it on there.

Okay, and has the numbers great is not either substitute.

Great.

Okay.

All right, Mr.

Burnside, you're up, and we're taking up item number five for people who are watching.

We will come back to item number four.

So I appreciate the previous comments by uh Councilperson Thomas and the legislative auditor.

I had already written down the word Gilbert on top of my paper and the word Jonathan Rhodes.

So obviously the council can do whatever the council wishes to do.

In regards to the numbers that we have here with the resolution 25610, I'm somewhat concerned because at the top it says something about 19 million dollars, and then if we add the two numbers, the 6 million 600,000 and the 7 million 200,000, we only get like 13,800, which doesn't come anywhere near 19 million, so who really knows what's going on?

But if we have 2,000 employees and we do some division, because we've got basically a thousand 300 for the police and maybe 700 on a good day for the fire, we end up with like nine thousand eight hundred per employee, inclusive of both salary and fringe, if we take the nineteen million seriously, which I don't, and if we take the 13,800 seriously and do the division, we get 6,900 per employee for salary and fringe, which unfortunately I do take seriously, because we find that on exhibit B of the legislative auditors' effort to make things clear for us, we're gonna give 3,900,000 to some retirees of the fire, which would be fine, maybe kind of if we were rich, but seeing that we've cut the city planning commission from two million to one and a half million, it seems an odd thing to give retirees uh more money in a month than we give our city planning commission in a year, given the work they did for us all last night.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, I've moved on R 25610s, seconded by Councilmember Green.

All members vote yay 70.

We're now coming to resolution R25611.

This resolution will be withdrawn.

So orders we have substitute resolution R25611.

Councilmember Jerusalem approving and ratifying the release of $6,539,097 and 91 cents from the City of New Orleans employee emergency payroll fund to cover the cost of payroll related expenses for city employees, other than police and fire departments by the payroll period beginning November 23rd, 2025 and ending December 6, 2025.

The foregoing authorization shall be subject to concurrence by the legislative auditor in accordance with city code 70-415.347.

We need to suspend the rules to receive this resolution.

So move seconded by council member Harris.

Please vote by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

Seven yes, no nays.

Motion to add it to the agenda.

So this was I'm sorry.

We don't have because it's already on the agenda.

We don't have to do that.

You've got to add it.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

I'm I'm you've taught me well.

Um I move to add it to the agenda, seconded by council member Harris.

All in favor, aye.

Seven yes, no nays now.

Um 2561 as substituted Mr.

Burnside's public comment.

Okay, Barnes at 2215 felicity as mentioned previously.

The fire police uh come out to like six thousand nine hundred each.

Turns out the other city employees come out to two thousand one hundred eighty each on a bi-weekly uh combination of salary and fringe benefits.

Um it is police and fire are costing us three times what everybody else is costing us.

What may be of some note is that the airport also put out bonds, and we put out a RAND note, and the comparison between the two is somewhat stark.

The airport got charged $18 in fees and uh for putting out $1,000 in bonds.

We got charged six uh dollars for every thousand dollars in bonds we put out, would sound like a good deal, except the airport put out a list of 14 different people who are receiving the money, and so far I'm only in possession of two numbers, one of which claims to be a purchaser fee, and the other the cost of issuance and not the names of anybody who got any actual money.

I was an attempt to discuss this with the current chair of the aviation transportation uh committee for the city, particularly since he used my name and invited me to have a conversation with him.

But that conversation is not happened despite my attempts at both email and personal contact, and I sent a email to the chairperson of the current budget situation, and he's promised me information that didn't arrive this morning by the time I left the house.

So I'm unclear that our RAN numbers are complete.

Uh, and I'm hopeful to receive something similar to what the airport put out, which is the names of the people who got the money.

And I think I'll call that uh a wrap.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Move for approval on resolution substituted R25611, seconded by council member King.

Members, please vote your scenes.

Seven yes, no nays that passes unanimously as well.

We'll now go to ordinance calendar number 35,318 by councilmember Gerusso, authorizing the continuance and renewal of the designation of the local sales and use taxes to be used in determining the sales tax increment for the New Orleans City Park Tax and District for an additional six years to be used for economic development purposes, including the acquisition of equipment to authorized purposes to increase the maximum amount the district may receive to $700,000 per year to authorize such increments to continue to be collected and deposited in a special trust fund held by the New Orleans City Park tax industry for economic development infrastructure and equipment acquisition purposes and otherwise to provide with respect there too.

Thank you, madam clerk.

Members, I asked for this to be put on this agenda because I see it as being related to the overall revenue and expenditures of the city.

Um, as we all know, City Park is a state entity, but obviously a closely held city asset for which we're greatly appreciative.

Um this renews the TIFF that they already have, and candidly, if they can generate their own money internally that doesn't hit the city coffers, I I couldn't endorse it anymore, particularly in light of all the wonderful work that Rebecca Deeds, her staff, and the boards are doing at the park right now.

I I think there's been public comment on this.

I know the TIFF board at City Park, which included Councilmember Morel already voted in support of this.

So with that, I would ask for your approval.

I've moved seconded by Councilmember Green Seven Yayes, no nays, and that matter also passes unanimously.

We now go back to page two ordinance calendar number 35,305 has been deferred to December 17th.

But there's nothing else.

Mr.

Morgan, is this on something?

We've already finished all of our voting items.

No, no, come on, just make your public comment.

We'll do it so we we can make sure you're heard.

Thank you.

The people had asked me to come down here today to address some subjects, and some of the subjects didn't.

The top of their prior priority, the city budget money, they feel that they don't see too much percentage of them are spent in their neighborhood to where their neighborhoods is trashing and all that and need some help of upgrading it.

Also that they feel this way that the city council member that has been re-elected and disadministration that salary should be cut and they shall take a cut because the reason is they don't see no production in the neighborhood that benefit them from their taxes.

And also that they request that when the people in City Hall, the employees are eliminated and cut that none of your friends that's on this council that you will protect their position, be fair and go across the board and cut them too, the one that you have friends of.

And the city all and the people know to also request that Morano, they ask me to you never forget that they put you in office too.

And don't turn your back upon them because you will hear from me and them too.

You owe my people, and my people demand that you take care of them, just like you're gonna take care of your Spanish people too.

I know that that is your first obligation.

But remember, that's getting ridiculous.

I mean, come on, man.

That's um, come on.

Jesus ridiculous.

Mr.

Morgan, Mr.

Morgan, Mr.

Morgan, sit on stop.

It's a good end.

It's absurd.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Goodbye.

We will meet the meeting.