On Thursday, July 9, 2026, the French Quarter Economic Development District (FQEDD) Governing Authority convened at New Orleans City Hall. Six councilmembers were present (Green, Harris, King, McCarron, President Morrell, Vice President Willard) and one was absent (Hughes), constituting a quorum. The meeting covered the Q2 2026 budget and expenditure report, public safety and homelessness initiatives, and a motion to designate representatives for future FQEDD documents.
We are pleased to share that we are collecting more taxes. Thank you to the city for uh quarter one and quarter two. We are at 50% 56% of what we anticipated this year, and a little bit lower at 35% for the expenses thus far. The expenses largely are low just because of timing of different projects that we ensue. So you'll see those numbers go up in subsequent quarters. The purpose of the French Quarter Economic Development District is to provide funding for supplemental patrols, public safety, and attend to homelessness in the quarter. These are the key performance indices for the supplemental patrols. Um all of these patrols really look good. You'll see the numbers have significantly exceeded the expectations for citizen contacts, business checks, and all of the KPIs are above where we anticipated. Additional um categories that we track, you'll see all of those numbers there. Again, by and large, the supplemental patrols, those are those blue lights that you see that go all throughout the French Quarter, are there to be responsive to the incidents in the quarter, be proactive in deterring any safety concerns, and being a direct link to the citizens and businesses that we support. You'll have in front of you our French quarter task force app. This is one of those uh tools that is paid for by the uh quarter for the quarter tax. This is the residents and businesses' direct link to those supplemental patrols. On average, we're looking at uh five minutes or less, I believe. Excuse me, six minutes is the average that we have for the first six months of 2026 in terms of response time, but we are actively promoting this right now to our businesses, the employees in the quarter, and certainly the residents as well. One of the while we have um Covenant House as our uh contractor or vendor for our youth homeless outreach. We are also in coordination with um the Office of Homeless Services with Dr. Vagno's team and Taylor Dials. We will be starting the um tag team approach that's simply a replication of the home for good plan last summer to have a Office of Homeless Services professional go out with one of our patrol officers, literally 24-7. Um, there's some variations of that, but we will be starting that probably August 1st. Those positions are posted right now. I know Dr. Vegno is anxious to get those positions filled, so that we have some good um reporting to give for you for next month. Finally, we are in our budget process right now, as is our so many departments across the city. We are seeking engagement from our uh partners in DPW for those public safety issues for with NOPD certainly for what they need for the supplemental patrols, and certainly Dr. Avagno's team for what their needs are for 2027 for homelessness, and so we always seek input certainly from our council members and also from the city on what other things you want to see in 2027's budget. I'll take any questions that you have. Any questions? Uh, one of really quick ask Capital Palumbo this the overall safety or the crime in a quarter. What is it looking like for someone on the streets? So overall, we're about 26% down. That equates to 17% down on the violent crime side, and about 24% down on the property crime side. The only category that we've seen an increase in on the persons crime side is aggravated assaults. We're roughly 22 this year going against 18. So that's an increase of four crimes. All 22 of those have been solved. So there's either an arrest made or warrant issued on the person on the property crime side. Thefts and shopliftings are what drives our downward trend. We have seen increases in business burglaries as well as residents and simple burglaries. Um, however, like if you look at business burglars, we're 20 gone against 10. Um, if I go back to 2024, that number was at 30. So we had a major decrease last year. Um, and we have been at 20 for about four weeks now. So although we're up for the year, the trend over the last four weeks is a reduction. Um, you see the same thing with auto theft and um uh auto burglary. Uh while we're up for the year, the trend over the last month is down, and that's attributed to many of the arrests that have been made um not only in the in the eighth district, but we did have a crew that was hitting the eighth, the second, and the sixth, and we worked in coordination together. Um to make apprehensions on those. Well, uh, I believe that's it for for comments. That's it, nothing else?