All right, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats, please take your seats.

We're gonna get started.

You ready, Anita?

Yep.

Go ahead.

Roll call.

Councilmember Morel.

Here.

Councilmember McCarran here.

Councilmember Harris.

Councilmember Green.

And Council.

Here.

We have four members.

We have a quorum and let the record reflect that Councilmember Willard is present.

All right.

And next up rule of minutes.

Uh I will second.

All in favor, approve of the minutes.

Four yes, no nays, minutes are approved.

Before we get to our hearings, I know we have a a brief brief comments by our mayor, Mayor Moreno.

Come on down.

Mr.

President, if you don't mind, I'd like to bring up the the team that will be speaking up to sit next to me.

Thank you.

So that will be um Gibson, Mr.

Jerusalem, and Chief Aaron.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good morning, Council.

I I have to tell you it's a little different sitting uh down here.

Uh chairs are a little tight.

I'm just letting you know.

Uh just so so that you you're you're aware moving forward, uh, maybe to get some chairs when we have money.

There you go.

Um so first, uh good morning.

I am uh excited to begin the confirmation process of uh some of my leadership team.

As you all know, uh not everyone on my leadership team is required by law to go through the confirmation process.

But I still wanted to make sure that my full leadership team would still come before the council, even if they don't have to be confirmed so that they can answer your questions and also of course so that they can start building that relationship with the New Orleans City Council.

As far as the confirmation process goes, you know, it was interesting when when Council Member Morrell um really led this effort, uh, and then I co-authored the effort uh with you, you know, there was a there was a little bit of um opposition to it due to the fact that they felt that the mayor would not be able to do all that he or she uh would want to when it came to building uh their leadership team.

And during that time I said that you know, I I actually disagreed with that.

I actually thought that this was actually a better way to build a leadership team due to the fact that I would have the ability to really sell to not only the city council but to the public, how amazing the people working for me uh are going to be and just how talented and qualified and qualified they really are.

So I'm honored to be able to be uh sitting with the people who you see next to me today, going before you for confirmation are two extraordinary, extraordinary women.

Dr.

Jennifer Avegno, who many of you all already know well due to the work that she did uh for the health department over the past eight years.

But now she has an expanded capacity under my administration, taking on uh a larger role, taking on many roles actually.

And uh as as head of health and human services, as uh as a deputy mayor uh to me, uh I'm excited about what she will be able to do for youth and families, what she will be able to do to enhance uh different services throughout our city when it comes to uh access to not only uh health care but also mental health uh as well uh as she works through dealing with the the major issues of homelessness uh in our city and making sure that all of the issues around homelessness now live uh in her department in the health department.

The other person who we have for confirmation, the other extraordinary woman is Charlene Gibson, uh a very well-known attorney here in the city of New Orleans, but also really kind of well known nationally too because she started her career uh in the city of New York.

So she is a very experienced litigator.

I never in a million years thought that um I'd have uh a city attorney like Miss Gibson.

Uh she is someone who really could be anywhere, who could be a work every every law firm wants someone like Charlene, wants Charlene Gibson because of her talent, her expertise, and her ability to do an amazing job for her clients.

But now her client, her main client is well, main clients, are the people of New Orleans.

And I am honored to have her as part of my team.

I'm honored that she accepted this position to be uh the the city attorney, and I believe that she is that right person who not only, of course, can get the city attorney's office really working well, but also uh be that person who understands the job, who understands that the city attorney doesn't just work for the mayor.

The city attorney represents the city of New Orleans, meaning that they work for the council as well, and to be able to be uh that person who will be able to communicate with the mayor and with the council and advise us both as to the best way to move forward.

So those are the two that that will be going for for confirmation today.

I hope that you're able to move them through uh smoothly.

They have a presentation for you, they're happy to answer questions.

And then I also have our CAO, Joe Jeruso, who's joining me at the table.

You all know we all know Joe.

Former council member de Russo.

He uh does not have to go through the confirmation process.

Uh the the law does not have the CAO in that particular uh uh as a department that needs to go through confirmation.

But obviously, due to the fact that he has such an important role, I wanted him to be at the table today so that he can answer whatever questions you may have.

And JP probably has a lot.

I have a lot of questions.

Uh, the other person who I wanted to have at the table today is my deputy mayor of public safety.

Many of you all also know him as well, due to the fact that he is a former police chief for the New Orleans Police Department, and someone who has really been sought after, sought after uh across the country for his public safety expertise.

So uh Chief uh Harrison is here also to answer any questions that you may have.

His role also does not require confirmation, but due to what he is covering, um what he is responsible for, I thought it was important for him to come before you as well and answer any questions you may have.

The rest of my leadership team sits behind me.

Um I'll ask them to stand up as as as they see because I can't really see them.

But um Jenny Maines is the deputy mayor of economic development.

You have Steve Nelson, who is the deputy CAO of uh infrastructure.

You have uh Renee Laparulary, who is the deputy mayor of external affairs, and then of course you have Kevin Ferguson, who is Deputy Mayor and my chief of staff.

And they are also here, should you want to call them up to the table and ask any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

I think what we might do with the other deputy mayors is at a future date.

We may schedule time like we did with Councilman DeRusso and Chief Harrison to give you your time to do those questions just because we want to make sure the public knows that they'll be on the agenda, and I know that we want to make sure that we have that transparency engagement.

We do thank y'all for being here today.

We appreciate your transparency, and we look very forward to today's hearing.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you for allowing me to make comments.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

So, first up, we're gonna start with Dr.

Avegno.

Um, you have a presentation as I understand it.

Just some brief um introductory remarks, if you don't mind.

And thank you very much, Council President and Council members new and old.

I'm I'm really pleased to be here.

Um, I'm Dr.

Jennifer Avegno.

If you agree, uh I'll be the deputy mayor for health and human services.

Um you all, I think know me as a physician and a public health leader.

Um, and I hope you know that I've dedicated my career to improving health outcomes in our city and addressing the social determinants that are really what determines well-being in every community.

Um my experience as an emergency physician and leading the health department gives me first hand insight into both the challenges and the opportunities that we face in building a healthier New Orleans.

I was so honored to join Mayor Moreno's team because I know her commitment to addressing health and human services as fundamental components of a thriving city.

I know that her approach recognizes that health outcomes are not just shaped by your anatomy or your physiology, they're shaped from everything from housing to economic opportunity to neighborhood safety, and they require real coordination across all of government.

And I am firmly committed to lead a restructured health and human services department that can deliver comprehensive accessible services to residents in every neighborhood.

Um Mayor Moreno, as you know, has some pretty ambitious first hundred days priorities, and that's really exciting to me.

Specifically, she's tasked me with some immediate priorities to improve health and safety and well-being across neighborhoods.

Uh, first and foremost, we are launching a new cycle of community health assessment and improvement planning.

This is a highly successful process that we've done over the last five years.

If you've heard me come and present on our many successes that came out of that plan, um we have over 200 partners, stakeholders, community members who did that work with us, and we really were able to see some gains.

So we're very excited to um restart the process now with added focus on youth and families and ensuring direct collaborative input from residents in every district.

So we'll be coming to you and talking about how that's gonna look.

We're also very committed to at a time when it is under threat, expanding access to critical nutrition, health care, and basic needs by adding SNAP and Medicaid enrollment sites in city community centers and expanding our WIC services to the West Bank where they have not been in several years.

We know that a significant portion of folks who are eligible for SNAP do not know that they're eligible and do not get those services.

And as we face some pretty significant federal headwinds, we need to make sure that every person who's eligible gets and maintains that coverage.

Um we are not afraid to tackle the incredibly complex problem of homelessness as we have with our partners at OHSS now will be under us, and we want to really bring structure and enhancement to that approach through expanded outreach, citizen-led 311 communication, improved partnerships with state leadership and service providers, and a shared strategy to support our encampment closures, keep them closed, and to transform our services system.

And I know certainly Councilwoman Harris, you've been an integral part in this, and and we look forward to working closer with all of you.

And then we're also establishing a coordinated victim services unit to strengthen support for survivors of violence.

This is gonna really complement and strengthen our work with the Office of Violence Prevention, Domestic Violence, and Sexual Assault that we already have in our department, and we think it makes sense to be um more efficient and effective for those we serve.

So that's just a taste of what to come.

We have our own very ambitious agenda, and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh Council Member Hughes.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh Dr.

Vegno, good morning.

Um, your resume speaks for itself.

Uh thank you for uh your great work over the last eight years and um you know the way you helped guide the city through COVID, um, save lives, and you know, I know when myself and Representative Willard were at the state level, uh, you are a phenomenal partner.

Uh just one question, uh, a lot of excitement, and I know New Orleans East is getting a lot of attention, which is great.

Uh, but I want to ensure that the Lower Ninth Ward stays on everyone's radar too.

Um what you commit to working with me.

Um, one thing that the residents continue to say is that they want to see expanded options or access uh to quality uh health care options.

So uh would you commit to coming maybe spend a couple hours on the ground within the next 90 days or so um as we continue to expand options in the lower ninth board?

I would love to do that, and not only in traditional health care, but our team um that's a real area of focus for food insecurity, as you know, which is a major driver of health care, and also um access for our families.

There are a lot of families in the lower nine, and I would love to make sure that every one of them knows about what we have.

So I'd be happy to bring myself and my team.

Thank you, Doc.

Well-deserved appointment.

Can't wait to work with you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Councilmember Green.

I had my button pushed first.

Okay.

Excuse me.

Oh, Councilmember Harris.

That's okay, Councilmember Green.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, and and I apologize.

I do I have another uh event to attend.

So uh Dr.

Vignov, thank you so much for all the work that you've done, especially with my team around homelessness.

What can we look forward to as far as more state involvement, state partnership for our unhoused folks here in New Orleans?

Well, thank you for the opportunity to answer that.

You know, as you know, most homeless services are funded on the federal level.

Um, we are facing significant changes that are still in limbo in terms of how that um how that funding is going to come down and be distributed.

Um we feel like in order to meet that moment, we've got to work closer with our state partners.

We know that we all we didn't always align with them in the way their approach to homelessness, but I can tell you that in the conversations that we've had with them, um, we are really firmly committed.

We are all committed to ending street homelessness because it is unsafe, unhealthy for individuals and our community, um, and we have better options.

We must find better options.

And so, what that what that partnership looks like is thinking about a more streamlined regional system of how we can get folks quickly off the street through our using our existing shelter resources, and then in using more regional resources, more so than this is just New Orleans's problem, but recognizing that it is a real regional problem, working with the state to get folks quickly into substance use treatment, mental health treatment workforce, and into more stable housing, um, using whatever the levers that the federal government is going to allow.

So, that's evolving.

We're excited to to include you in that planning.

Thank you.

You know, I uh I think that we all know that we are getting folks who are from out of parish.

Yes, and we are not getting out of parish money to support the rehousing of this folks.

So, you know, one of my goals in the next four years is explore transforming the low barrier shelter, getting it out of the VA, getting it someplace that is more uh user-friendly, and that can provide services on site on site.

So I look forward to working with you on that.

I also did want to talk about the violence interrupters and ensuring that Umbuntu Village, who's done amazing work with violence interrupters, that they are still on the scene and that they're still gonna do the work for the city.

Oh, they're very much on the scene.

Um we've spent the last several years, and again, at the council's direction to come up with a coordinated violence reduction plan, building an ecosystem that starts with outreach and violence interruption from Ubuntu and their partners on the street, so responding to every shooting, um canvassing neighborhoods.

We're working very closely with uh data from a variety of sources to understand where are the hot spots, where do they need to deploy, where do they need to find out where the conflicts are brewing, how can they interrupt before they turn deadly?

Um they're gonna be starting peacewalks at least monthly through neighborhoods that'll be broad.

I know people are excited about that, more events and fairs, and then also how do they coordinate with our hospital team, which is again nearly 24-7 immediate response to victims and families for direct de-escalation and then connection to resources.

So we have built that for the last three years.

Um I think it's at a very good place, but we're always looking to improve it.

One last question.

Um, we have a lot of food deserts in the city and district B.

We have Hoffman Triangle, the Claiborne Corridor, Girttown Central City that really has no access to fresh food, grocery stores.

Um, one of the things that I'd like to explore with you and your team is how we can attract, and this is economic development as well, the new deputy director of economic development.

How we can attract not only more stores, but maybe partner with um uh nonprofits like Second Harvest, who has a food truck that can do mobile food delivery services, mobile grocery stores.

How can we expand that um using culture and recreation funds or some other funding so that people have access to fresh food?

We'd love to do that.

I know Second Harvest does that.

They have a much more robust program.

I think it's in Lafayette, where it's a mobile grocery store.

Um, hopefully coming before you sometime soon uh will be an ordinance that will improve the way that grocery stores can donate perfectly good uh but not saleable food to Second Harvest so that they can have um a significant increase in their fresh produce, and then if we can pair that with deploying it, I think that would make a tremendous difference.

Thank you for all you do for the city.

Thank you.

Councilberg Green, I'd also like to thank you for all that you do for the city.

It's been a pleasure to work with you over the past four years and to watch your work before that.

So it's greatly appreciated.

I do want to um state that sometimes we don't look at it in the context of what has been done to make our violence rate go down, but we've had significant decreases in violent crimes in all major areas.

And yes, the law enforcement community has played an important role, but your health department has also done so.

And I just want to thank you for your commitment and recognizing that violence is a health issue as well as a law enforcement issue, and your work has made a big difference.

And I want to thank the members of your department who I work with, whom I show up with and I see at homeless encampment cleanups or crime scenes and things like that, or who I see walking in the community, and I've had a chance to walk with them.

So I want to thank you for that work.

One thing I do want to point out is um the tremendous progress that has been made relative to drug overdose deaths in our city.

I am going to ask you to comment, but I I want you to know, especially members of the media and the council, that I don't think enough attention has been paid to the fact that in 2022 there were over 500 persons who died in New Orleans from drug overdoses.

The council working with you and the administration addressed issues and created trauma recover recovery and other options for people who might be on drugs, and we have still far too many, but we've reduced that number from 525 to can you tell me or what was the number of last year.

It's around 230 or 20.

I can't remember the exact number, but it was a significant, significant drop.

For the first time, we really turned the corner.

Right.

And I would just want to make it clear to everyone, we are not by any means satisfied.

200 plus deaths from overdoses is terrible.

And a lot of that has to do with the fentanyl epidemic and the irresponsibility and the criminality of those who sell it.

But can you comment to the public on resources available to those family members and to those persons who are having problems with drug addiction and need help?

What your department is doing and some of the resources that are there.

Thank you.

Um you're gonna see some in the first hundred days, you're actually gonna see um some pretty significant increase in efforts.

I'll talk about in a second.

But um in the past several of years, we have trained over 9,000 people in naloxone.

We have a great partnership with the Office of Nighttime Economy to train bars all over the city to have naloxone on hand.

Um our EMS department gives naloxone kits and also initiates um medication assisted treatment in the field for folks who overdose but don't want to go to the ER, maybe they get that treatment started in partnership with Odyssey House and and some others.

So we we are trying to hit it at the from every stage.

Uh we have worked with partners all over the city.

Big groups you've heard of, like Crescent Care, Odyssey House, and small ones that you haven't, because they work in pockets and places where we often don't see folks in order to equip them with naloxone, um, with syringe, you know, helping with syringe access, providing them with uh whatever resources we have, and make sure that folks know.

We have a transformative opportunity uh with our opioid settlement funds, and we spent uh a long time really getting a good strategic plan because we want to spend those wisely.

What you'll see in the first hundred days is that we actually have a mobile unit that is going to be going to areas that we know are um where we traditionally have services and also some where we don't, that will be comprehensive for folks.

So folks who don't want to go to a clinic, who don't want to go to the ER, who have significant mid mistrust, um, we'll be able to provide some pretty comprehensive services to them in locations where they are and where they live.

Um, what we're also hoping to do to your point about how do people know is a broad communications campaign.

Uh because I think that there are a lot of options, but it's not necessarily the average person might not know where to where to send their loved one at first, and so that's on the agenda for this year as well.

Thank you.

Thank you for that work, and of course, it's made tremendous progress in our city.

Doesn't get enough attention, but to go from 525 to 235 with the work that we've done internally is something that is remarkable and that we should celebrate recognizing we still have a lot to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carl Sparrow McCarran.

Well, I I just also want to thank you for all the work that you've done for the city and previous councils, and I'm excited to hopefully get to work with you in this capacity.

Um talk about Thrive Kids.

That's something that this last council and Mayor Moreno has made a priority, and it's I believe it's still a priority of our this council as well.

So can you just talk about how that's going to continue and and what you may or may not need from us as far as moving that forward.

Yeah, I would love to talk about Thrive Kids.

It's um so in brief, it's a partnership with Manning Family Children's in which uh care coordination is available to every public school student in the Orleans public school system, so that's 40,000 plus kids, as well as deep intensive services and folks on the ground additional capacity in 20 of our highest need schools, and these are schools across every district, but they're the ones typically with um the most challenging problems.

Uh what they do is what they're able to do is early detection of behavioral problems, mental health problems, physical problems that can then be immediately diagnosed.

You know, that kid who's acting out in the front of class gets a Thrive referral, they do a comprehensive screening, figure out he can't see.

He needs glasses, they get him glasses, he's thriving, right?

Everything from that to kids who are in have serious mental health issues and are um having psychotic breaks in the classroom, can get immediate help, can get therapy in school.

Um care coordination means transportation for mom and kids to get to offices, help with medications, referral for housing stability.

So, as of now, they have several thousand children enrolled.

Um, we would love to have all 45,000 uh at some point, and have done thousands of therapy visits, physical health visits in the last two and a half years.

Uh so we really want to see this continue, and in fact, we really want to have boots on the ground in every single school.

We we do have an opportunity to do that through a partnership with the state that would allow us to draw down federal money that could significantly increase the um the capacity and the funding for this program.

That's something that we're working very closely with the school board and New Orleans Public Schools.

I think we're very close.

I am hopeful that um, and I'm looking at my colleague.

Mr.

Jeruso, um I'm hoping that we can figure this out so that we can keep it going.

This is also led um, and Councilman Hughes, you probably know this to them opening a pediatric mental health clinic in New Orleans East, in and a uh primary care clinic there where there was a complete dearth of services because they saw the need, and that's something we're gonna work with them.

They they are full to bursting and expanding hours as we speak, and that's something we'd like to see not just in New Orleans East, but other areas that might need those services as well.

Um I'll I'll add to that very quickly for full disclosure.

Um, as as many of you know, and for the new members who don't know, part of paying for Thrive was a proposed settlement between the council and the Orleans Paris School Board.

I'm happy to give you the details offline for anybody who doesn't have it.

Many of you do, but that is an important part of this to make sure that as uh deputy mayor of Vegno said that this is something where we can take federal money and get maybe two to three times as much in order to really reach more kids.

With that said, it takes two to tengo.

And we have made a renewed offer to the school board.

We have not received a response yet from that.

Um in fact, council member, I spoke with our attorney this morning and urged them to contact council for OPSB because apparently they were thinking that communications could only be between lawyers and not between principals.

Uh, yes, your face is exactly how I feel.

Um, and we do have a settlement conference sent by Judge Shepard on the 20th because we have split um the city attorney will be attending another matter, and I'll be attending OPSB, and of course, we'll be keeping everybody in the loop on what happens.

Uh and from my perspective, and I think from the mayor's perspective, there's a lot of optimism about it.

I think we've made and proposed an extraordinarily fair deal, but we got to get the school board to agree to it.

Agreed.

And please let us know how we can partner on the state or federal level for that funding.

Thank you.

Councilmember Woolett.

Thank you, Council President.

Dr.

Vagno, uh, it's good to be here with you this morning.

Uh I want to thank you for your years of service and dedication to the people in the city of New Orleans.

It's truly been an honor working with you in the legislature.

Um, last year I worked with your team on uh a gun safety storage uh bill and previously worked with them on trying to improve maternal health outcomes.

So I look forward to continuing those relationships.

Um my first question, I guess, relates to the funding of your departments.

Um any concerns uh about changes at the federal level that may tie your hands or uh maybe lead to you having to roll back certain initiatives that you're doing and really just want to understand any proactive planning that may be out there uh for you for you and your team.

Thanks for the question.

We are around 80-85% grant funded at the health department, much of it large federal funds that we've had for decades.

Over the past year, we've identified the sort of the highest risk.

Rather inexplicably, one of them is a maternal child health program with the express purpose of reducing infant mortality.

It's called Healthy Start New Orleans, it's intensive case management for families up to 18 months.

And over the 30 years it's been in the city, our infant mortality rate has dropped 30%.

So we know it has a role in that.

It's a national program.

There are four four others in Louisiana, so we're not alone, but it seems for whatever reason to be caught up in politics.

So we have over the last year had regular communication with the entire Louisiana delegation, helping them to understand it's not an expensive program, seeing the benefit of it.

We're going to continue to do that.

We're being proactive in that we are also looking for other ways to fund this program.

Over the past two years, we've had all of our case managers trained as doulas, and now doulas can have covered services under Medicaid.

And so if there is a way for them to act as doulas, bring in some additional reimbursement, we are going to pursue that.

The other risk is to some of our HIV funding.

Again, this was a signature program of President Trump's in the first term.

There seems to be some pushback against some of the funding now.

There's you know, we have added our voice, we continue to lobby very strongly for it.

I think that there is a whole lot of uncertainty in terms of health funding at the federal level, and it increases by the day.

We are committed to meeting the need to being a strong voice for evidence-based scientific programs and progress, and we can do that with a dollar.

It would be much better if we did it with a million dollars.

But we're gonna continue to be proactive about just getting the word out there and making sure that our decision makers understand the consequences of their actions.

I guess my request would just be to keep us in the loop so that we can maybe work together to cut off any potential issues that that may be coming as a result of changes at the federal level.

Um next question.

I guess what are you looking at to really improve uh public health and community resilience in the city of New Orleans over the next couple of years?

Yeah, I think we have to really um strengthen our core as it's being eroded elsewhere.

Um so as vaccines are being deprioritized, we have to be a very strong voice.

Um I'm excited that our former communications director is now the city's communications director because I'm hoping that will allow us to get the word out.

Um but we are incredibly committed to that.

We really stepped up our game this year.

Um we are also really needing to secure the basic needs for our families in particular for our residents as changes to Medicaid SNAP are coming down the pike.

Um, you know, and this is a way we are working with the state because they recognize that it's if things proceed as they are currently laid out, it's gonna be a significant impact to the entire state and to our population.

So I think they are willing partners, uh, but that's everything from simply ensuring folks have access, making sure they don't lose access, making sure all medications that people might need for health are available on a Medicaid formulary, um, and then really doubling down on things like food and housing and transportation.

So it's it's a we have a lot to do.

Last question, um, you you touched on potential implications made at the federal level.

Uh certainly um I'm concerned about um health outcomes for uh mothers and families in the city of New Orleans, uh, particularly for black women who have the worst health outcomes as it relates to uh the the pregnancy and birthing experience.

Um is there anything and really I have a concern about changes at the federal level because I do foresee attempts to go into certain policies and say, you know, if this says black, if this has hit says Hispanic, cut it, not even restructure, just cut it, right?

Um so is there anything here in the city of New Orleans that you know you think can kind of you know address that or you know help it not fall off the efforts that we've been working on for the last few years to improve those birthing outcomes?

Yeah, I think our efforts have to be universal, right?

Um, and that's why, just to use our um Family Connects, our universal postpartum home visiting.

Great program.

When they are universal, the acceptance is greater among everybody that we want to serve.

And we have um that program's been fully operational in both hospitals for about a year and a half, um, and we just got we reevaluate it.

Um it it saves more in Medicaid spending than it costs by a significant amount.

It increases mom's ability to get to their OB regular visits so that you know if we can check them at three weeks and they can get to their OB at six weeks, the likelihood that something catastrophic is going to happen is much less, right?

We're also able to diagnose postpartum depression much earlier and connect them to treatment and and connect them with all kinds of social needs.

Um that is something that we have been working hard to get statewide, as you know, in the legislature last year, um, they have commercial coverage.

Yeah, um, we are working very closely with the secretary to um have it be Medicaid covered.

Uh but we need to do more.

Uh we need to support basic needs.

The the the year of of pregnancy and birth for a young family is the year the lowest income that they will ever have.

And that changes everything about that family.

So the more we can get folks into our early childhood seats, the more we can support their basic needs during that, then the better I think will mitigate whatever comes down from the federal.

It's not gonna be pretty, and I I really do hope that our our legislators take a hard look at what it'll do to to districts far outside of New Orleans who are going to be hit a lot worse.

But I know that we can try to position ourselves as strongly as possible to mitigate those those effects.

All right.

Thank you, Dr.

Vegno.

I'm excited that uh Mayor Moreno decided to keep you on board.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I got a couple of questions.

Um first, I just did the map.

It's been five months since you were identified as the leader of the writhing band of sorcerers at the health department.

Um left my broom at home.

I know you left your broom at home.

Um I think it's so important to say that because since that time period we've seen a lot of natur a lot of scary things happen at the national level.

We have seen uh a health department that is not only not abiding by science, but is actively pushing and trying to de-emphasize vaccination across the board.

And I think it's especially important that as a city we step into that void because across the nation you're seeing new outbreaks of things like measles that we had thought we had gotten almost eradicated.

And your efforts at the health department to continue to push science and to give people information that's scientifically based to keep us on the forefront of science is why we have largely not seen the massive outbreaks that are happening across the country.

So I want to commend you for that.

I think part of what's interesting today is you are here for a new role.

And I want to say this because this really speaks to your tremendous patience and capacity in that you will now be effectively the head of two departments.

So you're the head currently of the Department of Health, which we're not confirming you on because you've already in that role, but you're here for the director of the Department of Human Services.

Now, what many of you may find interesting is that this department has been on the books forever, but if you go across the last several mayors, they never appoint anyone to head it.

And I think what's important, we've we've had a lot of conversations about the consolidations of departments and the like, but something that's been an issue across multiple mayors is that rather than use the departments that exist in the charter in an ordinance, they create departments.

Like the Department of Youth and Families was created by Mayor Cantrell, but it did not exist before that period, and more importantly, as Charlie knows, it was never created an ordinance.

So basically, you have departments that have been historically created by executive orders that die after that mayor leaves.

And by putting them under a department that's in the charter, you're actually creating continuity because we haven't seen that across the board.

A couple of specific questions.

Obviously, some of my colleagues have spoken about our violence interrupters and ceasefire.

That has really been something that you have spearheaded at the Department of Health that really will exist now under both departments.

Can you kind of give us some ideas of like what you see as the future of that program?

Yeah, so certainly really strengthening what we have now.

So right now, the the Office of Violence Prevention under us oversees the community violence interrupter, the hospital violence interrupters, the trauma recovery team, our firearms safe storage, which has given out 3,000 biometric gun safes to all over every neighborhood, every every person in the city almost, as well as our domestic violence, sexual assault, victim services.

What we how we want to strengthen that is really use our data better.

NOPD has data, we can get some data, yeah, uh Chief will have data with public safety, but I don't think we're um using it as targeted as we need to be to figure out what is happening, where is it happening, why is it happening?

Um with Chief Harrison bringing on Daniel Shanks, who um is ran the no dice program, we're gonna really add that sort of place-based approach, right?

We we have the people, he has the places, how do we address them together?

And sometimes addressing a place is not with violence interrupters, sometimes it's with homeless services, sometimes it's with case management, right?

So I'm hoping we can really provide an integrated roadmap.

If if you remember when I when you probably don't, but because it was a long time ago, but when I came to you with our violence reduction plan, there were multiple buckets of if you're really gonna do this, you gotta invest in all of them.

We are we have made significant gains in that thanks to you to your and Mayor Moreno's commitment, but we are now really getting closer to hitting every everything that we need to do that is evidence based to have a robust um violence prevention.

And we're learning from other cities.

We're hoping to receive word about a DOJ grant extension that will allow us to really have an intensive program for our highest risk individuals at of violence perpetration and victim.

And so just layering on to existing efforts and keeping them going is I think our biggest priority.

Well, and I think it's a tremendous opportunity because with uh we've worked with Daniel as a counsel.

I know Chief Harrison's has some experience, but it's not just there's one thing that was missing from your place, and that was also shutting the places down.

Because what Daniel did with uh DA Williams, I know what Chief Harrison did in Baltimore is that when you have locations where there is almost a propensity for crime to happen over and over again, specifically commercial enterprises, there is almost a correlation that when you also close down those locations, the crime dissipates.

And I think that's something that we need to look into.

I think Daniel's a great resource as well as Chief Harrison.

Um, with prevent preventive health, mental health for children and for adults, I think something that's often lost is that part of what I see, the efficiency, the economy of scale and having you over both departments is you are allowed and promoting the sharing of expertise between both departments, because obviously preventive health, I believe, when you look at the tremendous drop we've had in youth crime in particular, with your efforts with the efforts of the former Office of Youth and Family, we have pushed resources to kids.

And I really kind of want just to give a quick hit on with this new office, sorry, this revived office of human services, uh, how do you see yourselves as far as resourcing those individuals?

Yeah, we certainly want to build on the work that the Office of Youth and Families did and and maintain the strong partnerships with strategies like the Youth Master Plan, and how can we align and incorporate that into our overall planning to better direct resource?

A lot of that is what do we have and how is it resourced currently, and what are the opportunities.

I think you know, when when we can align with groups, that's when we can bring in some philanthropy, and when we can bring in a little bit of philanthropy, we can generally add on.

Um so we need to keep resourcing things at work for youth, like uh the summer work program.

Uh I would really my hope is that we can do a detailed evaluation of that program because I know in my bones that employing 2,000 youth in New Orleans in the summer has a significant impact on our crime and violence, not just in the summer, but lasting.

And I don't think any city is doing the numbers that we are doing.

Uh so I want to be able to prove to you all that that it's working.

And whatever else has been done, you know, when we're currently taking an inventory of youth and family programs, um, also making them seamless, right?

Starting with pregnancy, through birth, through early childhood, and then figuring out where are the gaps that we need to direct resources.

There's not a lot of resources in youth and families, and what it is is often fragmented, and it's often, you know, I like this program, so I'm gonna give it 10,000, which you know might might be great for a couple of months, but doesn't sustain.

So I think I'm hoping what will come out of our planning process is that we identify what are the things that if we just resourced them would have the biggest bang for the buck.

Well, I think it's important for the Department of Human Services when it comes to youth to coordinate with the council on our council youth and recreation fund to see where you see successful programs that are underfunded and where we can find some ability to maybe through the council fund heighten those programs.

A couple of quick four more questions, final questions.

First, youth master plan.

What I find super interesting, and I had this conversation when Mayor Moreno went in a different direction with the Office of Youth and Family, and I was talking to an advocate for the youth master plan, and they said, Well, what about the youth master plan?

And I said, Well, let me ask you a question.

Did the Office of Youth and Family ever bring you a talk to me about the youth master plan?

They said, No.

I said, Well, there's your problem.

Because the reality is that we have this tremendous fantastic youth master plan that is kind of siloed.

And when we're having these larger conversations regarding how we're going to resource and do funding, it occasionally bubbles up during the budget process, but there's never been an active engagement of the council on how to incorporate the youth master plan into our funding conversations.

And there's been a lot of argument about the all or nothing approach to it, but when you look at that plan, be able to break it down to see where we can fund parts of it with federal money, where we might need state money, where we may need to find local money, if we want to see that move, it needs to be a conversation year-round, not just kind of when advocates show up during the budget process and go, the youth master plan, it's like there's no ongoing outreach to try and figure that out.

My last question on the on our you have done tremendous work with our department regarding homelessness.

And I'm gonna say the thing that y'all don't say, but I think needs to be said.

I have been utterly disappointed with the relationship with Unity, just to be very candid.

I know everybody here wants the kumbaya, but the amount of frustration I've had working with advocates, working with yourself, working with Nate, there's a sense of urgency that the city has that I do not feel consistently Unity has had.

I feel that there is a disconnect in that it represents Southeastern Louisiana as far as resourcing, and yet you will see these really bizarre signs in Jefferson that say don't allow panhandling signs paid for by Unity.

And with the sheer amount of resources they get, since we are the city that is kind of bearing the brunt of the entire grade New Orleans area when it comes to resources from the federal through state to Unity, I really think there needs to be accounting as to whether all the funding is being made available to New Orleans to do what it needs to do since we have the largest amount of that community.

And I can tell you over my four years, whenever there is like a huge conflict regarding homelessness, all of the different advocates are kind of pushed in the same boat.

It's like the pressure on a triangle.

Everyone gets kind of pushed together to defend that there needs to be a path forward on homelessness, and I always feel like Unity is hiding in the middle of the triangle because they're the ones with the resources, even when people are mad at New Orleans for not having enough resources.

And I think there needs to be a greater public conversation on if we have the problem, if we need the resources, unity needs to be much more forthcoming on providing those resources to the city in a timely manner to address the problem with the programs that we have available.

And that it shouldn't be always us chasing after them and us having a sense of urgency and them really not.

More of a comment.

I don't want you to put yourself in a position because you know you have to work with Unity, but that's I'm publicly saying where I feel like Unity has really fell down.

Um I think the board is clear on you, Doctor of Agno, really appreciate you being here.

Ms.

Ms.

Gibson.

And also, as we're done, I know all of you have places to be.

Do not feel like you can't get up and go.

Thank you, Council President Morrill and Council Members.

I'm Charlene Gibson, city attorney for the city and the citizens of New Orleans.

Actually, Ms.

Gibson.

Let's do the motion after the presentations.

Yep.

I will make.

Oh, sorry.

Mr.

Green makes the motion recommending approval.

Ms.

Sorry.

Councilmember Green makes the motion approving Councilman Green seconds.

All in favor.

I can't do both, but yeah.

My machine's not coming up.

So all right, all fair say aye.

Aye.

All right.

That is four years.

Four years, no nays.

We recommend approval of Dr.

Vagna.

Thank you, Dr.

Congratulations.

Sorry, Ms.

Gibson, go ahead.

No problem.

Thank you again, Council President Morrill and Council members.

Again, my name is Charlene Gibson.

I am the city attorney for the City of New Orleans, appointed by Mayor Moreno, to whom I'm deeply grateful for this profound honor to serve this great city and my fellow neighbors and constituents.

First, I'd like to publicly acknowledge my Christian faith, which is core to my personal values and the professional ethos that I keep.

Thank you, Mr.

Gibson, for being all in.

And finally, I'd like to acknowledge many of my predecessors who have very proactively and graciously already reached out to offer their support and insights for what I know that they know is a very challenging uh responsibility to serve the City of New Orleans.

I first came to New Orleans on leave from my law firm in New York City for a one-year contract to serve as a law clerk in the Eastern District of Louisiana to the Honorable Ivan L.

R.

Lamel.

I arrived on the eve of the Hurricane Ivan evacuation, and my clerkship ended with Hurricane Katrina.

But over those 12 months, uh New Orleans made an indelible mark in my spirit.

I was determined to quit my job in New York and return as soon as possible, and I did so and joined a local law firm.

Following that tenure, I did co-found a law firm, which I grew to a multi-state presence along with my former partner.

And most recently, I served as of counsel for a national law firm in the MA practice for a chambers-ranked corporate group.

Um, and I led multidisciplinary deal teams uh to close transactions.

My legal career has been dedicated to upholding the highest standards of ethics and accountability in both public and private sectors.

I believe my extensive experience in private practice leading deal teams and advising mission-driven organizations has well prepared me to lead the law department in a very client-focused culture and a community-driven effort to serve the people.

Mayor Moreno has directed me to establish a much-deeded cultural reset in how the law department operates, beginning with several executive orders, which she has already signed, establishing high ethical and accountability in the workplace.

We're conducting a comprehensive audit of our processes and personnel to review our standard operating procedures with a focus on shortening contract review times and increasing predictability for those who do business with the city of New Orleans.

We're emphasizing collaborative solutions and customer service as we advise city departments, ensuring deep engagement with the law department and the stakeholders that we serve, including this city council.

In closing, the law department under Mayor Moreno will be a proactive partner in good governance, focused on delivering optimal outcomes with integrity and transparency.

I look forward to working closely with this council to uphold the highest legal standards to serve the city of New Orleans and the people of New Orleans.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harris.

Well, Miss Gibson, you and I have been knowing each other for a very, very long time.

You come highly recommended your reputation precedes you, and I'm looking forward to working with you.

And that's where you wanted to go as a as a young lawyer and even as a mid-career lawyer.

I think of uh federal judge Nanette Brown, who was city attorney, I think of city attorney Sharonda Williams.

I think of all the people who came through the law department who are fantastic attorneys, but who I think had a lack of respect, a lack of parody and payment, a lack of communication, and access to leadership.

So my question is how are you gonna ensure that we rebuild the law department in a way that it can become once again the premier place to work in the city of New Orleans.

Thank you for that question, Councilmember Harris.

First, I want to acknowledge what I am coming to learn already, is a very strong remnant in the law department that exists.

The men and women who remain in the law department have held the city down, and I acknowledge their hard work through some very difficult circumstances over the last several months and years.

So I just want to acknowledge them.

We had our first all hands team meeting yesterday, and I gotta tell you there's a lot of excitement.

There is uh a light lifting atmosphere in the law department, and I do believe the law department, like many other places where graduates from premier law schools who have their pick of anywhere to go to work will find an attractive place to work because of the breadth of issues because of the um interesting work that we have to offer.

But there is an issue.

There's an issue where we are not paying market value for those services.

And I think that's problematic.

I think that's an issue of attracting those talents.

Um, but we can we can change that.

I think can I interrupt you there?

Because we are paying market, we're just paying it to outside law firms.

I was I was getting that to that member Harris.

I'm just helping you along.

Because I think that the investment in our internal law department can greatly reduce our external spend.

And frankly, some of the matters that are uh assigned to outside council can capably be handled in-house at a much more efficient cost.

Um, so we're gonna have to um, I know we are in a I have been keeping up with current events where we're in a very um challenging budgetary uh situation.

Um, but I will today and and often be advocating for the law department to be appropriately resourced so that we can scale up to where it once was so that we can attract the kind of talent and interest that I know exists because we are currently receiving resumes for for very seasoned attorneys who would like to come on home to the city of New Orleans and and uh stand proudly to say they represent the law department and the city of New Orleans.

So I do think that there are ways for the law department to, once we're properly resourced, to attract that talent, to retain that talent through the culture that we're building, which is a client focused, highly collaborative approach.

Um, you know, my years in practice, private practice has taught me this foundational thing.

You can give a level of strategic advice that is super effective only when you are doing it in continuous collaboration with your client.

You can't be operating in a vacuum.

Nobody wants to read your 20-page academic memo about legal issues.

There are real practical consequences to the advice that we give.

And to running the city efficiently.

Well, look, I I look forward to working with you.

I do want to thank the men and women who are still at the law department because many have been there for many, many years and have gone through various leadership changes, and your immediate predecessor could never tell me how many people had left.

And I hope that I have your commitment today that we can talk frankly and openly about the number of attorneys that you need, how many people are leaving, how many people do we need to get in place so that we can start taking over what we are farming out to our local law firms.

And look, I'm a I'm a member of a local law firm.

I you know worked with three of them.

And so I don't want to completely take that work away, and I know there's a time and place for that.

But we also have the talent currently in the law department, but also we can attract new talent to make sure that we're not spending good money after bad.

Certainly, and you know, one of my great experiences in having the opportunity to be an entrepreneur, to be a business owner myself, and to co-found and grow a law firm, is to understand the nuance between what you know, what you don't know, when you need specialty expertise for certain things, how to scale up and scale down appropriately, but you really do need a solid core of professionals for that kind of continuity for that institutional knowledge.

The loss of turnover when people come to the city law department, get trained on very, very valuable institutional knowledge, and then can't sustain themselves, so they choose to go to private practice because that's a better opportunity.

Um I can't tell you how many how many really capable lawyers were in the law department, have been poached by other places and wink wink nudge nudge, uh come on home people.

Um but but it's a great environment to learn, it's a great environment to work, and we ought to be able to retain that talent, and they ought to be able to have that opportunity to remain where they want to be.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here.

Um I just have a couple questions about contracting, specifically for public works contracts.

Um in the past, we've had contracts for construction work where you know it's been structured in a way where contractors have been incentivized to open up streets, and that's how we got to where we are where streets have been opened up for long periods of times with no ends of end in sight for residents, and that's frustrating.

And we as district council members are the ones that take those calls on why hasn't this been done?

It's been two, three years, four years on my street work.

So, how are you going to and also holding the contractors accountable for these things?

Um, I know that you know we've got to have some timelines and updates in there to provide to the public on these things.

How are you going to work with those contractors and ensuring that contracts across the board for these things are have timelines in place and we're holding these these contractors accountable for that?

Thank you for that question, council member.

First, I want to say we're gonna be collaborating with our senior leadership team, in particular the deputy mayor of infrastructure, um, to at the outset, before a contract is connected to determine the appropriate measures to include in the contracting process, so that if things don't go to plan, we have some effective tools and methodology to hold those contractors accountable.

Um that goes to the collaborative approach that the law department will take in the future.

You know, um the city charter and in practice, the law department reviews contracts for form and legality.

And how you interpret that feeds into how actively engaged you are in baking the cake before it's baked.

How you find a contract when a problem arises is how you find the contract.

You have to work with what's there.

But to not avail yourself of the opportunity to be able to negotiate effectively to advise department heads or you know the procurement process in how we can properly um establish the the terms in those contracts, I think is a big failure of leadership.

Um sometimes when you're working in an environment where you're afraid to get blamed, or you know, you you think your client won't take your advice.

I don't think that's a really great excuse to not step up to the plate and really actively engage with the department heads to determine what those appropriate measures are.

Uh so I already have some ideas of some things we can do in that contracting process.

Um, and I will certainly be going to the department heads and coming to you all to get your perspective on how we can collaboratively improve those processes.

But that's that's the approach is for us to be proactive, be on the front end, to be actively meeting with departments, meeting with the council to understand what our goals are.

And I know uh my fellow um colleague, the senior um deputy mayor for infrastructure is already very vocally committed to transparency, um, standing up platforms to inform the public so that these open-ended you know work periods don't continue.

Great, thank you for that.

Um, one other question.

You talked a little bit about streamlining the the contracting process and through departments.

Um and I know we talked in our in our initial meeting about how um the city just implemented DocuSign last year through through the efforts of the previous council of of saying we we probably need DocuSign instead of going from department to department, desk to desk.

Um, how are you going to incorporate more technology and being able to streamline that way as well?

Um council member, I want to regretfully correct that statement.

We piloted DocuSign.

My understanding is it's not fully uh implemented or or implemented on a long term.

Um I can confidently state that Mayor Moreno is fully in support of uh growing digital in this regard, and uh we will be looking at the cocktail process.

Now we're working within the brass environment that has several layers of approval, and I want to publicly defend the law department in this setting because you know, we're a convenient foil for complaints for that contracting process, but there are levels of approval within Brass that sit in other departments, and so we have to educate the public and the departments through that collaborative approach and effort that I I referenced in where they can be more proactive in speeding that process along.

I can assure you that in the law department, everyone is very clear on our expectation for for when things are sitting in our queue.

Um, but in terms of leveraging technology, this is another area where we have to be good stewards over the resources that we have, but where an investment up front in technology will yield benefits down the road that save us money in the long run that we're spending anyway in an exponential manner.

So there are a lot of technological advances that the private world in legal practice are already deploying that our law department unfortunately is behind on.

For example, basic um case management software, contract management software, certain of the processes that hold up the contract managing process or the contracting process is because people are doing things that technology can do much more effectively and much more efficiently in certain cases, like with electronic signature, be it DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat, or some other tool, it's very cost effective to implement, and so I think this is a matter of will and leadership, and certainly there is the will and leadership at the table presently under the Moreno administration to deploy these.

Great, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Burrus.

Uh thank you, Mr.

President.

Uhtorney Gibson, good morning.

Nice, nice to meet you.

I regret that I uh could not meet you last week as I was trying to transition out of Baton Rouge, but uh we'll have my team follow up with you uh so that we can sit down more and up.

Um, but looking at your resume, um, excited about you coming on board, you seem to be intimately qualified, and how cool to have your mom here today, uh, all the way from Canada.

I know that's really special.

So uh thank you.

Uh let me just uh follow up on streamlining.

Yes.

Uh I'm I'm encouraged uh to hear that you're gonna run attempt to run the law department like a corporation, and uh you know, certainly my goal is that we begin to run city government like a business.

It's an enterprise at the end of the day, whether we like it or not.

Um, you know, when I did my onboarding here, I I had to hand fill out about 40 forms uh that have to go through several layers for signature, and I'm a little terrified that you know, number one, it subjects your personal information to great exposure, uh, and number two, I'm not really sure that all the forms are gonna make it where they need to be.

So uh we definitely need to embrace technology in order to create efficiencies uh throughout government.

So I certainly look forward to working with you uh and our CAO on that.

Let me ask you just two quick questions.

Um obviously there was a charter change to clarify the role of the city attorney.

So, number one, uh, how will you you know balance your role between the executive branch uh and the legislative branch, and then number two, uh accessibility.

Uh, how accessible uh do you plan to be to city council members?

Thank you for those really important questions.

First, I'll say um the charter amendment really aligns very cleanly with existing rules of professional conduct that already govern lawyers, and I understand that that's helpful for the public to understand and maybe clarifying for for attorneys who don't regularly represent institutions and organizations, but except for my clerkship year, the entirety of my private career.

I've represented institutions and organizations.

So I'm intimately aware with uh the rule of professional conduct rule 1.13.

When your client is an organization, it means you represent that organization, and in this case, that is the city of New Orleans.

I'm intimately aware with the structure of our city government, and that we have a mayor and a city council.

And so I I am I'm perfectly aware of the charter language that that talks about my obligation to advise and represent the city through the mayor and the members of this this council as well as the other city departments that we support and advise.

And so for me, the the charter amendment doesn't really change a whole lot about how I I perform as an attorney and how I would represent the the city of New Orleans.

It's really a recognition of the existing uh uh rule of professional conduct when your clients is an organization.

Um, in terms of your second question, could you repeat that again for me?

Accessibility.

Accessibility.

Um Frankly one of the reasons I believe I was offered this appointment is because of my strong disposition towards collaboration.

I firmly and fundamentally believe that the best legal advice you can offer a client is only achieved when you understand and are in constant communication with your clients.

So uh we will have, if not my personal um accessibility to to this council, but we will always have uh our chiefs and our deputies accessible to the council.

Uh we're building a core of some redundant operations so that there's not one person, and if that person's missing, you all are left in a lurch that you'll have uh multiple uh points of points of access and and liaison.

Um but I plan to the law department is through a very strong client-focused approach and a very strong collaborative strategic advisory approach.

So we will be very accessible and responsive to you, and uh we will be offering particular contacts, including myself, so that if you ever have any question, uh there'll be prompt follow up.

Uh well, thank you.

Um I certainly look forward to working with the attorney Gibson.

Let me uh uh really commend Mayor Moreno for pursuing you uh and let me sincerely thank you for answering the call to serve.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Burger Green.

Thank you, attorney.

I look forward to working with you, Attorney Gibson, and um appreciate your willingness to get involved with the city at this time.

Um thank you for the meeting that we had.

Sometimes these meetings, since we have decided as a council and the voters that decide to have a public process relative to appointments, give us an opportunity for you to speak on an issue that is very important in many respects.

One issue that's important to me, I represent a district which has communities that have no blight, great demand for property, no vacant lots and the like.

But I also represent a district which includes thousands of vacant lots in certain communities, many of which are tied up by succession.

We see problems relative to blight accumulation because of the lack of wills and successions done and the amount of time that it takes for the city to just to legally address those issues.

I've seen properties over the last four years become blighted before my eyes because of the processes involved with the city.

So I'm going to ask you to comment for the public on the importance of willings, wills and successions because that really impacts our entire city.

After Hurricane Katrina, many people couldn't access resources that would help them to rebuild because they didn't have clear ownership of property.

But also, could you comment on what you think that you may be able to do to help expedite the process of the city being able to turn properties into a condition in terms of their title where they can be made available to someone who might be willing to develop it?

Certain certainly, Councilmember Green, you know, this is one of those areas again, and uh we have a uh a chief of housing and code enforcement, uh Miss Latifa Harris, who's who's extremely invested in the role that she plays in this process.

Um she's also wearing many hats.

That's also one of the five divisions as the law department is currently configurated, that I believe is understaffed.

Um there is a lot of creative ideas that I know is among that group from having been serving in that capacity over the last several years.

But because we are so understaffed, I think it we're in a constant state of triage and on our heels.

Um so I think one of the things that I plan to do is to really grapple with and understand some of those creative collaborative solutions that can address that issue.

I don't think we're gonna adjudicate our way out of it.

Um, you know, somebody's property right is really important as well, and so we have to be respectful of that.

But I think there are ways that we can creatively address that problem if we have the capacity and the time to really think iteratively about it.

Um, I I do think it's super important, like you've just mentioned, that families um and property owners take on that responsibility to you know complete successions and make sure that there's some plan to address the title issues while people are well and living to think proactively about it because it's it's so much more efficient and it it it helps them to retain their property in their in their you know family ownership.

Um, but beyond that, I do think we have to deploy a number of different methodologies to address this issue, and adjudication is just one of them.

And I think we have to properly resource that department to be able to effectively do it.

I know uh, for example, the chief of this division is also currently serving as the head of the Central Adjudication Bureau, um, and and and and and she is the only lawyer at the helm of that division.

And so I think this is one of those areas that we're going to be looking at during this initial kind of audit and evaluation period to see what can be done, how can if if possible, what can we do to streamline this process and and maybe deploy a multiple um path approach to addressing it.

But I do recognize that the issue is longstanding.

I do recognize um, you know, much like Dr.

Arvegno was talking about homelessness, it's it's it's one of these intractable things.

You know, since I moved to New Orleans in 2004, um, I've seen some progress in certain areas and certain areas look just like when I moved here.

And so it's something that we are aware of that we're motivated.

Uh the will is there, the leadership is there.

Um, I'm gonna continue to fight for the resources to to be to enable us to address it effectively, and we're we're definitely going to be engaged with you to see what we can do here.

Thank you.

I appreciate your response.

I'm proud of the fact that we were able to demolish 175 blighted properties over the past four years, which is a remarkable number in the district.

And I will, but I will always crow about the new businesses that have moved into the gentili community, the stability of our lakefront communities.

But I want to let you know that I am sincerely motivated to see more done in the desire community, the Florida community, the ninth war community, communities that have been ignored, communities that are sometimes avoided.

But one of the reasons they're avoided is the look, and the look has to do with blight or lack of successions done.

And the look has to do with blight or lack of successions done.

We have generations that haven't done black um succession.

And so their lots get overgrown.

It's hard for me to explain to the public that the reason that lots on metropolitan are overgrown is because the families have no interest in them, but it's hard for us to get them to a position where we can get them back into the market.

It affects the children who walk to school in the morning.

It affects the people who leave church.

It affects their health, it affects their outcome.

And I appreciate the fact that you're looking to work with us.

The reason that I brought it up again, and I want to make it clear that we talked and you've expressed that commitment, is that I wanted the public to hear what you had to say about it.

That we recognize that it's an issue, it's a long-standing issue.

And someone who's in a community where lots are overgrown and they're still blighted property, should not think that they're being ignored.

They have a priority with me, also with you and with the city of New Orleans, and I look forward to progress in that area over the next four years.

I appreciate that opportunity, Councilmember Green.

And I want to be really clear about something.

I'm a mother.

You know, I've not only been building a legal career in this city where I've chosen to be my home.

Um I'm a constituent as well.

I share a lot of the hope and the frustration that you have expressed that Mayor Moreno expresses.

And I have a really deep-rooted sense of equity.

And what I want for myself, I want for everyone.

What I want for future generations, I want for all people.

You know, my native Jamaica, our our motto, our national motto is out of many one people.

And that's why I feel such a kinship with New Orleans, because this is what the city represents to me.

It's out of many one people.

And I don't think it matters, you know, what your socioeconomic status is.

I I don't think it matters what neighborhood you you live in.

I think everybody deserves a fair chance to walk to school in an environment that's safe, that's appropriate, that looks like hope and life.

And so I reaffirm my commitment to you, Councilmember Green, for us to work together on this issue.

Thank you.

I look forward to it.

By the way, my wife is a daughter of two Jamaican immigrants, and our fam her families in Flatbush and Toronto.

So we'll have to talk more about it.

I recognize those locations, and how fortunate for you, Councilmember Green.

Thank you.

Councilmember Willard.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh, Attorney Gibson, everything that I've learned about you, and everything that I've heard from people whom have have worked with you in the past just says that you're a rock star, you're a fantastic attorney.

Um, you're embracing uh a challenging role uh in city government.

So I want to thank you for answering the call uh of service.

Um I have a couple of questions.

You know, you you touched on having a cultural reset uh within the law department.

Um music to my ears, happy to hear that.

Um any ideas right now on what that'll look like or how you get that started.

Sure.

You know, I I I I briefly touched on this earlier.

Um, and I'm I'm gonna say this.

I have no interest in this book, I get no royalties from this book.

There's a book that I have used my personal money and bought every member of the law department a copy of.

It's called Impact Players.

And um there's you know, there's a level of work by an employee who is competent, who does great work, who knows their job, who shows up who's defendable, that if they left you would offer them a great recommendation.

There's a standard deviation above that.

That's an impact player.

That not only is a competent employee who you'd love to have on your team, but that raises the level for everybody else on the team.

They bring a certain energy.

It's in sport, it's the person who like gives you the lift after half time.

And I have to say the cultural reset has a lot to do with that, that mentality, that intensity, that urgency.

Um the mantle of leadership has to play a part in that.

Part of that is character, it's the individual, but part of that is environment.

Now, in an environment where people are afraid to make mistakes, where uh there's no trust, and people throw each other under the bus because they're you know they're afraid to get blamed for something.

You're not gonna have many impact players.

Nobody is gonna be willing to step out of their box to pick up something in a gray area to think iteratively about it, to speak up about an idea that they might have.

And I think that basic level of establishing an environment where you can create impact players is super important.

That's been very helpful to me individually.

I endeavor to be this person on every team that I have been on, and I've seen people turn into these impact players.

And so I thought so strongly about it that I wanted to invite the members of my team to read the book.

Um we we had like a really great uh reception and already some discussions, and you know, nobody has time for uh extracurricular reading at the moment, but I told them to put it in places and spaces where they might have uh moments of repose and they can pick it up.

But that's part of that reset, is just establishing a baseline of high expectation.

Listen, what I have found is most people want to be contributing members of a team.

What I have found, I went into the law department on Saturday afternoon and found two law department members working, and they didn't just come to drop something off or pick something up, they were working for hours.

Awesome.

These are not people who are lazy, these are not people who are not motivated, these are people who need leadership and the proper environment to thrive.

Okay, and in this law department under the Moraine or administration, they're gonna have that opportunity.

That's great to hear.

Sounds like you're off to a great start.

Uh, when I campaigned, uh campaigned on a promise to improve accountability and and transparency inside a city hall.

Um I know you have uh uh uh a successful career in the private sector.

Um any ideas on how you may improve accountability and transparency within the law department.

So part of leadership is delegation.

There are a lot of things happening in the law department, the breadth of issues, the breadth of matters, and one of the things I shared with the team yesterday is we're all gonna be accountable.

None of us are indispensable, including myself, and all of us are gonna be accountable.

So uh to the extent somebody does research for an issue, to the extent somebody uh handles the review of a contract, uh, they're gonna be accountable for their work, they're gonna have to stand by their work.

You know, I'm the city attorney, I'm ultimately accountable for all the decisions that are made for the work product that comes out of the law department.

But what I'm trying to establish, and what I have already seen a really positive reception to is the opportunity to grow and learn to cross-pollinate even among themselves, to break down silos within the law department to build redundancy, um, and to ensure that we're in a position where there's not just one person who does one thing, that we all have an opportunity to learn and grow in different areas.

And I I think that's that's super important for people to know we're gonna build an environment where you can do great work and you're gonna not have that pit in your stomach on Sunday afternoon for where you have to show up on Monday.

But on the flip side of that is we're not a private law firm, but we are professionals who are accountable to our constituents, and I got no pushback on that point.

Everybody is all in, and so I think it just takes uh somebody who speaks clearly about our goals and objectives uh and the fact that you know where we're not afraid to be accountable to you all, we're not afraid to be accountable to the administration, we're not afraid to be accountable to the public.

You know, as the law department, there's certain things obviously that we're not gonna discuss publicly, but in terms of outcomes, in terms of providing you with data or or regularly keeping this council abreast through executive session when it calls for it, uh that is something that's at the forefront of of how I intend to lead the law department.

Okay, that's great to hear.

I'm assuming uh with the accountability standard you have, there'll be a certain degree of empowerment among your uh employees in the law department.

So uh I look forward to seeing those changes changes coming out of your department.

Um I had a question about current contracts with the city of New Orleans right now.

I think in your intro, you you talked about maybe an audit process, but I wanted to know if it was on your radar to potentially look at uh all ongoing contracts for uh from an audit lens to look at you know, maybe areas where we don't need this service in a contract or maybe even potential areas where there's waste uh you know, I don't want to say fraud, but but waste in a contract, uh, if that's something that that you're looking into with your department, and if there's maybe a certain timeline as to when you would expect to have that wrapped up.

So the key a huge sure, sure, sure.

So um the key word here is triage.

Yeah, um, you know, when you're dealing with limited resources, I think we have to to start with some priorities, and and you know, we start where we start.

Uh I'm a person who doesn't really uh spend a lot of time trying to figure things out, particularly things that don't make a whole lot of sense to me at the outset.

So we start where we start and we're onward.

Um in that regard, in terms of auditing, you know, there are already some things that are coming across that we're gonna look at as they come up.

Um and then when we get to a point where uh we're a little bit more uh stable and and and staffed up, we will be looking at any existing, you know, one of the first things I'm gonna do is uh really look at all of our external council contracts.

Who is doing what?

What have been the outcome and the results?

Uh what is the status um and and do we have a need for this?

Uh you know, is the billing in line with our billing policy?

You know, um and so like I said, granted, you know, I I came from private practice, uh obviously, you know, I've I've in in including in some instances have have supported other municipalities elsewhere.

Um but but part of being a good steward of the city's resources is is taking that lens really seriously, and that's something that um I can't offer you a specific timeline on right now, but it I will regularly check in with you to update you on our progress there.

Okay, council member.

May I help you?

Help her out a little bit here.

Um so we had a meeting earlier this week, which is now already Wednesday, so I know it was Monday or Tuesday, um, with uh the city attorney's team, the executive council, and my team to discuss that.

And there's two different approaches we're taking.

One is procedural, one is substantive.

There is a CAO policy 122R that is outdated and outmoded that needs to be dusted off.

Um I have an email which I'm happy to share with y'all about how a process starts from beginning to end, and it is unbelievable how many steps it has along the way, and candidly, not only is it too many, but there's too many steps in the enterprise system brass to make it work, which is slowing us down.

Um also on the process end, I've asked both teams to work on identifying where contracts are depending on their stage.

So if contracts, we essentially divided them.

I'm looking at Liz over there into three or four different bands.

Are they at the beginning or at the midpoint?

Are there somewhere sort of close to being final and are they in final?

How many are in each place?

And then what I've asked the Office of Performance and Accountability, which you'll see is OPA to do, is to tell me how many those are and then how long they've been staying there.

So if something has been stuck in my shop for 30 days, that is a problem.

Similarly, I've asked the council to make sure that all contracts now go through the budget committee, because unfortunately there were unintended delays when we were going committee by committee, and fairness, the last council understood the reason why that was being done, but if we want to streamline this, putting them all in a central committee, and obviously sharing with you would be important.

And then the last thing, council member, I will say is from my perspective, anything that is funded by federal funds or grant funded, we ought to be releasing as quickly as possible.

Um I have a queue right now that I got as of yesterday, so one of my today assignments is to go through that.

On the general fund, however, I've also instructed both the intergovernmental relations team and my team that we have to have a system.

And that I think you all agree with me that obviously public safety is the priority.

So paying our sanitation contractors, our light contractors, anything related to first responders will be first and foremost.

But after that, we're gonna cast skeptical guy with almost everything.

Um to that point, I don't want to steal her thunder, but um, you know, the mayor has made cost reductions for Mardi Gras at Gallier Hall as well.

Uh last year, the administration spent 240,000 on Gallier Hall.

We're at 40,000.

Um and that's by doing things such as we were paying 15,000 to have DJs for two weeks.

So what are we gonna do?

Um we're gonna have guest DJs.

Um we're gonna have people from across the city and welcome your input.

The other thing, I let the cat out of the bag here a little bit, is if you all want to start creating Spotify lists for different days during a Mardi Gras, we'll play council members.

But seriously, this is this is the type of environment the mayor is asking us to embrace, which is how do we do something smart, how do we do something collaborative, how do we do something that just makes more sense and is cheaper?

So um we we are embracing that right now.

I don't have the exact deadlines, but I want you to know that it is in progress.

Okay, that sounds good.

Thank you for those updates.

Last question.

This is a real great example.

I want to just call your attention to this.

I was in a chiefs meeting with the chief of each of the divisions of the law department.

The two deputies in the contract division were meeting in the CASO's office.

So we can chew gum and walk at the same time.

Refreshing.

And and that's part of the the approach here is you know, I'm not going to be a bottleneck as the city attorney.

Uh certainly the people who are meeting with uh Joe de Russo in the CA's O's office with other people are accountable.

Um, but we can we can do several things at the same time.

Good, good to hear.

Um, last question you you went uh back and forth with council member Harris about um uh the pay scale and how you want to go about that a couple of years ago, we actually went through that process in the legislature trying to bring salaries up to a comparable uh market level.

Um what I was curious to know is you know, as you look to scale up the law department, but also review some of these external outside council contracts, um, do you think it's possible to kind of have it uh even out?

Like if you reduce the the scale of the external contracting, is it can you use those dollars to to build up your law department?

And it may be too early for you to respond to that, but uh I would be interested to know that, and if that's like kind of a metric we could work toward, that would be great too.

It's uh it's a little bit of the the chicken and the egg scenario whereby when you terminate those external contracts, you have to have bodies to take on the work immediately.

Exactly.

So uh my preference would be to scale up the law department and and and you know, eventually um, and you know, some of those things are gonna naturally come to a termination anyway, because they're matter specific.

Um and as I I learn uh what those matters are and how specifically we have gleaned any benefit from those contracts, I will certainly be taking action on that front.

So I think there's a there's an independent review that's gonna yield some decision making, whether or not there's personnel in the law department, those matters are gonna just naturally burn off.

But but in terms of um, you know, the decision point at the outset as to whether to refer something to outside council, um, I I'm not gonna presume to to judge how those decisions were made, but I know how I will make those decisions, and to the extent it's it's not something that requires ex external specialized um expertise.

I think we ought to have the personnel in-house to be able to do that work.

So, specifically to answer your question, not only do I think it'll even out, I think it's gonna save us money in the long run because we're paying at a certain rate, you know, for for uh less than three years of experience for an external private practice attorney over the course of a year, um, you can probably get two internal in-house lawyers working full time, and who will be available to you to work on several different matters.

So this is really not hard math.

Um, it's just a matter of resource allocation.

Um, and so you know, that's something that's to me low-hanging fruit.

Okay.

So you talked about the cultural reboot, you talked about uh building up staff in the law department, uh trying to pay the attorneys, market rate salaries, improving SOPs to increase accountability and transparency.

I think you have a great plan.

I think yeah, you're on to a great start, and uh I'm grateful that you have called the service, called answered the call to service, and look forward to working with you uh as you lead the law department.

Thank you, attorney Gibson.

Thank you, Councilmember Willard.

Thank you.

All right, so litigator to litigator.

Uh I want to say I'm I'm very excited because I know when we met, I said the thing that I tasked the mayor with when she looked casting the net for an attorney is we needed a managing partner because the law department has been one of the most mismanaged law firms in recent memory, and that is really an issue of leadership.

So your point, if the managing partner of a law firm is not managing, you can have the best lawyers possible, but if they don't have a clear message, a clear plan and expectations, things go awry.

And what I'm very excited about is that you are someone with experience managing a firm who's coming in and manage this firm.

I've got a couple of things.

First, the charter amendment, I really want to hit on this because I think that if to your point, what we have in the charter amendment, if you're someone who has represented organizations, it's common sense.

Correct.

Your responsibility as a city attorney is to the organization first, then the board of directors, the CEO second.

Correct.

And what we see in the city for too long, especially under the two prior city attorneys, is they thought their responsibility was to the CEO, not to the board of directors or the company.

And the challenge is if you just follow that basic legal ethical requirement, which is what's best for the company is inherently best for the CAO and the Board of Directors, you look at some of the things that we've dealt with, Councilmember DeRusso, and you see, like this is a no-brainer.

I'll give you a great example.

We have a hearing, an administrative hearing pending against Uber for 35 million dollars that the city attorney continued without date several years ago.

Now explain to me how it's the best interest of the company to have a $35 million receivable and to not have the hearing so that we could move to a demand letter.

These are the things that you are going to uncover as you go through.

And I lead into that with I know you and I talked about this, but I want to be very candid.

The amount of conflicts between outside council and the city of New Orleans is staggering.

We have people that worked for the current, sorry, the past city attorney who were also suing the city council.

And as you know, ethically, if the city of New Orleans is the city council and the mayor, how can we have outside council that is suing or has sued the city council not be conflicted?

And I mean, I do not envy the fact that, and I've said this, and I think we passed an ordinance on it.

If there exist listening out there in the law in the in the wild, if you are existing counsel representing the city of New Orleans, and you have sued the city council, I would really encourage you to go read our legal ethics, because you should conflict yourself out of these cases.

And so I think you're gonna have to review a lot of our outside council.

There is a tremendous amount of waivers that have never been granted that on a very basic level are problematic.

So I think you're really gonna have to look at a lot of outside counsel with a jaundiced eye and say, if you've sued the council previously, you're probably conflicted out of doing work for the city of New Orleans, barring getting a waiver from the council.

Because you I mean, if we're held liable for something, the city pays out, correct?

Correct.

So I don't envy you that.

Well, I I would look at the matters that are subject to the representation, you know, uh, under the rules of professional conduct, as you know, there are certain conflicts that are waivable and there are certain that are not.

And so I think those rules uh pretty well lay out the parameters for that decision making.

And so any any approach to to reviewing uh conflicts and making those decisions would be very firmly guided by those rules of professional conduct.

I appreciate that.

And and though that is common sense, common sense has not been common in the city of New Orleans for a very long time.

Um I will tell you that from my experience, uh, I have the opportunity as the chair of the utilities committee, to your point, when the council utility regulatory office was created years ago, the amount of money saved by having in-house council versus outside council is staggering.

Yeah.

And I think that we are gonna probably choke when we find out over the next two years, Councilman Jeruso, how much money was spent on outside council versus how much it would have cost to have in-house counsel.

And as you do that transition, the tremendous amount of money you're gonna see, say to your point, that was a great I great a great kind of illustrative example.

You are 100% correct.

For one out one outside counsel on one matter, you could fund two outside lawyers.

I do not doubt that whatsoever.

Even using even using the low bar municipal state rates, it is obscene.

For for somebody who's like one to three years out versus somebody in the law department who has 10 plus years experience.

The other thing which I would encourage you to look at, and this is probably something that needs to be on your front burner, as you're aware, we passed an ordinance on December 18th, the previous council that restricted the mayor's ability to do contracts or payments through the budget crisis, which the mayor vetoed and we overrode.

I would really encourage you to look through, Councilman Jerusoe and Ms.

Gibson, any contracts or payments that were done those last couple of weeks.

I say that because it is my understanding, and I'm looking for more information, I'm sure we'll have it during executive session.

I would include any legal settlements that were done fairly quickly and not in the city's interest.

Because as you go through those legal settlements, I am very concerned, though procedurally, I do acknowledge there is a possibility that a settlement can be done without council approval.

I will tell you it's unconscionable to me why the city attorney, previous city attorney, would not make us aware of settlement discussions or that a settlement had been executed.

And further, uh, since you have the benefit of former former outside counsel, Jeruso, when you look at the exposure the city had in potential settlements, how much more we were titled to, and what the settlement was, I think it's gonna be very important for you with your tremendous experience in private privacy to look at it and go, was this a good settlement?

And do we have to go back and justify why the settlement was made?

Because it is not in the corporation's best interest to do quick, cheap settlements, especially when the board of directors is explicitly said we do not want fire sales.

We're broke, and we want to do everything in the best interest to maximize resources of the city of New World.

So, and that leads directly into I am so excited to have the city attorney back in executive sessions.

For those of you who don't know, our previous city attorney refused to do our executive sessions.

So we would occasionally convince specific lawyers on matters to maybe come in and press us, but there was when it came to strategy, when it came to outcomes, when it came to filings, we had to file ordinances to get the city attorney just to make us aware of filings when they were happening.

And these are all basic client communications that are covered in legal ethics, and it was really disheartening as an attorney to have to go pass ordinances for someone to do what we thought was basic accountability.

So I know you're gonna be in our executive session next week.

If you could really, I know you've got a devastated, not completely put together staff yet.

You're working with what you have, but I really need you to look at any settlements that were done at the last minute, because if they are not done in good faith, the transition to a new counsel, to a new mayor, that ordinance we passed on the 18th, all those different things might give us a legal position to say these are not good faith settlements and try and unwind them.

Thank you for that.

I will certainly um as I as I get acclimated uh with my now active email access and my um overflowing inbox, I will certainly um be on the lookout for that.

And uh I'm very, very excited about the opportunity to to work in collaboration with the council.

Um I'm a person who is um has a disposition toward eyeball to eyeball conversation.

I think even when you're having tough, you know, whether it's a personnel discussions when I, you know, when I've been an employer, um, if we're doing tough negotiations across the table from opposing counsel, um, I just always think it's better to have those conversations face to face and and this is no different, whether it's in an advisory capacity or otherwise.

So I will always give you my independent perspective on on the legal issues, and um uh I I look forward to it.

And as my colleagues have said, I I have met with several people.

I have had people that I've known for decades call me on your behalf just to speak towards your professionalism and your availability and accountability, and I mean there I will say I'm very surprised we're able to lure someone like you into the public sector.

I have to tell you a lot of people have questioned my sanity.

Um I did have a very successful this past year at my law firm.

And all I can say is there is uh a speech by a former president, Teddy Roosevelt, that he said in Spa Paris.

I revise it to the woman in the arena, but but these are very resonant words for me in this decision making process.

Um there are certain things that sometimes don't make a whole lot of sense on paper, but it's very much a heart decision, and like I told the team yesterday, I I don't have people in my pocket to place in places.

I don't have special rules for special people.

I have a singular mission and objectives.

New Orleans has been very good to me.

And it is my honor and a deep, deep uh sense of appreciation to serve the people of New Orleans, and they will have my level best effort.

Well, I don't have anything that I'm very I mean, Joe knows Wisner, oh my God.

Oh my God.

It will be so nice to have the full resources of the city at our disposal to not have a city attorney and a mayor advocate against the city getting less money.

And so I mean, I know we're aligned on that now.

Uh I anticipate Joe that I will be the person on the Wisner board, right?

Right?

Link.

You have a meeting coming up.

All right, there you go.

So we're gonna we're gonna really be maximized for the city, and I'm just so excited to have you, and I will move.

Oh, sorry.

Councilmember Hughes and Councilmember McCairn have already moved to report you favorably while I was talking.

That's how they're that was a hint.

Uh all in favor.

I that is four years, no nays.

You're reported favorably to the full council.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations.

All right.

Mr.

Jerusalem, uh, I have a 37 slide PowerPoint prepared.

No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

That um so let me let me start by saying this.

Um when you heard the mayor speaking here the other day about there are two equal branches of government.

That is not lip service, that is something she has been saying both publicly and privately.

I I think I'm also at liberty to say this.

I think I'm the first and maybe only modern person who has gone from the council to being the CEO.

There have been others who've gone from CEO to council.

So when you hear people say, I know what it's like to be in those shoes, that's true to a degree, but it's not true.

I see all of you kind of smiling at me as I'm saying that.

It is far different to actually be at that dais, and I understand first and foremost the pressures that you face, not only because of the fact that you are elected, but that you have to respond to your constituencies and want to make that work.

Um let me just tell you about my day today as a microcosm of how this team is working.

Um it began at 6 45 with a phone call with Charlene Gibson about matters before the city.

That was followed by an OPSB settlement call, which was followed by a call with the mayor about getting council member Harris to the cash management meeting today at two o'clock.

Um I just think that probably was an oversight in the past, but it is important to this administration that council members know what's going on and that there's no doors that aren't open to them.

That was followed by breakfast with two federal judges who told me how lucky we were to have Charlene and lamented the fact that they didn't join our law firm, which was followed by Chief Harrison calling me about retention bonuses, followed by somebody who wants to reach out about economic development, followed by bond reports and working with Steve Nelson on how to make things better.

And that was all before 10 o'clock.

Uh I say that because I I know that we're on day three right now, but this is a team that is working very well together, and that I feel my responsibility as first deputy mayor is to not get in their way but help them manage all the things that need to happen and to be a conduit both with the mayor, with the council, and with the public.

Obviously, you've heard us say that, and I think um, in particular, deputy mayor, city attorney Gibson leaned into this um we are going to embrace things being difficult, and that we are not going to run or shy away from things being hard.

Um I view the job also, she used culture reset.

I may use something a little softer, which is culture shift, because I do believe there are very fine people who are working in this building who just want to be led.

But with that said, it does mean under this administration, under the Moreno administration, there are going to be substantive and procedural changes the way business has been done.

What I mean by that is having financial discipline that has not happened in the past, um, making sure as part of that that not only we are working on our own, but also working with the council in order to execute that and operational excellence in ways that you haven't seen.

Um let me give you one small example of that.

If I may, Steve Nelson reached out yesterday, and he wants to buy programming for AutoCAD, which is essentially drawing and not sending that out to engineers.

Um I think it's something like six thousand dollars for the subscription, but saving hundreds, if not millions of dollars by doing it in-house.

Those are the small type of things that we want to we want to work on.

Council member McCarron mentioned on the radio the idea that we haven't renegotiated our health care contract in 10 years.

That is something that needs to be examined.

Our parking contract expires in May, um, and we need to rework that to ensure better services and potentially more revenue for the city of New Orleans.

So I I think the most important things are that this mayor is working in fifth gear and is expecting, if not demanding, that her team does the same.

That means it has to be done with transparency, accountability, communication, collaboration, and coordination.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have after two days in this new role.

But certainly want to let you know that not only is my door open, but that I don't plan on being a stranger to the west wing of the second floor.

I met with many of you yesterday.

Thank you for making the time.

Thank you also for the grace and the cancellation being summoned to the mayor's office.

But we want to make sure that the council is fully abreast of what's going on.

The city attorney didn't say this, but the mayor has directed her to request executive session with council members to discuss ongoing matters so that there is more complete reporting.

And the bottom line is this is a new day.

Not only are we all in, but we're all in to work with this council to make sure the city is functioning better.

So I'm happy to answer any questions anybody may have.

Oh, you know those first.

I figured either you or anything.

Thank you.

Well, of course, I'm excited to be working with you again.

I think this is the best position.

You know, you know exactly what's going on, but in some ways, I think when you were on the council side, we saw that we were not actually potentially getting accurate information from the other side.

So I I appreciate you had already scheduled weekly meetings with council members.

I think that's a great first step to kind of having that collaboration that we all wanted to see previously, and now we are hoping to see going forward.

Um a couple of the things that you I noticed and and you and I noticed was the reporting that we were given at budget committee.

You know, it's on a on a PowerPoint, it's not uh it's a it's a stay stagnant page, it's not a spreadsheet, it's not any background information.

So you know, I'm curious, and and I know Chair Um Harris will probably have some of this at budget committee, but how do you intend on providing us with more budget to actuals um uh we learned there's not a balance sheet?

Um so just talk about it a little bit about some of that reporting that we're gonna be receiving on the council level that will allow us to see things in real time for better preparation of budget.

Yeah, you're right.

The benefit that I have on the positive end, but maybe some scars too, is that I've been in the building for eight years, but I also know what I don't know, and humbly embrace that.

Uh so to me, there's a few different things that need to be done.

Number one is uh when we met yesterday, my last meeting was with uh budget chair Harris and her team, and I want to make sure that everybody has full access to those systems that are necessary.

And so, to the extent Calvin or Ashley want need more access to what they need to, we are going to provide that on a read basis, obviously.

But I want I don't want to hear that a council member has a question and that they can't get an answer to it or they can't see it.

So part of I think the charge, and also by the way, this is a charter um thing too, is Councilmember Morel was talking about, so as we're digging in and actually like reading the charter, you know, um, that that the council through its budget office does have some of that authority, and so we want to make sure that the council is understanding.

The second thing is um I while we're keeping the weekly meetings for the time being, I'm sure there will be a point where y'all are I don't need to see you weekly, I'm tired of your face.

Um I'll find you when you need something.

But the exception I think will be the Tuesday before Thursday budget meetings.

And so at that point, I want to make sure that you all tell me in advance what you're looking for, obviously, to the extent possible we can provide it.

I know there's gonna be some reconciliations, I think that are gonna be hard to do on a day-to-day, but to provide those actuals, and then also what I've asked IGR to do is to sit down with council members at the end of those meetings and explain what each of the contracts are.

So I know council member Morel in particular was frustrated when we would get contracts, it'd have a routing sheet and it would say City of New Orleans to ABC Corporation for $300,000 with no explanation.

That is unfair to the public, and it's particularly unfair the council members who are being asked to vote on it.

So it is going to be to me and in every day in iterative process and making sure that not only does the council budget staff have access to that information, they have access to the high level planning meetings like the cash management meeting today at two o'clock, and then certainly as council members have other requests.

And then and then I guess to end, if I know you particularly talked about this on the campaign trail, council member, is if there are different ways of presenting the information that are more palatable and more up to date, certainly want to make sure people are seeing that.

And one of those is now NOPD, FIRE, and EMS, their their overtime lives in the CEO budget and not in the respective budgets of those departments.

So we are responsible for approving those.

And obviously, seeing that in real time, which is exactly what you're asking for, is to the benefit of all of us.

Thank you.

Also, I guess from when we were doing the budget process before, you know, department heads would submit to the CAO, and then you the CAO would have their own hearings, and then cuts would be made or additions would be made, and then you know, the council does not really have any insight into what that part of the budget process looks like.

We just get received the the budget on October 1st, and then we kind of have our own hearings.

You know, I I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how the the council and the CAO's office can kind of collaborate, and they and you know, Helena's office can collaborate more on the budget process up front on crafting those things and working with the council on that so that way we have a little bit more of an understanding of initially where department heads were looking for their budgets to be, and then potentially what cuts.

Obviously, we know that you know not everyone can have everything in these in these tough times, but you know, as we move forward, it would be good to have some more collaboration on that front end of the budget process, so we are we are more informed and aware of what was going on beforehand.

Yeah, I I completely agree with that.

Uh I guess a couple things.

One is my hope is obviously by regular meetings that you all will also understand trend lines earlier, and that by the time we get to May through the summer, um, the council members either will know or intuit what is is going on and who is doing what.

Uh, second, I think one of my leadership styles is going to be not only do obviously core city services get as much as they need to in order to be successful under Mayor Moreno's plan, but also those departments that are performing at a higher level probably deserve to get more too.

I think you want to make sure that people understand, and this is going to be one of my culture shifts.

Uh, I do not want to hear any more from departments.

This is my budget.

It's a city budget, and it's a city budget that's created by the mayor in concert with the CAO and finance and appropriated by the council.

And since it's a team effort, this is an R, not a my.

Um, and then the last thing is once again read the charter.

It's amazing what it says.

And it says that one of the things the CAO is supposed to do or part of the budget office is to speak with those stakeholders, including the council early on.

Um, obviously, we won't have all the answers as we're getting those things submitted, but my view is I probably would like to start that process in May or June, and then make sure as we're meeting regularly and as we're starting to get things back from departments that we see more.

I I will tell you, I know this will come as no great shock to you or anybody else in the council.

I've almost never had a department say I need less.

So you're you're not gonna, you're not it everybody's gonna be asking for more, but the the question is where are we in terms of our revenue, where are we in terms of our expenses?

The question Councilmember Willard asked, where are we on cutting things are unnecessary, and then based on those, how do we shape it so there's there's um more line of sight earlier on okay, and then my last question, and we kind of briefly talked about it yesterday, but um and maybe it's a a question for Steve as well, but the the capital budget planning, um it's just a request is that you know, as we are looking at that, and especially the bond funds, um, working with the district council members on their priorities, more so than just sending us a report of here's a list of things, because I think obviously you know that we are the ones that are on the ground and we are very aware of what is happening in our districts and and where that road work needs to happen and those sorts of things.

So I would ask that you know we kind of work through some it whether it's legislation or something like that where we've got to have a more collaborative approach to capital budget planning.

Yeah, I totally agree with that.

Um, you know, if a few things about that we discussed yesterday.

I know, for example, you've campaigned on and talked frequently about having lights, how do we use some of the money that was maybe not allocated for, or if there's a project that isn't as high a priority for reallocating that.

We're also talking to bond council right now about are there ways to use some of those bond proceeds for things that are possible that haven't been done before, and I think that's in sort of an interesting conversation.

We need to have.

I think the mayor has said this before.

We're obviously struggling, as she said, had a fragile operating side, we have a lot of capital room.

And so, how do we use capital to to do that?

One of the charges I'm gonna try and make to my team as well is if we can use capital money instead of using operating money to work with the council on that.

And then, you know, obviously using the capital funds to strengthen the operating budget is part of that.

But as the bonds are being sold, we want to make sure that the council is well aware of what's going on, what's happening, what your priorities are, what is what needs to be changed, what needs to be removed, what needs to be revived, and obviously um discuss what we think the best steps are going forward, both for the city and for your districts.

Great, all right.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm done.

Council Marine, thank you.

Mr.

CAO.

Um, I just wanted to be on the record again as saying how much I'm looking forward to working with you, and um I think it's very unique that the voters chose a former council member to be mayor, and then that we had the opportunity to have you as a former council member be in that very important and position that has to be trusted of CAO.

So I'm looking forward to working with you.

I'm gonna say two things that it doesn't necessarily require a response on your end, but as we're looking for additional revenues, and um we have state legislators, former state legislators on the council.

I'm gonna ask you to look into what we can do to ask the state for more direct assistance.

In my district alone, the um major thoroughfares, for example, are under the jurisdiction of the state, but they involve New Orleans police responses and EMS responses.

Of course, we know in our city, the Superdome, the Convention Center, City Park, all of the lands along our navigable waterways are owned by the state of Louisiana.

But our city police uh fire, uh, EMS have responsibilities, and they are called on often.

I'm gonna just ask the public to recognize that we're gonna be asked, I'm gonna be asking more about what the state can help do.

It's nice to say that the city of New Orleans is the um backbone of the finances of the state of Louisiana, and the state has a $51 billion dollar budget, and we have a really we have less than a billion dollars in terms of operating.

I mean, we've got a lot of grants, but the bottom line is that we have less than a billion dollars in terms of operating.

I'm just asking um you and I'm looking forward to working with you to see what we can do, especially working with the liaison to the state, which I believe will be Mr.

Tony and others, um, what we can do to ask the state in a very direct manner for more assistance.

We provide a lot, even in my district, to support Chef Highway to support Clavaron Avenue, to um parts of Allegiant Fields, to even respond to calls on the lakefront, for example.

But I don't think that in many instances we're getting back all the resources that we need.

Homelessness, for example, um, we respond to a lot of concerns on public thorough on state thoroughfares relative to those who are unhoused, and that's an expense to us, and I hope that we'll be able to work together back.

Um, so that's the main thing that I want to say.

I know it's something that we're gonna look into, but I want to ask you to let me know how I can help working with the state of Louisiana to get more revenues to support us because we are such an important part of the state's budget, and we are such an important part of the reason that people come and invest in Louisiana.

I just want us to do more to work together to make that happen.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Oh, let me say a few things.

Number one, one of the things I lamented when I was on the council was that we had so many people who had relationships across the state and were not properly utilized in doing those.

We have an embarrassment of riches on this council.

You have uh th three former legislators?

Four.

Three.

Three former legislators, and then people who represent Gentilly and Lakefront, Seabrook, the Upper Nine, Algiers, the Lakefront and Mid City who have connections across the 17th Street Canal and other places, and we weren't utilizing those.

And candidly, um, while the Moreno administration is working on this plan that you want to discuss about increasing revenue and how do we generate more from and with the state, our best partners are our elected colleagues helping us make that mission.

So I feel confident as uh the chair gets the other deputy mayors here, they will talk more about embracing that message because all in is not just the Moreno administration, it is the council and the administration working together to get what the city needs.

I remember that 30 years ago when I was ahead of economic development, before the legislative session would happen, there'd be a meeting to talk about the agenda.

Talk about what we needed to ask for to make sure that we were all on the same page.

I'm gonna purse my words, parcel words carefully on this, but I just hope that something like that happens again.

Um we know the sessions coming up.

We know that it's gonna be a fiscal session, for example, when it when it happens, whatever year it happens to be a fiscal session, not this one, but when it comes up, we know it in advance.

Let's just ask for what we might need in the spirit of cooperation, and I think that if we make our case well enough, the state will hear us.

I know that there are always going to be limitations on getting additional resources, but I hope that there will be a very deliberate effort, and I certainly want to be part of it.

I'm very confident with our mayor being a former legislator, she recognizes the importance of that in our council president and two members.

Um so we are in a position now, a unique position to be able to ask for and receive the respect that you all received, for example, when you went before the bond commission to get that 125 million dollars.

I hope that the state will see the sincerity, I think they will, and that we'll act on that sincerity and have regular opportunities to go out and try to get those resources that we need.

In the spirit of cooperation, the governor has come to say how important the state, the city is to the state of Louisiana.

Let's put the resources behind that to emphasize that.

I couldn't agree more, and look, um, I know I'm gonna try and be as diplomatic as I can say I know you're trying very hard.

I will try, I will try my best as well.

The only way we succeed is if we're all working together, and that means what you saw at the inauguration on Monday with the leaders across the South being here, and everybody working together to make sure they know what's going on.

It's a little frustrating, just candidly, you have every right to be frustrated.

But what we've heard from each of you today, as you started with Dr.

Vecno through Charlene, and now to me, is hey, can you include us in this?

That's really been the theme of your questions and your messaging.

Yes.

And I uh it has been heard loud and clear.

Uh to that end, uh, Mr.

Tuazolo, you saw was whispering in my ear, and he has specific update on exactly what you're asking.

So if you don't mind, I'll turn it over to Andrew.

Absolutely.

Could you introduce yourself, sir, to the public?

Sure.

Uh not a problem to the millions of people watching it.

I don't want to, uh I don't want to take too much time from CEO Jerusal or Deputy Mayor uh Harrison, but my name is Andrew Tizzolo.

I serve as special counsel to Mayor Moreno.

I'm familiar with most of you up here.

Just very briefly, I know that Joe just spoke that the Deputy Mayor Jerusa just spoke to this, but we have uh as the leader of the IGR uh department over at the mayor's office.

We intend to run a very different type of uh IGR shop, an intergovernmental shop.

And I know Mayor Moreno has been consistent on involving and being collaborative and making sure we're transparent.

So to that end, we will be um reshaping the way in which we approach the legislative session, and we'll be holding a much larger conversation, including council members, not just those who have served in the legislature, but all of you, informing you of our legislative agenda early, giving you insight on how we're approaching things and being bilateral so that we can hear from you about your ideas and incorporating those ideas in the city's legislative priorities.

So to that end, we'll be holding a larger meeting, both individual but also in a larger meeting, where we bring in both the deputy mayors, our departments, and of course yourselves, so that we can have a larger conversation about how the city approaches Baton Rouge, how we can be successful, how we can use all of our resources, whether they're former legislators, former council members, current council members to achieve the goals on behalf of this of the people of New Orleans.

So I I intend to make sure that happens, and I'll hope you hold us accountable to that, and we will be much more transparent than previous administrations on that act.

Thank you.

I'm looking forward to that.

That's a headline.

Don't get up yet, that's right.

Don't get up yet.

But that's a headliner.

My district, for example, includes six schools of higher education, for example, universities that uh come under the jurisdiction of the state.

We border City Park, we all inclusive of the lakefront.

So there are a lot of state resources in our city, but again, I'm going to be very diplomatic, that we can work with the state on to make our city better and therefore make the state better too.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

And I appreciate your mentioning and being very deliberate about the fact that there will be inclusion of council members, um, including those who aren't formerly in the legislature.

As I mentioned, my district includes so much that involves the state of Louisiana.

I want to be able to use some of those resources, maybe since I have communications with UNO and SUNO.

You know, Delgado has a campus in my district.

Um, like the LSU School of Dentistry, for example.

There are resources, there's information, there are ideas that can make our city better using the state resources.

I look forward to working with you, and congratulations.

Yes, sir, thank you.

Uh honestly, just so we brought we're talking about IGR now.

We have not had a robust IGR department since Mark Morel, just to be candid.

And that's across multiple mayors.

The goal standard for legislative communication for an organized legislative agenda is Jefferson Parish.

And I've said this, I represented parts of Orleans, Jefferson, and St.

Bernard.

Um, Ruby Noble in Jefferson Parish is the gold standard.

And I say that because as a representative in the deleg in the Jefferson Parish delegation, we got a binder each session that had every single Capital Outlay request, every single cash request, every single ordinance by both Council Mag district and legislative district, which put a layer of accountability on legislators saying, Well, if you fail fill to get this money, it's for your district.

So I think that there is no need when it comes to briefing the legislature and having a a cooperative environment, they're still over there.

Talk to the Jefferson Parish representatives, their delegation, they are happy to share with you their process, but the combination of having an organized legislative agenda, having a group like yourselves gonna work year-round communicating with legislators inside and outside of the area to promote specifically the financial goals and aims of the city, will yield dividends.

But there was a time during Mark Morriel where capital outlay and cash requests from the city were robust.

And I know that there is also a combination of the politics, the state of change significantly since then.

But at the very least, we need that level of organization.

And Andrew, I've known you forever, you're capable of it, you can do it.

I think that having everyone be on the same page, even if they may disagree specifically on different legislative items, there's a level of accountability that has not existed.

I mean, at as you saw last session, council members had to go to the legislature to kill delegation bills that were bad for the city.

And a lot of that was because there was a vacuum of leadership in the mayor's office and coordinating those conversations beforehand.

At times, some of the bad legislation was brought by the mayor, who then abandoned it when the legislature came up for a vote.

So I mean, having all these conversations on the front end robustly, to have an actual agenda for the first time, probably in eight years.

This is a that's a very large task, which I am more than comfortable stating you are capable of doing.

Council mayor, I'm trying not to encroach too much on your time.

So just to that end, uh Mayor Moreno uh required even before we got in this building for the last month.

We've been building a series of measures that we intend to bring to you upon when we get them in better form, uh, to uh regarding revenues, regarding non-revenue measures, because she knows, as all of you do, that we need to be prepared.

We've already made some of our uh filings for our bills that may do with retirement or with local bills.

We know the deadlines, and we're moving very quickly on this, and she's required us to move very quickly.

I'm really proud of the team we have.

Uh, briefly, I I know this is not our time, but I'll briefly introduce them because I know you're familiar with some.

Of course, you know Chuck Tony, who works with he's our state and local director.

He's sitting behind me here.

You all know Chuck, he uh used to work with uh Councilmember King, of course, and now he's working with us.

We're really proud to have him.

We also have Amber Russ, you all might know uh from the legislature.

Councilman Morell, when I worked in the legislature alongside you, uh I worked in the Jefferson Parish uh delegation sometimes, and I was incredibly impressed with Ruby's uh operation.

Not only do they have all the elected officials in the building, and they had the mayors and leaders of uh towns, Gretna, other towns, they had the levy district, the all everybody was in the room and they had a robust conversation, but it was led by the city, and the presentation was given that ensured that this everyone knew the city had its act together.

Right.

I intend to have that Mayor Moreno wants to have the city have its act together.

I know um our team's gonna be able to deliver that.

We also have Liz Brusso, I think you all know Liz, she'll be working with us on the council side.

Uh I'm really proud that we have this operation.

Of course, we have all of your wonderful friends like CEO Jeruso, who all have great relationships here with y'all, and I'm super excited to be working in this operation.

So uh with that, I'll turn it over to y'all unless you have anything else.

I'm good.

You done with Joe, can I have my shot at yeah?

I do want to mention on the record that it was with me and Moreau that we used to have those meetings.

I'm mentioned and give credit where credit is.

I I started by saying he was the easy.

He was the last one that had a robust.

I mean, it was a machine.

And we need to go back to having a machine.

Yes.

I you and I should be I should be hesitant to not mention names, but you know, it's not offending anybody else to mention there was a lot going on back then when I was the head of economic development in terms of going to the state.

I think the state respected it, and the state is going to respect you, Andrew, and your team as we go there and look for what we need.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you.

All right.

Joseph Ignatius.

Uh uh oh.

Um certainly I think that I would say I do not envy you because expectations are very high of the Moreno administration.

And as you know, um, when you look at the when you look at the charter and how government is structured, it really puts a lot of weight on the CAO to implement all the things that the mayor and the council cooperatively decide they want to do.

So it is gonna be very interesting seeing how you manage all of the different every council member has different things that have their priorities.

The mayor has our priorities, and you have to make it all work and also come in under budget and on time.

And I cannot think of anyone more capable of doing so, and I say that with all sincerity.

I think that when you look at people like Charlene and you look at the fact that they are choosing to come into state into city government where they are, you're in a very similar boat.

You had a lot of opportunities, a lot of opportunities, um, more robust opportunities than the ones you took, and I I'm very grateful that you decide to continue your public service instead, because at this time at this juncture, the city needs you.

And history is being made, history is not written by us, but I think it's very important when you see this council, you see this mayor.

There is already an idea that we are trying to create a city that our families, our children, our grandchildren can live and thrive in.

And I know as a parent, as someone who was born and bred in New Orleans, you feel that calling to make us a place where Sophia and Marta can choose to live if they want to, because if we don't do things differently, it won't be a choice for our kids and grandchildren.

So I don't really have any questions because I know everything about you already.

Unfortunately, you went to Jesuit, can't do anything about that.

But I didn't even bring it up today.

In fact, I would have lost money on Councilmember Green not brought up St.

Alga on Monday.

The moment we get a St.

Grad or a parent of a St.

All grad through confirmation, it'll be the whole confirmation.

So I just wanted to make sure every remembers you went to Jesuits.

So if you don't like what Joe's doing, blame Jesuit.

Look, um I I appreciate those comments.

Um I will I will say a couple things.

Obviously, the opportunity work with Mayor Moreno was was an overriding factor in all this.

Um working with the council and having relationships and understanding.

Uh I certainly am aware of people saying, well, Joe hasn't run an operation of 5,000 people before and done other things.

But I I think right now what you've seen with the mayor putting our team together is who has institutional knowledge that can hit the ground running on day one.

And um we want to make sure that is what happens, and council member, I will say, maybe along those thoughts, uh Sophia is a freshman away at college, Marta is a junior, and I want both of them to start saying, I want to come back to New Orleans.

I think unfortunately they've probably watched their father internally complain more at home than he ever did publicly.

And maybe I have soured them.

Uh and my hope is that they say, Oh, when you have good competent leadership, when people are working together, when you are focused on common goals, then guess what?

New Orleans is not only punching above its weight, but it's hit its weight class, and this is a city I want to live in.

All right.

I think we're done with Councilman Jeruso.

Chief.

Hey, uh, Mr.

Chair, let me just say this.

I have I'm sorry, I have to run to a one o'clock revenue meeting, and Chief has to run to a one o'clock CR 1 meeting.

We're gonna go fast with Chief.

All right, there you go.

We're gonna go fast.

Mr.

Green, I'm looking at you.

All right, but he's talking about public service.

I mean, I know, but remember, he's not the chief.

Chief, I'm sorry in advance.

Because he's gonna probably talk for 45 minutes.

But go ahead.

No worries.

Good morning, uh Council President, uh, council members, and thank you for allowing me to be here with you today.

Of course, you know my name is Michael Harrison, the new deputy mayor of public safety.

My career in law enforcement and public safety leadership has prepared me to address the very complex safety challenges facing our city.

Having served as the New Orleans Police Department's superintendent and the commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department, and over the last two years serving as a policing consultant in multiple cities, uh, to include New Orleans, I bring both operational experience and a deep commitment to community-oriented public safety approaches.

I've had to ask myself this question.

You may have even asked yourself this question.

Why did I leave the private sector to come back into public service more specifically this administration at this time?

It was because of Mayor Moreno.

And she called and asked.

That's why I said yes.

I joined Mayor Moreno's team because of her comprehensive vision for public safety that goes far beyond traditional policing to address root causes and conditions that foster crime.

The mayor understands that true safety requires a whole government approach from repairing street lights to eliminating blight to ensuring our emergency services are fully staffed and responsive.

I am particularly grateful and aligned with her commitment to both immediate action and long-term strategies that build sustainable safety in every neighborhood.

So a little bit about our first 100-day priorities.

Mayor Moreno has directed me to take a coordinated whole government approach to delivering a safer city, starting with several immediate priorities.

First and foremost, we are ensuring full operational readiness for Mardi Ground through multi-agency tabletop exercises and walkthroughs to guarantee communication, collaboration and coordination, and proper deployment of resources, both equipment and people.

In coordination with infrastructure, we're addressing conditions that foster crime by, as you've heard, repairing broken street lights, eliminating blight, and clearing hazards around community assets.

Public safety is the foundation of everything we hope to achieve as a city, and I look forward to working with this council to deliver safe neighborhoods to every New Orleanian who pays for it, who deserves it, and who expects it.

Thank you.

Offer up time for any questions that you may have.

All right, Mr.

Green.

You're gonna be surprised, Mr.

President.

I'm not gonna have that much to say, because I'm just looking forward to working with you.

The reason that I decide that I wanted to be in this particular job was to be able to make a difference in some areas where we've made a difference.

We've made a difference in crime, and that was something that I really wanted to focus on.

Um that means that people are feeling a little bit more confident about our city and they're willing to invest a little bit more.

I see it in the district that I represent.

I see almost a boom in new construction of houses.

I see people building new campuses, for example, as Heinz did in the community, because they feel a little bit more comfortable.

It's not just about crime, it's about public safety in general.

The thing that I want to say is to the public, um, we need your assistance to let us know what we need to know.

And that's just not from the police standpoint.

If you see something that needs to be said um relative to anything that's not working right, be sure to let us know because we have a new attitude relative to certain developments in our city and certain infrastructure needs.

But I do want to say I appreciate your work as a member of the law enforcement community.

Yes, it takes a lot to reduce crime and to make our city safer, and but law enforcement is such an important part.

I do want you to know that um to our members of our law enforcement community, local, state, and federal, that I see what you're doing.

I see the investigations, I see the way that our citizens are being made to be able to live in a city that is safer.

The progress that we as a council have made over the last four years relative to making resources available in important areas, both law enforcement and also health related, for example, recreation and like has made a difference.

I want to say to our citizens that in many respects we're moving in the right direction and having Chief Michael Harrison as the head of an area that's going to address multiple a multiplicity of issues relative to public safety is very, very important.

Your experience and your commitment, I appreciate.

Call on me at any time, tell me what I need to know.

I will certainly not hesitate to share information with you.

But let us all keep in mind that the reason that government should be efficient, and the reason that our criminal justice system should operate in a constitutional manner, the reason that we provide resources to areas such as health and recreation, it's all designed to enhance the safety and comfort of our citizens.

You play a very important role in that area, and I'm looking forward to working with you.

Thank you so much.

I I only I appreciate that.

I'll only add that uh I'll have oversight over police, fire, homeland security, emergency preparedness, the juvenile justice center, and though I don't have jurisdiction over the communications district, that I will certainly be doing work there, along with partnering with our district attorney, our sheriff, all the other elected officials, and even the courts, and while I don't have jurisdiction over other independently elected officials, part of what the mayor's asked me to do is help synchronize the criminal justice efforts and crime fighting efforts to include the efforts that are not policing, because a large part of why we're seeing the success is because there are violence prevention initiatives like prevention and intervention, rehabilitation, reentry, all of those things working together with enforcement, and when they are synchronized and working in harmony, we see the results that we're seeing.

Now it's time to double down, go faster and do more of it.

You'll be working on the coordination of local, for example, state and federal, I guess in some respects, right?

Absolutely.

So very important.

People don't pay attention to the fact that that is working too, you know.

Absolutely.

On the mayor's second day, yesterday, we met with all the heads of all the federal agencies, the state police, the district attorney, and the U.S.

attorney all met for an hour and a half in the mayor's office.

For the mayor to cast her vision and to hear from all the federal agencies with the chief of police, and we all talked about her vision, how crime fighting should look and feel in New Orleans and how we do that in a synchronized way without silos, no one seeking credit but moving as one team because we were in one fight for one city and we speak with one voice.

And so that happened yesterday on her second day.

That's very good news that we're continuing to move in that area because that's made a big difference too.

I recognize everything that you say.

I know that I focus a lot because I see a lot relative to law enforcement, but I see those other organizations doing their work.

In fact, as a member of the council, I'm proud to, through the recreation and culture fund, have been able to fund a significant number of organizations, some of their initiatives, whether it be in the areas of providing um emotional support to young people, recreation support, such as dance and the like, all of that makes people feel better about living in our city.

But one thing that makes them feel really tremendously good about our city is when they can wake up in the morning and see different headlines than they used to see some time ago.

They can see that they they're not going to a community meeting, and the first thing they're talking about is the carjacking or the pure the person shooting the gun in the air.

They're able to talk about what they might do to continue to support and get new businesses into their communities and to help clean up their communities.

And again, working with all of the different agencies that you're gonna be working with, you play such an important role in making our citizens feel better about their city, as does the health department, as does other offices.

But I just want to emphasize my feeling relative to the importance of what your office is going to do, and to emphasize, please call on me.

Thank you.

I look forward to working with you.

Council McCarry.

Um I just have a quick question about the Office of Nighttime Economy.

Will that be under you or no ma'am?

That is not that is not under me.

I'll have some association with it, but it's not under my direct oversight.

Okay, because they they sort of handle a lot of issues for district council members late at night when like a bar is operating or you know, parking issues, um, noise variances, stuff like that.

I mean, I know some of that will likely, so I guess I'm just curious how your office can help with some of those quality of life issues that we we get as district council members, you know, day and night on on the other.

So I'll I'll say that the public safety agencies that respond to the complaints and that have to mitigate the complaints, respond to it, take enforcement action against it, those agencies like police, if fire, if emergen if Homeland Security emergency preparedness, uh anybody taking enforcement action, like those public safety agencies that we'll have oversight on.

That specific office of nighttime engagement office itself does not fall under my purview.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I'm and maybe some of the work that you know what you are responsible for will happen with that with in coordination with that, but it is a good resource for us to have that ability to where you know they bar owners and neighbors are able to just call them and and they come out and investigate.

So it's supposed as opposed to immediately calling the NOPD, and a lot of times they relieve a lot of those issues at late at night.

So, you know, maybe some coordination with them when you so that is the that is the central theme of what the mayor has asked me to do to ensure competent coordination, collaboration, communication of all of our services that we're delivering, all of the initiatives that we take on all of the duties that we are to perform, that we do it in a way that's coordinated in collaboration with all the agencies without silos, and to make sure that there are single points of accountability.

Um I'm a leader who believes in the concept called accountability-driven leadership.

Accountability without transparency, by the way, is not accountability at all.

It is not how well we do a thing, but rather how many people know we did it well.

But on the opposite end, if we don't do something well, it is how willing are we to come say that we didn't do this well and take accountability for it, learn from it, correct it, and ensure that it doesn't happen again.

And so that's my commitment to the community.

That's my commitment to this council.

That was certainly my commitment to the mayor, and I commit that the leaders of the public safety agencies that I oversee are making that commitment and will deliver to that commitment as well.

Great.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh, I'll be fairly brief.

Uh I know we we met previously to this, and I think the biggest concern that you addressed, it's a concern that I think we both had was when you look at what happened with January 1st, it really exposed a lack of coordination.

Because I know the job here when the Nice attack happened in France with the truck.

Yes.

That the NOPD and Homeland Security, um, in recognition of that, implemented a series of different uh tabletops like and policies to prevent something like that from happening, and yet over the course of so many years, a lot of that institutional knowledge and accountability kind of fell by the wayside.

And I look forward with your leadership and institutional knowledge, developing mechanisms so that not only do you fix what's wrong, but that you create policies, accountability, and build in institutional pillars so that when both of our time and government has ceased, the lessons stick because it is beyond frustrating when you see something that like when you were on the four job, you literally trained for that incident when you see all of that training, all of that work, and it not being implemented because too much time has passed from when the urgency was there to now.

And I really look forward with all of the knowledge you have, practical knowledge, practical experience, us trying to build in some real institutional pillars so that we don't have situations when, like I said, when you and I are out of government where people just forget what we already knew.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Um that you can look forward to.

That is my commitment, not just to the tabletop exercises we do before an event, but the after action look back over how it went, what we could have done better, and how we take what we saw, implement it into a new policy so that the next time we have that event or the next event, we're ready to learn from the previous event what mistakes were made or what was done well that really could have been done better.

And if we saw that we didn't have vulnerabilities, how do we even improve on that?

We troubleshoot and test it to make sure that if we have vulnerabilities that we close those gaps.

And so that's done through coordination, collaboration, and communication at all levels, and that every member of the organization, from the superintendent of police fire, and homeland security all the way down to the newest employee.

Everybody understands the vision, the mission, and what's expected of them.

And we don't just trust, we trust and then we verify well, I think that clears the board for all our questions.

We appreciate you being here today and appreciate working with you in the future and making the city safer.

I look forward to it.

Thank you all for having me.

Thank you.

All right with that Councilman Dream moves we adjourn.

Hearing no objection we're adjourned.

Thank you.

Somehow you can take it in thank you.