Good afternoon, everyone.

We're gonna go ahead and get started.

If you'd like to take your seats.

Hear me clap twice.

So we'll get started and call the July twenty first meeting of the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee to order.

Why don't we start with roll call?

Elizabeth Holman.

Sabrina Mays is not able to join us today, but she sends her regards.

Maxwell Chardulo.

Ellen Lee.

Tasia Gasper.

Present.

Monique Blossom here.

Elizabeth Harvey here.

So we have six and a quorum.

So again, welcome to the July twenty first meeting in the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee.

My name's Monique Blossom.

If you haven't seen me this year at advisory committees, unfortunately, but I'm very happy to be here serving as co-chair alongside Miss Ellen Lee.

Today we're going to hear from fund administrators with updates on the Housing Trust Fund funded projects as well as Housing NOLA and Maxwell Chardulo on housing needs.

How do we do it?

Let me make the motion.

I make the motion because in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Six eyes, the motion, the minutes are approved.

And so with that, we're going to skip down to item number three on our agenda presentations on housing needs of low income renters and homeowners.

And first we'll turn it over to our committee member Maxwell Chardulo to present on area median income and racial redress.

Thank you.

Um you want me to just go down there?

Yeah, yeah, I can go down there.

That's fine.

Hi everybody, you can hear me okay?

Yes.

Awesome.

Uh just get my clicker situated.

Um I'm gonna keep this, I'm gonna try and keep this relatively short, but wanted to share some new research from my day job with the redress movement um and how it applies to New Orleans.

And for folks who don't know, I'm the research director with the redress movement, which is an organization that focuses on organizing and building power at the local level to redress the harms of housing segregation.

And we currently organize in Denver, Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Omaha, so not New Orleans.

Um but we put out a new policy brief about how racial inequality is built into the way we measure rental housing affordability, and specifically the area median income or AMI, which is a thing that I know we reference in this committee a lot.

Um so I I just wanted to share a little bit about how that applies here in New Orleans and a brief disclaimer here at the beginning that everything I'm about to say in this presentation is about affordable rental units and does not apply to affordable homeownership programs in the same way.

Um the brief shows how the rents set by the federal government for affordable housing are actually unaffordable to most renter households, um, especially in black and Latina neighborhoods.

Um it was inspired by a policy in Omaha that dedicated 40 million dollars in bond funds to affordable rental housing developments near a new streetcar line where there's risk of gentrification, which is a great idea.

Um but we found out that the majority of new units are likely to have rent set around $1,500 a month for a two-bedroom, um, even though the typical renter household in a black neighborhood in Omaha can only afford about $700 a month, so less than half.

Um there we go.

Um so that is the brief up there.

Um you can find it on our website, the redressmovement.org.

Um you can see on the chart here what the median renter household can afford in rent in Omaha is about um ten seventy-eight a month.

And then what the median renter household in a black neighborhood can afford, uh about $717 a month, and in a Latina neighborhood, about $959.

So in each case, that's far less than what the typical 60% AMI two-bedroom unit is priced at.

That's in the pink there on the far right.

Um that's the 1,500, roughly 1500, or from what a two-bedroom 80% AMI unit is priced at, which is more than $2,000 a month.

And so the brief tracks this huge racial rent gap in all four of the cities we worked in.

And and again, like I said, it's not in the report, but I re ran the data for New Orleans.

Um I'm gonna share that here in a minute.

And so before I do that, I just want to talk about why these supposedly affordable rents set by the federal government are actually so expensive.

Um it starts with AMI because all the measures of affordability and how we set rents are based on that.

So you hear us talking about the AMI limit for an affordable unit, and that's the most money that a household can make and still qualify to rent the unit.

Um, but in most cases, the AMI of the unit also determines the rent that it's charged for.

And we don't really talk about that enough when we talk about affordable housing.

We talk about the limit, like the income limit, but we don't really talk about what the actual rent works out to.

And the number one reason that racial inequality is baked into this measure is that the way the government calculates AMI for a rental unit is by taking the median income of all renter households and all homeowner households, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

That's true in New Orleans.

So it should come as no surprise that homeowner households, which are disproportionately white, often make twice as much as renter households.

And this is what that looks like.

Owner occupied households make far more than renter households.

And it's worth noting that though that sort of among this sample, the disparity is actually worst in New Orleans.

Our median income for homeowners is uh almost $86,000 a year, and it's only about 40,000 for renters.

So that makes us the only city in this sample here where owner-occupied households make more than twice as much as renter households.

Um that obviously skews our AMI higher, and then subsequently skews our affordable rents higher as well.

Um here's what the New Orleans data shows, and apologies for my lack of design skills, it's not as pretty as the Omaha graphic that you saw before.

Well, thanks.

Um you saw on the last slide the typical renter household in New Orleans makes about 40,000 a year.

So you if we assume that no one should pay more than 30% of their income towards rent and utilities, then the typical renter household in New Orleans can afford about 892 a month in rent.

Um I'll note that we're using Hanno's uh utility allowance uh which estimates utilities for a two-bedroom apartment at about 104 dollars a month.

If that sounds low to you, then 892 a month is maybe a little generous, and what the typical renter can afford is maybe closer to 850 or 800.

Um although we would hope that if we're talking about brand new affordable apartments, they are hopefully built with you know new windows and up to sort of uh resiliency standards that would keep down an energy bill, you would hope.

Anyway, um below the citywide measure.

I pulled some examples of people who make roughly this amount on average in New Orleans.

This is based on labor statistics data or um Department of Labor data.

So phlebotomists, teaching assistants, construction workers, these are all folks who fall into like what a median renter household would look like here in New Orleans.

Um next to that I ran the same numbers but only in black neighborhoods, um, which the redress movement and sort of the literature, I did a little review of this, defined as neighborhoods that are 40% black or more, and that's sort of when people start to refer to a neighborhood as a black neighborhood, it's also when you start to see disinvestment start to take place.

Um annual renter household income is about $34,000 a year in black neighborhoods here, um, meaning affordable rent is about $741 a month.

And again, people at the income level here, this income level include retail workers, cooks, home health aids.

Obviously, these are all folks who are an integral part of our community who we want to make sure can stay here.

Um I'll just note the reason you don't see numbers here for other racial groups is because the census makes it really hard to pull data by tenure, which is like whether you're a renter or a homeowner, and income and race all at the same time.

Um so instead we looked at the median income for renters in black neighborhoods.

Um I tried to run the same measure for Latin A neighborhoods, but there's only a single census tract in New Orleans that meets that 40% threshold, and that wasn't like a big enough sample to work with.

Um this chart is comparing what these members of our community can afford to what the typical affordable rental units are priced at.

And you can see that at 60% AMI, which is one of the most common sort of like uh income levels that we hold uh for affordable units here, rent is likely to be about twelve hundred dollars a month for a two-bedroom, and at 80% AMI, sixteen hundred dollars a month.

Um and so what that means for AMIs is that 80% AMI and even 60% AMI units are unaffordable to the typical renter household in New Orleans.

So that's not even someone making below the sort of median household, that's just the median household.

Um I'll note that I use two bedroom households for the report because it's the most common household size.

Um, but even one bedroom apartments are out of reach to the median renter at 60% and 80% AMI.

So if we want to serve the typical black renter household, and I think we have an obligation to do that, we need to be creating two bedroom units at 30% AMI.

That's where that's what $740 a month actually looks like.

Even for households that might need one bedroom units, we'd still need to hit 40% AMI for them to be able to afford uh affordable to renters in black neighborhoods.

So I just wanted to I'm sharing this, and I think it's important for us to think about because we don't really have any programs dedicated to creating rental units at this level.

Um these are the existing programs or funding streams that that I know of uh that we have to create affordable rental units.

Um and I'll I'll just sort of walk through them.

Um LITEC or the low-income housing tax credit program, which is awarded by the state, uh although the rules are set in large part by the feds.

Um can create a small share of units at it can create a small share of units at 30% of the area media income, but the program is generally designed to create most units at 50%, 60%, and 80% AMI.

And if you look at the LITEC projects in New Orleans in the last 20 years, that's where most of the units fall.

Um the home program, which is federal funding controlled by the city and is typically used as gap funding for LITEC projects.

That's how we've used it in the past, you know, 10, 15 years, as long as I've been paying attention here.

Um, you know, because it's used as gap funding for the same sorts of developments, it creates it hits the same AMI levels 50%, 60%, 80% generally.

Um PBVs stands for project based vouchers, and they are awarded to developers by HANO, the housing authority, and they do ensure that any renter in that unit only has to pay 30% of their income towards rent.

So that is really where like that's the sweet spot that's what we need.

Um and some of the multifamily developments that we passed a resolution in support of uh at the last meeting include project-based voucher units and will actually have deeply affordable units, so that's excellent.

Um housing choice voucher, which is like section eight also caps rent at 30% of a renter's income.

But the caveat here is that we're not likely to get any more of those units in the near near future, and they're already a limited resource.

So only about 25% of renters who qualify for a voucher actually actually receive one.

So we can't really depend on sort of creating new units with more of these.

Um the next program here is the small multifamily affordable developments, um, which currently hit uh renters at 60% and 80% when we fund them through the housing trust fund.

That's where we um set our uh requirements for 2026.

And then the small uh rental rehab program, which is run by OCD, and the housing trust fund has added money to that for this year.

Um but it's currently set to rehab rental units and then hold them affordable at 80% AMI.

Um so again, none of them get down to the 30 or 40 percent that we're talking about.

Um so those last two ones are the ones that the housing trust fund has funded and actually and that we have some say over.

Um and so we could recommend that those developments hit lower area median incomes, but I think it's important to talk about the fact that there's always a trade-off here with lower AMIs and lower rents.

It almost always means that we need to award the developers more funding per unit, and that means we get less total units.

Um I'm bringing that up because I think that's something we have to start reckoning with.

Um I'm not you know sure we're there yet, but there are cities that are overbuilt for 60% AMI units.

Um that means that they put scarce affordable housing funding into building 60% AMI units and they are sitting empty because they're too expensive for the people who actually need them.

Um that would be an incredible waste, and I don't want us to get there.

Um regardless of whether we're overbuilt or not, I think this is a huge factor in homelessness here.

Um forty, three hundred people enter homelessness in New Orleans each year.

Uh a lot of those people end up sort of resolving that by finding a couch or an apartment.

But that sort of open spigot of people pouring onto our streets is at least in part the result of the fact that the vast majority of affordable units that we've created over the past two decades aren't affordable to the people who need them most.

Um so I know that's kind of a bummer to hear, but we have to contend with the facts.

And I actually think we have some of the most creative and thoughtful affordable housing mines in the country here in New Orleans.

So I'm looking forward to strategizing with all of you about how we can get better at this moving forward and how the housing trust fund can be a part of that.

Um I'm gonna leave it there.

I'm happy to take any questions from y'all.

Um but you can this is just the information about where you can find the brief and and the information that I shared.

Thank you, Maxwell.

Um questions from the day so I'll start on this end.

I did Maxwell, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh great research uh for us and for our thinking.

Within the um the numbers, do you know or I know it's there, how many of these households we have in New Orleans that are, you know, at the uh you gave on the medium household income on slide.

Yeah, so I think we have about roughly 70,000 renter households in New Orleans.

So this is the median, which is the middle.

So 35 house 35,000 households are at this level or below.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

35,000 households, you know, roughly, you know, 80, 90,000 people, depending on how many people in household.

Thank you.

Um could you explain just for everyone's general knowledge who sets AMI, how they set it?

Is it different for New Orleans than it is for San Antonio?

Just some of the basic background on that.

Yeah, the formula is federal, um, and it's set by the federal government.

Um HUD is the one generally who sets that formula.

Um and then the Treasury Department, which runs LITEC relies on a similar formula formula.

Um so it is it it specifically looks at um family income rather than household income, um, which means that if you are a single person without any children who lives on your own, like like me, say, um, my income is not ever factored into that.

So anyone who is a it means that a lot of households that are single income earners never get factored into that um that uh formula.

It also, like I said, includes homeowners, which makes no sense when you're factoring in when you're trying to consider rental affordability.

Um and it looks at metro areas, so it doesn't look at New Orleans as a whole.

It includes our AMI measure includes um St.

Tammany Parish, Jefferson Parish, St.

Bernard Parish.

I think it's I forget exactly what the metro area encompasses, but it's like seven parishes, I believe.

So all of those incomes are included as well.

And that's true, you know, depending on what the metro how the metro area is defined, that's true everywhere across the country.

Thanks.

So if my question is kind of more of a statement, but I think that considering that it's not just Orleans parish, you know, incomes and family homes, that the the data is a little like high because you know, to to say seven, seven hundred and some change is um affordable in to your point about homelessness, I think this is where my question starts to begin.

So in the idea we find a solution and it's at 30 percent.

Um how do we and maybe this is something we could talk about later, but how do we ensure that for festivals, people who come in, they don't just stay.

And I don't mean to be rude when I say it that way, but that the people here have access.

So we have vouchers.

What does that look like?

And then we have people who have been on vouchers and they want to be homeowners who are now counted into this conversation, which is great.

Um so I think that's where my brain is starting to like go, but in whatever you can respond to.

This is a good question, because it's come up in council meetings recently too.

So federal programs, you cannot restrict access based on, you know, you can't say like, well, only only people from Orleans Parish or only people from Jefferson Parish or whatever can have access to these programs.

Um that said, I think, you know, we know that New Orleans Parish has lost a lot of our low-income residents to suburban parishes.

Um and so there are you know, people who grew up in New Orleans but now live on the West Bank who might like to move back here.

Um yeah, I think I think uh we're constrained a little bit, um, but I think we also have to be thinking more broadly about who actually you know, like like people who want to be here are often people who've been pushed out already.

You of course mean Gretna on the West Bank and not Algiers.

Correct.

Jefferson Parish West Bank.

Um is there laws that prohibit us from maybe uh doing something like they did with Seoul City, and not to say that they have to go first or have priority, but if there's like a waiting list or something, or versus um if you're homeless, you know it's you're homeless with children, then we know that's a a quick priority versus this or that.

There are yes.

Uh I don't want to get I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here and take us too far off topic, but there are possibilities for preference programs.

Um and there are interesting ways to run those, and there's those are things we could definitely talk about.

Great, thank you so much, Maxwell.

I don't see any public comment cards for this item.

I didn't see a uh written agenda, and I didn't see an invite on my site.

So we're talking about the housing trust funds, am I correct?

Yes, ma'am.

And is it to what specifically we're talking about Maxwell's presentation?

So if you wanted to speak more to how the money should be used, that would be item number four today.

Well, uh, I just want to say that you know, I thought we already set how the money is going to be used.

Is it something new?

No, we haven't made that determination for the homeownership, the photograph roofs, uh the doubles and the four flexes that hasn't been decided yet.

Well, that's the that's the funding for this year that's going out shortly.

That what we're gonna be talking about in item number four is for 2027.

Oh that's what's not been determined yet.

Okay, that's what I needed to know.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Next, we will have housing Nola with their presentation housing for all tenure investment plan.

Well, I printed this one.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Good afternoon.

And we're gonna do the full presentation.

Oh, I should have paid attention on how Liz did this.

It's oh yeah.

Um, is it?

Uh oh goodness.

Oh, here, wait, right here.

And then uh maybe right there.

There we go.

All right, thank y'all so much for today for that.

Andrenika Mars with Housing NOLA.

Um, pleasure to be here with you all today.

And we've been asked to talk about the state of housing here in New Orleans, and specifically we want to focus on our 10-year investment plan, which the housing trust fund is the foundation of the anchor of.

And so, uh oh, here we go.

So we also want to ground it with everybody to remind folks that housing for all is an economic impact as well.

It's not simply about the morality of guaranteeing housing for all.

I know we can all agree on that, but it's also just smart strategy.

And so this is a statistic we've been tracking for a number of years, um, over the number of renters and homeowners who are experiencing a housing cost burden, meaning they're spending more than 30% of their income on their total housing costs.

That's about 70,000.

Um, that's about seven, it's 40,000 renters and 29,000 homeowners.

That's about um sorry, 70,000 households just in New Orleans alone, just in the city, who are experiencing that that economic burden.

If those households were actually paying that 30% or below, those households would have a half a billion dollars of their own money, of their own economic power every year to wield on their own behalf in this city.

That's they they can be the job creators, they can drive the economy, they can square up against the likes of Jeff Landry and the data centers and the other false solutions that are being offered.

We can take care of ourselves if we make sure that we have what we need.

Over 30 years, that's 15 billion dollars in the hands of the people of New Orleans deciding what they want and what they need.

So housing for all isn't simply again mockish sentimentality, it is smart, disciplined strategy that we must adapt, and we must figure out how to invest in ourselves, and we're so glad and grateful to this committee for for prioritizing that with the work you're going to be doing over the next couple of months to continue the guardrails on how the housing trust fund is invested.

We want to recap, and and again, some of the pieces that Maxwell talked about in his presentation, we've got them a little bit more specific here, breaking down the household demands and the supply and the misalignment.

Right now, we actually do have enough houses for everyone who is here, everyone who is doubled up, everyone who's on the streets of New Orleans because we've lost so much in population.

We have 10,000 vacant occupiable homes alone.

The problem is those homes aren't affordable for the average citizen.

They aren't affordable for a number of reasons, largely which is talking about the insurance crisis, which we're gonna get into, but also utility costs, the high cost of capital.

This is a big part of the problem.

We have a dumb housing mix, which is why we promote the smart housing mix because we have a massive misalignment, as you all will see for the households that make less than 30% of area median income.

That's people making less than $25,000 a year.

That's anybody who makes $7.25 an hour, by the way, and and they're the head of their household.

41,000 households for homes where we only have 25,000 homes that are priced to meet that need.

And part to talking about some of the constraints and some of the problems that we have a dumb housing mix because we have 58,000 households, these are renters and homeowners together here who make more than 100% of the median income, more than $80,000 a year in their households, and there's only about 40,000 homes and apartments for them.

So guess what they're doing?

They're pushing down into the market into homes that families can afford, that single young professionals can afford, and they're taking their spots.

Meanwhile, we're getting pressure from the most vulnerable, from the hardest working, from the people who are key to our economy.

So the pressure is enormous from top to bottom.

And the people in the middle are getting squeezed.

They're getting squeezed and they're getting squeezed on all ends, and this is just simply not sustainable.

One of the things that we talk about with the housing for all investment is we break down what it costs to retrofit the units and homes in order to make them affordable.

It's not simply just building.

We are very proud of the fact that the 21st century road to housing bill has passed, but I disagree passionately with our senior senator from senior senator from Louisiana who thinks that we can build our way out of this problem in Louisiana, and who recently published a editorial, a letter to the editor suggesting that we should be building our way out of this problem.

That's not what we should be doing.

We should be retrofitting our way out of this problem.

We should be investing and making our homes more energy efficient, more green, more renewable, more healthy.

And so breaking that down, we have category one where we are talking about making our homes sustainable with energy efficiency and solar and fortified roofs.

That brings a total of we need about $3.8 billion in investments for those thousand those homes that are necessary for to meet that category.

Then we go to category two, where we're talking about preservation and acquisition rehab.

We have about 9,000 homes and apartments that were built post-Catrina using low-income housing tax credits and get people home to bring them home.

Those homes are also facing the same operating struggle struggles that regular homeowners and landlords, mom and pop landlords are facing as well.

So those 9,000 homes need significant investment.

These are not the kind of investments that the trust fund should be providing.

A, it's not we don't have enough money.

And B, it's we don't have enough money.

And C, these are not, these are actually we need to be looking to recapitalize these projects.

We need to be ensuring that the trust fund is laying the groundwork on the quick immediate needs, and we can demonstrate to the larger market that we can attract those dollars.

We can bring those dollars in.

New construction.

So there is a need to build, not immediately, but there is a need to build because if we want to talk about getting on a growth track, we want to talk about meeting the needs of the people who make New Orleans all that it is.

We have found that there are almost 55,000 workers who work in Orleans Parish but cannot afford to live here, making less than $50,000, $50,000 a year.

They are working here because they're from here.

They are part of this community and they cannot afford it.

They've never made it back from Katrina or they've been displaced in the last seven years.

We need to bring them home.

That's another $16 billion in investments over time that to meet the needs of those folks, as well as giving people the chance to become first-time homeowners with new energy efficient homes that are built to last.

And we can't forget about the fact that we need to be looking at direct financial assistance to households.

We need to be talking about Maxwell mentioned that there's we're unlikely to get any new vouchers, but we need to.

We need to attract new vouchers, we need to attract direct rental assistance to stabilize folks in existing homes, because regardless of how much investment we make, and we must make these investments.

We must put fortified roofs on, we must make homes energy efficient to bring down those operating costs.

Again, folks who are making $7.25 an hour need help.

We and we're not going to, and again, we can help them by you know increasing the minimum wage, but that's not y'all don't do that.

So we can we can talk about coordinated strategies and advocacy absolutely to ensure that that happens, but until then, let's talk about closing that gap and making sure there's rental assistance.

Also talking about homeless uh helping our homeowners stay in their homes.

We need to be talking about wealth building, not just simply as uh uh you know a catchphrase, but making sure that folks can actually leave their homes to their families, that they are not burdened by cumbersome tax uh policies that don't make any sense, that the rules that will help them stay in their homes genuinely um look seek to make sure that that asset can pass on to their children as a benefit.

We talk about airship property all the time, we talk about making sure that people have their ducks in a row, but we also need to make sure that they can keep their homes.

Uh and so we are we break down this $31 billion investment into those four categories, and we know that of course the trust fund, nor can the city of New Orleans with its financial issues seek to make all of this money, make all of this funding available.

But we can and must, the trust fund must lead the way to make sure that these dollars can come in and we can demonstrate that discipline and the strategic investment.

But the city of New Orleans also has to recognize that this is our problem.

This is the 31 billion dollar problem that the city has that is reflected every day in strat in issues that pop up, everything from people not being able to pay their property taxes, the loss of population, and on and on and on.

And so this is why when we talk about local policies and priorities, we want to make sure that we're looking at what's happening at the city, what's happening at the state, and we need to be talking about federal policies, things that align with with meeting our needs, not just thinking that the city can do this on its own.

The people of New Orleans took an extraordinary step forward with putting this in the charter.

They said we're gonna put our own money on the table for us first and foremost.

That show of faith must be met.

It must be met by strategic investments, by people who recognize that the people of New Orleans cannot do this alone, and we're all in this together.

And what I want to share, make sure that we share today on the state of state of housing in New Orleans is our semi-annual report.

As you all know, um, we take great pride in putting out a report card annually to talk about the state of housing, but we also, because it's a little early for the report card, we are able to share with the committee the state of housing where we are now and how we are moving towards not simply meeting goals, but how are we moving on managing the investments that we already have, recognizing that the trust fund dollars are not going to be included in this, they can't, but in the sixth months under the first year of the housing for all strategy, we've seen some some marked changes and challenges.

So the city of New Orleans with the Office of Community Development, the Finance Authority, the Housing Authority, and NORA brought online about 534 units in the in the first six months of the report, um, which is which would be great.

Uh the problem is is that we have underutilized the vouchers, and so losing about 566 of them.

This is some of this push-pull that we've been seeing.

So we brought online 534 units, and we have lost 566 vouchers, and the vouchers haven't disappeared.

The folks have been pushed out, displaced, they may have died, and they've not been able to lease up those vouchers.

We expect that number to change by the end of the year, uh, but unless we are back where we were before, which was where we were before about two years ago, where the housing authority was unable to fully utilize all of its vouchers, running about a thousand vouchers being unutilized over a three-year period.

We're hoping that that's not the case.

We're hoping that the frankly, the pressures around insurance and utilities have landlords more interested in working with voucher holders.

That's what we've been seeing.

We've been seeing some really amazing programs that the housing authority has been standing up, helping people to get into high opportunity areas, but sometimes the math just doesn't math.

And we must contend with the fact that we have a number of landlords who have biases towards voucher holders.

And no matter how good a deal it is, and no matter how smart it is for this city, we have people who refuse to rent a voucher holders.

And so, again, that's why that's an important stat to watch out for and to look out for and to make sure that we're we're not going off the track.

So that means right now we're net negative 32 units.

Again, this is only a mid-year point, so we're hoping to see these numbers change.

We're hoping to see the utilization numbers get up, and the housing authority shares these numbers as a point in time.

So again, we're gonna be checking back in with them in a fuck in a couple of months to talk about what's going to be happening.

And um, Habitat for Humanity has brought online one unit in the last six months in the first six months of the report to without any subsidy.

So this is this is a unit that uh Habitat for Humanity privately fundraised for, so no public subsidy, no public land.

They just and and we're tracking that as well.

So we're tracking the private market as well as what our public dollars are are doing and and and impacting.

Um, you all should note the way we are we're playing around with this, and for those of you in the data committee and who work with the leadership board, y'all should let us know what y'all think about this new report um way that we're sharing the data.

So we have it broken down into two segments.

The eighty-eight thousand homes and apartments that were brought online and housing opportunities that were brought online the first 10 years after Katrina, so we could show which you could do with 50 billion dollars.

Um we we could have done more, we needed to do more, and we if we had some plans in place, we could have done more.

And over the last 10 years, the 4300 units that were brought online, um, not with 50 billion dollars, um, not with a trust fund.

So we're learning, we we need to learn what deliberate investment looks like as well as you know, not so intentional or strategic investment and and resolve to do better.

Uh next up, we also want to go over just really briefly those 600, those 500 units, how they break down by the different partners, the finance authority brought online most of those.

Um, some brought were brought online by the Louisiana Housing Corporation, NORA, none by the housing authority, um, and one by habitat and 33 by OCD.

Now, these numbers, if you're doing your math, add to up to more than 500 units.

That's because this also this slide also demonstrates the need and the layering that happens with the public resources, right?

There's very few units except that habitat unit that don't have multiple subsidies.

And so this is also something that we've done over the years of negotiating with our partners at the public agencies because they all get loved together in that big 500 unit, and they all want to say, well, I want we want to see what we're doing, we want to show what we're doing.

So we do this graphic.

Um, this is again, we're workshopping this graphic, it's changed over the years.

Anyone who doesn't like it or has better ideas of improvement, please let us know.

Um, and then we also want to talk about the snapshot on the population issues over time.

Uh so since 2017, um, population has gone down from 393,292 folks to 362,701 in the 2024 census um US Census stats.

Uh, that's uh that's bad, right?

We've been talking about this ad nauseum, the loss of almost over 30,000 folks in seven years.

Here it is in black and white.

At the same time, median home value has skyrocketed.

At the same time, rent has gone up.

Income has stayed pretty stagnant, and so and this is also where we talk about breaking down the cost burden issues and things like that.

So we also wanted to make sure because the trust fund prioritized insurance that we talk about the insurance crisis.

Louisiana citizens are desperate for any solution, they need one, and we need to be talking about again homeowner assistance, stabilizing households, spending about 200 million dollars annually as a state to help 200,000 low-income homeowners stay in their homes by paying their insurance bills.

We also need to be talking about the fortified roof program for the 445,000 roofs that we need, it's gonna cost about 6.1 billion dollars.

This is across the state.

And then we also have to make sure, again, the policy work is incredibly important.

We have to ensure that that premiums are actually lowered.

The investments that the trust fund advisory committee uh are gonna see oversee over the next few months, like the fortified NOLA program and the other fortified programs, we need to make sure that those investments result in savings for homeowners.

This is a high-level summary of it.

We've got the trust fund, and uh, yeah, so that's that's us.

Oh, wait a minute.

And and we want to close out by reminding everybody that you know, if we displace, look uh Ellen and I both came to this thought a few years ago, and we love saying it.

If we displace everyone that makes New Orleans cool, will people still think it's cool?

They will not.

We cannot replace what we displace.

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much.

Briefly, do we have questions from the diaspora start at the end?

We're gonna start at the end and go this way.

Okay.

I I do have uh a question or two for you.

Um I would like for you guys to come back to me because I took a few notes, so I need to read through them if that's okay.

Um thank you for that, Andronika.

Um do we know um how many vouchers are being used in Litech or other otherwise affordable units?

Yes, when we do the calculations, we go we work with the housing authority to, for example, so there's new units that are brought online, we actually go through and deduplicate them.

And so that the housing authority gets the credit, the vouchers get the credit if there's a voucher holder living in a unit in a subsidized unit that's brought online.

So we have the numbers, they can't give us the addresses, obviously.

But um, and that's why we ask their help in deduplicating those numbers.

So there are thousands of voucher holders in those 9,000 units that we're worried about losing affordability.

Yes.

Do we have a sense of like what share or like what that number looks like looks like?

Um we can double check, but it's I think it's about a quarter.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's a lot.

Thank you, Andrew Nika.

I I think you just um just to clarify, so right, the number of affordable units like that have come um on in the last year or so, and then that we actually have a negative number, right?

Yes.

That's from losing like the lie tech, is that no, that's from the vouchers being underutilized.

So we count housing opportunities to the point to the question.

So we make sure that we're counting vouchers separately.

That's not vouchers separately, that we're counting one occupied unit as one occupied unit.

So when we when we find out that we've we're underutilizing vouchers, that causes a loss inside of the market.

And that's all that's also can be offset by increased production.

But we know that those 534 units, none of them have vouchers in them.

Okay.

So we know that that's 534 net that does not have voucher holders in them.

They actually, as you could they usually produce more, and they lose a few because they have voucher holders in them.

Okay.

So let's say there was 600 units created by the City of New Orleans, the Finance Authority, the Housing Authority and Nora, and 70 of them have voucher holders in them.

They get backed out, and that's how you get to the 530.

And then the fact that we have voucher holders who are not living in subsidized apartments who have lost their vouchers or not utilizing that voucher, they're out searching for a new apartment right now.

That's what offsets the new construction.

Okay.

Because it's a net loss of housing opportunities, right?

We brought on new ones, but we lost more than we brought on.

Thank you.

Yep.

You're not saying that Hanel lost vouchers.

Hannah did not you lose vouchers, they're just not being utilized.

Okay.

And it's going to take us the full year to find out if that's just a temporary blip, right?

Or if it's part of a trend that where landlords are refusing to accept vouchers.

They're burning through their waiting list very quickly.

They're down to 6,000, so you have folks actually not being able to find vouchers and and having to turn their voucher back in.

That's also why this number is also very concerning, and something that we need to keep track of.

Okay.

They haven't lost the ability to do that.

Okay, that's what I was thinking.

No, they have not lost the ability.

It's an under is it's a utilization problem.

That's again the market, the systemic issues inside the market, the biases from landlords, the pressures of insurance and utility costs, people not being able to find housing that's suitable for them.

That's why it's a concern.

Understood.

On were you done?

Is that the on slide?

I don't know which number it is.

Go not that one.

Yeah, that one.

Oh, so when you said the the categories, I'm glad you said something about how you broke breaking this down because when I first looked at the slide, I said I don't get 88,190 from 650, 1100, 5300.

Those are averages for the years, yeah.

So the way we've done it, yeah, is because we normally used to do it, we showed every year.

Right.

And now we're collapsing it into the 10 years into one column.

And so we're still playing around with this.

So we would have happily accept any critique around this.

Yeah, I just so what we're doing is is the the top numbers are an at what average produced over the 10 years.

Okay.

And then you do, and that's how you get to the 88,190.

All right.

So it might be helpful.

My my one, my immediate feedback is it might be helpful to say per year or something like this.

Yes.

Unless it's the asterisk didn't make it onto this slide.

I was gonna say that's what happened.

There was an aspect that's supposed to be explained.

All right, that's what happened.

All right.

So that's it.

That's what happened.

Okay, that's what it happened.

Well, but again, also not gotta make sure it makes sense.

So the asterisk helps explain it, but is it really the best way to present the information?

So yeah.

Yeah, maybe another note or something in it that makes it clearer for me.

You know what?

No, thank you.

The list.

All right.

Okay, so I have gathered my thoughts.

Thank you for these wonderful slides.

Um, can we go to the first uh one category one?

I'm just gonna um I want to do something, I wanna speak quickly through the uh three or four slides with you if that's okay.

And I appreciate you asking that question about how things work with um vouchers, and I'll ask you to explain just for a public conversation, and that way we can work through my question really quickly.

So when Hanno has um, let's say a hundred vouchers or whatever this number is, to your point, we talked about um landlords and people who are already on there, and I want to throw in this conversation for the new constructions or people who are ready right now, but they don't know how to start this program.

So this is maybe something we can put out there.

I've met and I'm sure we know people who are like, how do I help?

So this is a category where maybe we can have some more vouchers and homeowners make this number go down.

Now, getting into the um holding people accountable, a question that will come up or a statement that I'm sure we were all curious is about is how and that gets into the AMI or the affordability.

I would like to see more research and data to configure to your point at the end of the year, so that way we don't have this conversation going into next year, because I would have said maybe there's just not enough people working on it because I get a new case worker every six months, but that might not be the case.

Okay.

And um, could you maybe quickly for us explain um for a tenant who gets a voucher, and they only have so much time to on their own, when I got my voucher, they used to print them out.

And you can go through and mark it.

Now it's online and it's all these different ways, which is really confusing.

So could you maybe really short um a paragraph explain to someone who hold how if you get your voucher, you finally get your voucher, you get your call, you get your paper, what that looks like really quickly, and not what it used to look like, because that was my experience that I could call and go through people and they say yes or no, and I can go see it.

And to add a lot of these caseworkers who who have someone, they may have so many people they're working with, so you have to get an appointment with them to go see this unit, and they have to approve of it just the same as you have to decide.

Um, something like that, right?

So largely it still is the case that most of the voucher holders who are seeking uh housing once they get issued their vouchers have to do it unassisted.

The housing authority, though, has stepped in and secured some assistance from the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, who is helping cultivate landlords in high opportunity areas who would be able to benefit from the small area rents, and so they can help those folks who want to live in those areas, try to find homes and apartments in those areas, but most folks have to do it on their own.

And um, the last time I talked to the folks at the Fair Housing Action Center, they have been able to help people.

It still takes a lot of time, even with their assistance, it's about 60 days that it takes with assistance, 60 days.

You have 120 days, and here is this amazing program.

It's not available to everybody, but it helps folks and it'll help them find a home in 60 days.

What's happening is a lot of people are running out of time with the 120 days, and they're having to turn their vouchers back in.

And that is the experience that you have that is continuous, and again, want to be clear the housing authority has rules and regulations around how they want to handle this.

A lot of this is about the market.

A lot of us about market constraints, and I must reinforce the biases and prejudices and the fact that we don't have policies in place like that prohibit source of income discrimination that that prohibit landlords from putting up signs saying no section eight.

And so we've got to work on that.

We've got to talk, we've got to make sure folks understand it.

There's a lot of really and again, you know, folks always talk about landlords and tenants and those relationships.

Again, that has to be worked out.

It has to be a symbiotic relationship.

So it is a lot is still for a lot of people is very similar to the way that it is, the way that it's always been.

And it's also similar how anyone who is a renter finds an apartment in New Orleans.

Um this is also part of the issue and part of the challenge.

We need to one of the things that we want to see with the healthy homes, full implementation of the healthy homes, is making sure that people can find quality housing through the healthy homes registration.

So you mentioned in different um multiple subsidy conversations are just layered.

So I know we have integ smart, we talked about land trust.

They had the um micro grid uh communities leap conversation at one point.

If in a you know, very concise, I know we can be long-winded with this for preservation.

You know, we're gonna go to the next lab part of this.

Um, what because I know we can talk about new construction, Nora and different people on thank you, thank you.

But what would that um just again short?

Because what we're talking about in this multi partner, even getting ready to start.

We have the TCA, then we have what I think people, in my opinion, if it's okay for me to state, is when people come out and say we're renters and we're we're being all generalized.

We have seniors, seniors have senior senior centers, we have artists, we have artist laws.

We had something like Soul City at one point.

We have these mixed populations, and I'm not so much talking about the AMI or the market, I just mean groups of populations who need housing, and then we have college kids who get out of college and they need somewhere to stay.

So we have these two-lane conversations with landlords to some degree, and I'm hope house to some degree.

And what I guess I'm asking for um a very short preservation conversation.

If uh symbiotically we were all working together, um what is something that you could recommend, whether it's a policy piece or a preservation piece or a land trust communities doing land trusts or something like that in community, right?

And layered partnership with Energy Smart or land grids or lighthouses or something like that.

What is something that you could recommend?

Cash.

The answer to that is cash.

I you want me to be succinct, cash.

We need about three billion dollars to preserve about nine thousand homes.

That's a cash problem.

It is these units need to be recapitalized, they're about 15 years, some of them are more than 15 years old, they're coming up on their ex their expirations.

This is a recapitalization problem.

We need to attract the appropriate amount of capital, we need to do it quickly, we need to do it with discipline, we need to be and some of the developers have already cued up and and gotten their lie tech.

Um we've also got to talk about the fact that we're not sure right now what's happening with our Louisiana Housing Corporation.

Would you help make a coalition or or is this a part of housing?

Oh no, we're already working on the coalition.

Okay.

They're already working on that.

Uh we have a lender's round table that is that that is focused on this.

We need to get the banks.

This is a bank funded problem, as we've seen with the redevelopments of the the massive um sites in New Orleans East with the willows and the apartment complexes that are coming back online.

That's private capital coming to to make investments to ensure that those homes are quality.

That is what needs to continue.

We need to be talking about significant capital investment.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Thank you so much to you, Antonica and Housing NOAA.

Um what's next?

So next we'll move on to our administr administrator updates starting with the Office of Community Development.

Jeff, if you're ready, we're happy to have you here.

Hi.

If you guys have public comments, don't forget to put them in the box.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, advisory committee members.

It's great to see you all.

Good to see you.

Thanks for being here.

Of course.

Um I don't have a uh formal presentation today.

I wanted to just share some updates in some general topic areas where I know we've been having uh discussions.

Um obviously want to leave plenty of time for question and answer and uh any questions that that you all are the audience members have.

Um but uh th thank you all again.

Uh I am uh the deputy mayor for community and economic development, Jeff Schwartz.

Um very happy to uh be presenting here today with some uh what I hope are generally exciting updates and progress points for things that I know uh you all and folks in the audience and and watching uh at home uh have been working on for a really long time.

Um so uh I wanted to start by presenting on uh the status of the cooperative endeavor agreement between the city and uh our uh fund administrator partners, NORA and FNO, um, and also share some uh timing and next steps on uh the actual funding, um including the bond sale.

Um very happy to say that uh before the end of uh last month we have a fully executed CEA uh between the city and Nora and FNO.

Yes, I will uh gladly second that applause.

Uh I for any of you uh who know uh even in um you know topics that are not as nuanced as this, getting uh any sort of contract uh over the hump is is a minor feat.

And in this case, uh there was a there were a lot of moving pieces, and so I'm grateful to everybody uh for their patience for their diligence.

Um I know we have members of Councilmember Matt Willard's office, I know Councilmember Harris has been uh championing of this work for uh a very long time, and and um uh Liz when she was uh actually in District B, uh I know was doing yeoman's work on this.

So uh uh you all as the advisory committee members have obviously done so much.

And then I know uh our our friends at Genoa, at NORA, at FNO, um our bond council, just uh a whole host of actors um uh really did yeoman's work uh getting this over the hump.

And so uh very happy to say that that agreement is fully executed.

Um it's a 10-year agreement.

Uh it governs uh everything that we anticipate um uh arising uh in the administration of the housing trust fund.

So this is not a one-year agreement, it's not a two or three-year agreement.

This is meant to really lay out the framework for how we all work together over the next decade.

And so I think that's really exciting and a testament to the strategy and policy setting that we've all collectively done together.

Um but a CEA uh without funding uh is just a piece of paper, and so obviously the uh immediate next steps that we've been undertaking are how we actually get funds out to uh our partners, uh the fund administrators in in NORA and Finance New Orleans.

Um I'm very happy to say that um we have been working really dig diligently, making really good progress on that.

Um, and we expect NORA to receive its funds uh within the week, hopefully by Friday, uh if not early next week, and finance New Orleans will be really soon after that.

Um I did not write down the exact numbers.

I believe that the NORA amount will be $8.8 million, and FNO's is uh about five 4.4.

Yeah, thank you, Liz, giving me my cheat sheet up there.

Um and FNO's obviously includes uh the uh rainy day fund as well.

Um and so we are so excited.

Uh one of the reasons for urgency there is that um uh we know NORA is going to be administering um a fortified uh uh roof matching grant program, um and we are moving as expeditiously as we possibly can.

Again, thank you to Councilmember Willard and Harris's teams um as well as uh the council for helping us make sure that we uh have been able to get uh these agreements in place um as quickly as we have uh because there are uh time limits, very very quick uh 90-day turnarounds for folks who are receiving those awards uh from LDI.

And so we want to make sure that uh the hard work of so many in standing up this program doesn't go to waste uh and that this money gets out to New Orleans homeowners who are getting fortified roofs.

Um I think those are the major updates I wanted to share there.

Um, this is really gonna transition to a new phase of this work, uh, and I don't mean to uh foist uh this or redirect uh this to our friends at uh the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and FNO, but now this is the the I what I think is the really fun work.

It's still gonna be hard work, but the really fun work of program implementation.

And I'd like to ask for a little bit of grace uh and understanding from our developers, our small developers, um uh members of the public uh as we stand up what are going to be new and long-standing programs under the housing trust fund.

Um and so you know, I know we're gonna get some updates today from Nora and FNO on their progress.

I think it's gonna be increasingly exciting to see at future Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee meetings and uh council committee meetings and community meetings, um, all the the great work that's gonna be happening um between uh NORA and FNO and our partners who are going to be implementing.

Um so yeah, I'll I'll stop there uh for the first agenda item uh to see if there's any any questions on that, and then we can um move into some other topic areas.

I was exhausted.

I talked that one into the ground.

Um so I know I know uh Will Stout is here from Martano, I believe still.

Um I know the committee was uh uh very interested in uh some of the owner-occupied rehab data.

And so um I did want to uh share some of that, but uh Will, anything that I did wrong or you wanna want to share, uh please feel free to come up uh uh and present uh any of this data with me.

Um I know a lot of these discussions uh and uh many of the advisory committee members as well as others are interested not only in the program impacts that are ongoing right now, but how this might inform how you all think about uh the budget for next year and what you all would like to propose and how other complementary programs might be developed, and so this data uh for uh related programs is very I think uh interesting and and of note um so that we can build uh programs that are as impactful as possible.

Um uh for the 2025 data uh that that Will and his team have shared, um it's it's really great uh data.

Um there are uh I'll come back to the wait list.

Um, but there are 257 households that rebuilding together uh has served under its uh owner occupied rehab program.

Um Orleans Parish um uh uh uh has 189 of the 200 in the greater New Orleans area, so 189 uh are in uh the city of New Orleans.

Um 96% of those are black uh households that identify as black or African American, seven identify as uh white-led households, five is um the Asian or Pacific Islander led, and two are under another category.

So again, 96% are going to uh black-led households.

Um in terms of the income categories for the owner-occupied rehab program, uh the income categories are uh as follows under 30% uh are extremely low income.

That's 62 of the 189 households are extremely low income.

Fifty-seven are low income, so that's under um 80 percent.

Uh 55 are very low income, that's under 50 percent of AMI, and then 15 are moderate income households, so I believe that's above 80 percent of AMI.

If you'd like for me to say those again, because I went a little out of order.

Um 30 percent uh uh under 30 percent of AMI or 62 of those households.

55 are under 50 percent, so I guess between 30 and 50 percent.

Uh 57 are between 50 and 80 percent, and then 15 are above 80 percent.

Um the average AMI uh when you blend it is 45% of AMI uh is is the average household, and the average household income in absolute numbers is about $30,000.

So these are clearly reaching uh you know deep deeply uh low-income households.

Um there's some other demographics about you know uh which households have disabled family members or elderly that we're we're happy to share uh with the committee.

Um but since I'm I'm sharing notes that that Will would share, Will, is there anything else that you want to share for this really amazing program?

So much wait lists.

Yeah, I sorry, and I'm coming back to the wait list.

There's over there's a thousand eighty-seven wait list entries.

And that's for for all of GNO, or will we spare specifically all of us uh a thousand of the thousand of the one thousand eighty-seven are in Orleans, so we know there's strong demand for the OOR uh programs, owner occupied rehab.

Questions or thoughts on that?

And I'll happily punt them to Will.

I was just curious if you could give us examples of what kind of rehabs are being done at the program.

Um air conditioning, holes in the walls.

Just curious what that looks like.

Will, and thank you for all your hard work.

This is amazing.

Yeah, off the top of my head, 160 were replacements, 130 were the fortified standard.

Uh I think we did about 57 heat pumps last year.

Um a significant number of 88 bathroom modifications where we're removes and going to like stepless showers, ramps, uh building envelope, weatherization.

Um we do we try to do a lot some of a little bit of everything.

Um we have a 25-point checklist that's built on the eight principles of Save and all the house.

And so there's many of the items that we can do.

But the number one request is roofs, uh, and then it's HVACs, and then it's bathroom modifications, and then it's building envelope.

Great, thank you so much.

Other questions, comments.

Um you might need to come back up well.

Um, get his steps in.

A few quick things.

What can you um remind me what sort of the average cost per home?

Um the average roof replays and was lo in 2020 uh uh five was sixteen thousand four hundred and forty.

Um the average AC right now is about twelve uh heat pump conversion, which is a full system versus just servicing is about twelve thousand.

The average bathroom modification, if it's just this a tub conversion can be between five and six thousand hours.

If you have to do the whole bathroom modification and address um other issues, it's about twelve.

Uh average ramp is about six, the average lift is about twelve.

Um but I mean are you doing I mean I can sort of average those all together and it looks like it's around twelve.

The average investment was about twenty and and change.

About twenty.

We try to do at least one of the major system upgrades and then something else.

The average attic installation is about three thousand.

Uh to paint an exterior house just with volunteers and prep construction labor to the EPARP standard is about eight.

Okay.

That's thank you.

And then Jeff, this might actually be more for you.

Yeah.

Because I know that you have told us that there is money in your budget for to start this program back up.

That's right.

Um can you give us a sense of timeline on that?

I'm I guess I'm I'm thinking into 2027.

Yep.

And if this money gets awarded soon, right, it'll get it'll be put out on the street maybe in the next couple months or so.

I mean, we've got a wait list ready, you could start the work soon.

We have no contract, but we're developering.

You are already delivering.

Okay, so the so it's open.

That's great.

Um I'm just thinking in terms of like does this make sense as a thing for the housing trust fund to consider in 2027, or because you guys are funding it, maybe it doesn't, but it might in the next year.

And then the next question is like I know when you fund it, there's more red tape than when we fund it.

Yes.

So talk to us about that.

Yes and sort of what makes sense here.

That's a very good way to describe it, yes.

Um and I think you know, as a general uh lens for this work, I one of the things I love the most about the housing trust fund and the partnership uh not only with NORA and FNO, but also with all the implementation partners, like I mean, folks in the room today, not just singling out rebuilding together, but you know, Paula and the contractors that you work with and and others, I think the idea that the city uh with the housing trust fund, advisory committee, and others can help kind of control policy, you know, set budgets, um, you know, do uh I think a lot of that like administrative work setting up the framework that I think the CEA in a lot of ways that that kind of encapsulates that, but then pushes out program implementation to the greatest extent possible to the partners who you know can move more nimbly where you know where I think there's a level of responsiveness to market needs.

Um you don't get bogged down in the same contracting delays and approval delays that we see at the city where you know I think folks rightly ask like is there something else going on when it takes three months to get a CEA executed after council had approved it?

It's just frankly, you know, the that's that's the wheels of of city government grinding.

I think that uh to answer your question more directly, Maxwell.

Um yes, I I love the idea of figuring out how we can deploy our funds through uh partnerships, whether it's um through housing trust fund going through NORA and FNO and then to partners, um, or directly with partners in the case where we are doing our own solicitations.

Um I think it's just uh a really um that that is I think the right way to do policy and programs.

I think that um yes, we are actively working towards um deploying those significant dollars.

Um the hope I I would be disappointed if we didn't have those dollars deployed by the end of the year.

And so I think um I think that helps as we think about what 2027 looks like for the housing trust fund, where we know there's you know some acute kind of competing needs in the affordable housing ecosystem.

The fact that we can supplement with community development block grant dollars um is uh is extremely helpful, and I think is the level of creativity that we need in order to kind of meet all these different competing uh needs in the affordable housing landscape.

Um that being said, yes, when we are using things like block rant money, it is inherently it's it's you know reimbursement money, it has um all sorts of layers of federal review that are imposed not just on the city but on partners like a rebuilding together who then have to you know um uh thread a needle on a number of levels when it comes to environmental compliance and other other uh related uh CFR and other regs.

So um to the extent that we can use uh general fund and bond money when they're available, they are the most precious resources as we know.

Um but to the extent that we can use those, those are always more flexible to develop programs that can you know do all the things that we need them to do.

Um but um you know I think Andrenika, the the uh uh 31 billion dollar number sticks in our head, and I think we all know that we have nowhere near an adequate level of resources.

We are always going to be using entitlement and other grant money to be able to fill fill these programs.

Thank you.

And it and just to uh help me remember it's 2.4 million is your contract.

Correct.

Okay, and you're saying that is already done.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, and then on the small multifamily side, we have the um a five million dollar award that I think we will be able to deploy by the end of the year.

Wait, sorry.

That's the rental rehab.

Yeah, I'm sorry, rental rehab, yes.

Okay, sorry, that's how yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's different.

Okay.

But on the on the owner occupied rehab, there's 2.3 million point four of the contract's open, RTNO is already doing the work.

That work is tried to do some back of it.

That's a that's the third year of the uh renewal rate.

2.4 of that, but most of that's already spelled.

There's an addition there was 925,000 remaining, and we had supplemented that with 1.5 million dollars.

So it's 2.4.

Wait, wait, sorry, say that last part again.

There was 925,000 carried over from the the prior years of the contract.

Uh-huh and we um just finished adding 1.5 million through uh through that same contract amendment.

So there's 2.4 million roughly available.

Okay.

We want uh uh we were responded to a NOFA in 2022, 2023.

We delivered the first year and over-delivered units, contract units were added to the contract, and then units were added to the contract again.

In the 2024 iteration, we added a pilot fortified roof program, and now the OOR is split between units that are specifically for health and safety repairs, which is roughly 30-something units, and then units that are to deliver fortified roofs.

Um but to Jeff's point, engaging CDBG dollars, which are the worst.

And so it it in it inherently limits what we can actually what units we can actually intervene on because of lead when they were built, if we can use the de minimis standard, if we have to do lead testing and all of those different things.

On the renter, uh the landlord repair program, we're ready to go on our side.

Um we uh originally planned to deliver 205 units with that NOFA response.

We're backing down some units because we're we're being asked to do the the 10 years of monitoring that would be required for the affordability period.

And that program is designed, I shouldn't say this publicly, to to avoid lead, essentially, because it is CDBG dollars, we have to incorporate the most of the projects have to use the the minimum standard, so we have to avoid disturbing painted surfaces.

So of the 205 units originally, most of them were designed to be fortified roof replacements for landlords and a roughly $15,000 uh investment in an in a rental uh at three-year average of affordability or a five thousand dollar per year kind of incentive for the landlord to bring those units online.

Okay.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is how long is it going to take you to blow through the money that Jeff just gave you?

Which one?

Well, me was just the 2.4 probably is the same.

Oh, we already have all the units slotted.

What does that mean?

Slot.

We have homeowners that are are on a list that are slotted for those repairs.

And it'll take five months to blow through it six months.

Um well, so every time we submit a project through C D B G, it has to get after Tier 1 review, which is already complete.

We have a 30-day ship out notice.

Um it's 45 days of of BS just to get bureaucracy.

Yeah, to get to the point where we can put it out to bid.

So I would say we can't put all of those at the same time.

We have maybe at any given point five or six that are working in their way through the system, we're receiving bids, et cetera, et cetera.

But we've identified all the homeowners and notify them to start their income process.

I I think by mid-year next year it will be fully spent.

Thank you.

Yep.

And you know, we we certainly care about lead hazards to families.

I just want to be clear, we you know, we we care about that.

Yes, but I understand.

We are an EPARB renovator.

We under we provide the fair safe housing and lead checklist.

We care about lead.

The city has actually recently been awarded a $1 million capacity building grant to start developing the pool around making sure that we have contractors that actually know how to address lead.

And then once at that is a stepping stone for a grant that the city can pursue with the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes that they can again deliver lead uh reduction strategies.

Yes, no, thank you.

Yes, we all care about the care deeply about it.

Uh it's just right, it's it's a great point, Alan.

And it's it's just very difficult to spend this money, and so knowing which thresholds you need to stay under to not trigger certain federal requirements is is the art of this.

Um yes, I do want to shout out Meredith Marrick and Turf and the the health department uh team as well as Will uh for helping us uh draft that that grant that is a million dollar uh three year is the period of performance grant to do planning around lead hazard reduction, and we're gonna apply for an implementation grant um once we do some of the capacity building.

So we we care deeply about lead.

Um we just want to make sure that we're spending dollars on programs most efficiently.

And then Maxwell, yeah, happy, you know, over the coming weeks to months as you all are building the budget, happy to look not just at the bond money that I know we'll talk about in a second, but also think about how these other programs and awards, pre-existing awards might uh complement the full picture of all the program and activities that the Housing Trust Fund Advising Committee want to understand.

That would be great if we could get a list of what OCD is funding and which funding source, and maybe what Nora is funding and what funding source, and maybe what the housing authority and finance New Orleans and all in one chart where we could then see what the gaps are and know where the HTF money could.

Sounds like something we can work on again.

Great.

Thanks, Ellen.

Um great.

And so I know um I I can share a little bit.

We've had an extensive conversation on the larger multifamily projects for next year.

And I don't I don't have definitive answers for folks today, but what I can um share is uh uh some updates on kind of where we are in that in that process.

And I think as you all I know in August you have to you know formally uh uh finalize your budget proposal to council.

So over the coming month, we'll um I know have lots of meetings, both with you all and and with uh stakeholders uh in the room and and elsewhere about um how we build this budget and account for some of the different contingencies that we're trying to all account for here, including what we just talked about, which is um how do we use housing trust fund dollars most strategically to fill gaps where we aren't already spending money um and putting resources elsewhere.

Umce we we last met, um we have issued uh renewed uh letters of commitment to both um uh Mazant Royal as well as the Baron Lofts projects.

Um collectively, those represent 12.3 million for Royal Mazant and 4.9 million uh for Baron Lofts.

Um those two projects uh currently are slated to uh close um in the fourth quarter of this year at some point.

The commitment letters that we gave them to be very uh transparent only obligated these dollars through the end of the year.

And that basically for you know to translate and lay terms is uh if those projects can't get to a financial closing by the end of the year, then uh we are we uh no longer will be reserving these dollars and they can be re redeployed.

Um that's not to say that if they're you know very close to a closing and it's just a matter of like mechanics and a couple weeks of of uh getting to a closing that we're gonna uh pull the plug, but um you know we need to see demonstrable progress between now and the end of the year.

Um, or we're you know, given the magnitude of the housing needs in the city, we're not gonna continue reserving these dollars for for those um developments.

Um both of them are actively working towards a closing.

Um we've received preliminary confirmation that neither of them are gonna have to go back through State Bund Commission, um, which is uh probably a plus uh for lots of reasons that I won't go into here.

Um but you know, uh won't make any uh overtly political statements.

Um but that that just simplifies things.

Um we also have Esplanade Delele, which is a prior commitment that OCD uh was only able to fund a million and a half uh financial closing, uh million and a half dollars.

That project is uh already coming out of the ground.

It's about 40% complete according to my construction division.

Um that's an HRI and um uh Paula Marcia uh our uh partners in that uh project.

And um we have a five million dollar commitment to that project as well.

Um we also uh have uh several um uh housing preservation projects, projects that need to recapitalize because they are at the end of their period of uh uh compliance period um uh and um uh what I will share as as an overall statement is that our goal is to try to identify other funding sources for these these projects, right?

Like we if we do not have to have these multifamily projects be in competition with other affordable housing needs, and we heard so many of them laid out here today, we're doing everything we can to identify buckets of funding for that.

So whether, as Ellen was sharing, uh whether there's some pockets of uh you know, block grant money or prior year money, home funds from our award this year or prior years.

Um if there's other bond money that becomes eligible that's not from the affordable housing bucket, um, you know, we are going to continue to leave no stone unturned.

And so um as we move forward with these multifamily projects, Eswanine de Lille already has a contract, and so the city needs to fund that.

And the first payment was actually uh payable this month.

Um all of the other projects will allow for a range of funding sources, right?

So if we are able to identify block grant money, for example, the loan agreement and promissory note and all the attending agreements will account for the fact that it's not GoBond money, it's C DBG money, for example.

And so um we're gonna be working tirelessly on that front so that we are able to preserve as much money as we humanly can for the the housing trust fund.

Um all of which is to say I don't have a definitive answer yet today about um how much uh in August this committee uh what I would recommend you all recommending to council.

Um that we will be working uh on that in the coming weeks with you all about what specifically we think would be um a good plan A.

And then also uh potentially think about how, just as you all did with the revised budget numbers from this year, um, how we might be able to um present some kind of plan B or some kind of contingency in that budget so that you all are, you know, um there's this little sort of mechanics and uh logistical work uh as we need where we can um maybe present a budget that has those those contingencies already accounting for that.

Um I'll stop there because I've already uh shared a lot of information, but um I am happy to share.

I do have like AMI breakdowns on on um Royal Mays and Burman Loss if folks are interested in that or happy to share other details uh today or after the fact as well.

I think we're good.

Thank you so much.

We really appreciate all the updates, and I share your enthusiasm and excitement of moving into implementation phase and actually seeing um progress with the money that's deployed, and congratulations to Will and rebuilding together for I mean, even a bathtub's a big deal to me.

Or getting rid of a bathtub is a big deal to me.

So congratulations.

We're glad to see that people are reaping the benefits of the programs.

You're here.

Thank you.

Oh, comments.

I see.

Let's see, this is number two.

Paula, did you want to Paula, did you want to comment on this agenda item?

Because Joe and I meet every three months to talk about what the faith-based community is gonna do to help uh housing situation.

Before that, I wanted to make sure that the city needs to include safety and permits in your group because they get the numbers of people building affordable housing, and that will show the true number of houses that's coming into our communities rather than just federal funds and city funds.

We have a serious foreclosure prevention.

Jeff and I talk about that all the time.

We're a large certified counseling agency.

People call us all day long.

We send them to the lawyers at uh the group that works with the city and they're paying for it, but it's not saving the problem, so we're gonna have to come up with some kind of funding to get lawyers that's gonna uh go to court and file foreclosure prevention because if we don't do something now, we'll have over a thousand, two thousand families in this city going into foreclosure.

And finally, um my main goal is uh affordable housing.

And uh, you know, we've done that for 40 years, not only in New Orleans, but in the whole metropolitan area.

We have contractors who know how to build affordable housing.

They're they're not you know that's what they do.

$80 a square foot, 82 dollars a square foot.

And they're willing to pay their taxes.

So I just want to say we need to be looking at all type of opportunities to bring to our city.

And Jeff and I are working on a big deal in New York, right, Jeff?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can I can I make uh two two very brief comments that I just want to make sure I neglected to share these um and when Ms.

Pete mentioned them, they they uh rang a bell.

Um is uh uh I want to task the advisory committee and stakeholders with um really engaging in a conversation that's getting a lot of traction.

I I had the um fun and honor of speaking at a BGR breakfast a couple of weeks ago uh that they were hosting based on uh really just the premise of like population growth or lack thereof in the region and how Louisiana has lagged so far behind even you know Mississippi and Alabama, not even like our high growth um Sunbelt peers, and the sort of unique confluence of issues that I think frankly the housing community uh has been grappling with for a really long time.

Um and so I think that there's there is a growing recognition that this is a a challenge that's not it's not isolated to housing, obviously.

This is about economic development, about job growth, about quality of life, um, and all the things that that are attended to that.

So just um encourage you all to engage in that.

And then the second piece is that sort of a testament to that fact, um, GNU Inc.

is rolling out a five and five strategy, which is uh uh aspirational push um to grow the metro area's population by five percent in five years, and housing uh has to be a part of that discussion, and I think you know, GNO Inc.

and their partners and leadership know that, and I think are you know very focused rightly so on on the job and wage group.

I was just talking to um uh Aaron and Councilmember Willard's office about this and how you know uh so much as we all know of our housing affordability issue is is uh hand in glove with uh with a wage uh issue, right?

And the fact that our our household incomes are so low in the city and it makes uh our our um housing issues sort of uniquely wicked problems to deal with as opposed to places where you know a market rate two bedroom goes for two or three times what uh what it does in New Orleans and because of higher wages, and so um I would also just encourage this group um uh to engage in that discussion as well, that that five in five discussion.

Great, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Arthur Robertson, did you want to comment on this agenda item?

I'd like to say good morning to everyone here, and I support what's going on because I am a New Orleans native.

I appreciate anything to be done because there's many homeless people here, most of them are from here.

I myself, I uh went to Kingsley House.

My mother was one of the first nurses at Sarah Mayer Hospital.

Some of you know where Sarah Mayor is, some of you don't know what Sarah Mayor Hospital is.

Excuse me, I had two strokes.

Sarah Mayor Hospital.

I went to Kingsley House.

I'm a graduate of Sarah uh Moran Abersona High School out in Orleans East in 87.

Um two children, paid my child support on time, later got married, Katrina came, she went over.

Well, I've been renting every cent.

I've worked 28 years from the all children to refinery.

I've rented, I've been able to stand on my own.

I've gotten an income for the last five months that I have to live on, and homeless is surreal for me now.

It's a rude awakening.

There's no place here available for me to live.

I'd like to have a place I could set a garden out.

I'd like to have a place I could walk to the streetcar and catch and go and see the city like I used to when I was a kid.

I'd like to go someplace and have a dinner at a cheap restaurant here, but the housing is almost impossible.

I have no place to call my own because I can't afford it.

So I'm just terribly wrong to have rent just 20 years ago for $300 in that same house is $200,000 now.

Come on, y'all, y'all have to fix it.

We need a place to live.

Thank you.

That's all that I have, but I do support this panel, and we all appreciate it.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Madeline Tripany, did you want to speak on this agenda item?

Good afternoon.

Um I just wanted to make a couple of statements.

I'm a senior.

The electric bill and the insurance.

I could, and I still have a mortgage, so I could also be someone who would be homeless if something doesn't happen, especially with the electric bills.

Um regarding vouchers.

I have friends who own houses.

I have one friend who manages a bunch of houses.

You have to teach man a sense of responsibility.

The reason people don't want them because they don't maintain the property.

They want to move in a nice area and then tear it up.

So in this voucher program, you have got to have some type of training that you train the tenant on how they are supposed to treat the property they live in.

And you give them a sense of responsibility that they are part of the property.

I don't like a lot of apartments.

Nope, I'm not from New York.

I like my front my front yard and my backyard.

So I do would I would like to see more affordable houses, like they did back in the 60s and 70s when they were pushing people to buy houses back in the 50s.

Three bedroom, two, two bath, living room, kitchen, a place to eat, and then they bill from there.

As their salaries grow, then you'll be able to afford something larger.

But to give people money with a first-time homeowner for a house they lose in less than a year, that's just wasting money.

That's that's really wasting a lot of money.

And finally, um let's see what else I wanted to say.

Oh, as far as for um the different projects that we need to bring in, we do need sustainable homes, body board, not very good.

But what about container houses?

That's a new thing.

What about looking outside of the box?

Looking at philanthropists and all these other people.

That was your two minutes, thank you.

Can I make a comment or do we have more?

Um what I would like to say, what I would like to add and see um is similar to what I mentioned to Miss Uh Morris before.

And I agree with you, Jeff, that um we're all showing up, and and that's what uh we can look forward to, and it's super exciting.

Um my statement actually lies in this idea of having this group conversation.

Because to your point, I'll reference myself.

I am on a fixed income, but I'm not SSI.

And this past um summer, I had been going to SUNO, long story short, to do performance arts camp, where I'm spending my time freely.

I'm not getting paid to do this.

And I received a boot on my car.

I'm parking in the same place all year, and it said that the tickets out had been registered for it um came up to $800.

I'm on a $2200 income.

My rent is $700.

And the tickets, three tickets from 2024 is what it says I got a boot for, right?

And if I'm a 60-year-old person, it's 12 o'clock, I go to my car and it's 90 degrees outside, I have to pick this boot up and bring it and tote it and all these different things.

So I'm listening to your concerns, and I am living these things with you.

So what I'm chartering, what I'm asking and charging us all to do is look at this conversation as a single person, as an elder, as someone who has one and two dependents, because that's what we're looking at.

And what I was charging earlier was this idea of ready at TCA or whoever ready start corp is, that's one part of this conversation.

But we're talking about halfway houses.

You're asking, well, we used to have Hano, certain people with disabilities and things like that have workers, but the word there's only so many workers, and that's why I alluded earlier to maybe there's not enough people there, but that's not fair to say.

What about um Hope House?

Are we funding people like that, you know, and what does that look like because they have a capacity?

Senior centers have a capacity, and their workers have a capacity because they don't want to be there all day, every day.

Um I'm having this understanding of mixed age, mixed income, mixed population.

And I agree with you because on one part of this conversation, we're talking about people making 725 and there's nowhere for them to park.

They don't get free parking either.

And electricity and food.

So we're talking about a 30% for just this one part.

So what I'm charging us all to do in the next couple weeks is when we get together again to show up and have these pieces of conversations and solutions, because I'm not saying only the dormed college kids should live together and we should just build for them.

I'm not saying that we should take every building like charity or the Coca-Cola and make one group live there.

What I'm asking for and advocating is similar to what we're all saying, but in a equitable, accessible for all of us type of dashboard conversation, and I'm thankful for this moment, y'all let me share.

Thank you.

You're here.

I just want to follow up on the comments about voucher holders because I think Andronika um made a really important point about the um stereotypes and biases against voucher holders that make it hard to uh for those families to access housing.

Um and I think I would just encourage landlords who want to talk about renters to bring data.

Um because the data that I've seen uh is that two-thirds of all renters in New Orleans qualify for a voucher.

Um I don't think two-thirds of all renters in New Orleans are tearing up homes.

Um the data that I've seen also shows that voucher holders stay in their apartment far longer than non-voucher holders, are more likely to be long-term tenants.

So I just want to make sure we're grounding our conversations in data and not stereotypes.

Thanks.

Maxwell, can I um ask you if it's okay?

Um when we when you brought this back up, and I didn't mention this before.

But what I saw, and this isn't realistic, so you guys please bear with me, but something like speed dating, but landlords and homeowners.

I'm not sure to what capacity this might look like, maybe a questionnaire and matching certain things with data points and incomes, but that's all I got.

I do actually think how the hand out has uh a program.

Something like that that they've recently launched.

Do you know what it's called?

Does anyone have a lot of different things?

I didn't know if this was four or not.

I wasn't sure.

I thought we were all four.

We're getting there.

Well, I'm trying I was actually trying to comment now.

So that's okay.

All right.

My name is Nicole Barnes.

I'm representing myself, but I've been working in housing 32 years.

Um just one of the things that I wanted to add, just thinking about what you were talking about, Jeff, and how we're approaching economic development.

Housing is not a part of the conversation.

Housing is foundational to the conversation.

I'm not saying it's just to stand on some high horse.

Pre-Katrina.

People didn't make a lot of money back then either.

We we are a poor city.

We're a city of of poor renters, if you will.

Poor homeowners, actually.

The difference then and the difference now is it not that it was okay, but it was okay in terms of people's ability to live because there were places that you can rent for what you were making.

We don't have that now.

And we continue to, as a city, not meet the moment that we're in.

We have to address the affordability crisis.

We absolutely have to.

The reason why we're losing population isn't just because we don't have jobs.

People have jobs, but they can't afford to live here with the jobs that they have.

Looking at it from just a side of thinking about income, thinking about we always have to be working on that, but we still have them create housing for the people who are living here now.

We have to con I mean it's parallel tracks.

It's not one thing or the other.

And until we realize that we have to do something about people's inability to live here, people's inability to pay rent, for people people's inability to hold on to the homes that they already own, seniors who have completely paid mortgages, but who still can't afford to live here because they can't afford the taxes and insurance.

We have to figure this out.

Our failure to meet this moment is only going to exacerbate the problem of our population leaving.

Where his other would be that only what they're doing is not obviously happy.

Thank you.

I think that's it.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you for your service and leadership.

I have Eugene, Mr.

Eugene for number four, or did you want to provide comment now?

We're on number two.

Now it's fine.

Do you want to address Jeff's report or the fundings in 2027?

All right, then we'll move on to our next agenda item with Nora.

Well, Ms.

Bros come, I just want to say I was born at Saramea Hospital, so I know exactly where it is.

It's the other tab on the one that's currently in the front there.

This is the one.

Oh yeah.

Oh.

Oh no.

Good afternoon to everyone.

I want to thank you all for the opportunity for having us here this uh afternoon.

Here with me.

I'm Brenda Brough, executive director with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.

Here with me is our Chief of Real Estate Development and Planning Strategy, Adrian Celestine.

Adrian and her team are fast and hard at work and standing up the fortified NOLA program, but more importantly, helping us stand up all of these programs that have been provided for us.

Before I get into the meat of why we're here, I want all of you all up on the Diaz and those who are listening to know that we take this task and this work seriously, our commitment to do what we are called to do and to stand up for that and uh come to approach this work in the manner that we have approached all of our work, we take all that seriously.

And all of the discussions that you all have had regarding housing, the lack of housing, those opportunities that exist that our citizens have called us all to bring to bear.

We are here and stand with you and with the citizens in this community to get that and do that.

Uh I shared with someone the other day is that we're gonna do our best.

Uh we may not uh do 100% and get it 100% right, but I can assure you we endeavor to get 100% right.

So with that being said, uh again, Brenda Burough, executive director, uh Adrian Celestine, Chief of Real Estate Development and Strategy.

So I started this uh just uh reminding everyone of what our breakdown of what uh has been provided for us on the uh the housing trust fund uh revised allocation.

We've got this as a breakdown of what the uh uh uh pursuant to the agreement and what has been approved uh for each of the programs, as well as our admin and the focal point of what the funds that will be allocated for the housing trust fund uh to be implemented by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.

So I'd move on to some important updates.

So as Jeff mentioned previously, we do have a fully executed CEA that was executed uh between all the parties, FANO, NORRA, the City of New Orleans executed on June 22nd uh 2026.

The City of New Orleans did issue the purchase order to Nora uh for the one for $8.8 million on July 14th.

Uh we submitted an invoice to the city requesting the payment on July 14, as Jeff mentioned.

We're expected to receive that payment by July 30th of this year.

Uh so to let everyone know, both the public and this uh advisory committee that everyone is feverishly working to make certain that we get the funds in hand so we can do what we call to do.

So we are working uh and have stood up the fortified NOLA Gap funding program.

I just want to remind everyone is that this program was is intended uh to working with the Louisiana Department of Insurance to close the funding gap for LMI homeowners uh for fortified roof replacements in the City of New Orleans.

The count City Council approved the funding and creation of the fortified gap uh program on June 24, 2026.

We uh at the Redevelopment Authority executed our CEA with uh the Louisiana Department of Insurance so that we can start receiving the data and identifying all of the eligible Orleans Parish applicants from the current round.

Approximately their total number of 326, that's potential applicants, that's the whole universe.

That's everybody who applied to LDI who said they wanted to move forward.

And uh we since we've gotten that, we've established uh program web page containing uh program information, contact information regarding this these additional resources.

Um that's lodged on Nora's website at NoraWorks.org.

I emailed the um this uh committee uh uh this advisory board advising them of that, hoping you shared that word and got that word out.

As soon as we issued that, got that information out, got that information out to our city council members as well, because I know some of them may have been receiving phone calls.

So uh where we sit today is that our activity is that we issued an e-blast announcing the application launch on July 13th to all of those uh eligible uh Louisiana Fortified Home, those 326 folks that I mentioned uh previously.

Uh we asked and encouraged folks to register in our webcants grants program.

Uh we're doing that all electronically and making ourselves available if individuals want to come to our office.

We have a dedicated phone line with three people who are ready and able to answer phone calls, who we have moved uh to be able to address this immediate uh standing up of this program.

We got application, I've got to share with you all.

As soon as the word got out that the council had approved uh this fortified NOLA GAAP funding, we started receiving phone calls, and but we're able to answer all of those questions.

So uh there is a need, there's clearly an interest, and uh this community has been responsive uh to that.

I'm happy to say that as we notified individuals telling them about the program that they could possibly be eligible.

We applications opened on yesterday afternoon.

Uh we received uh applications uh as of maybe 20 minutes ago uh we received approximately 19 applications that we're processing.

Of the 19, nine are complete.

100 percent of the information is there.

Our staff is now uh in the process of reviewing the income and the income guidelines of all those individuals.

Uh we're still answering questions, phone calls are coming in, uh, and we have those the remaining uh 10 applications, individuals are in the editing and uploading process.

So they've registered, they're now putting in their documents, getting their questions answered.

I'd suspect that before the end of the day, when folks are editing and monitoring, they're loading up all this stuff.

We'll continue to update both uh all of our partners as to where we are as we go through this process before our next uh advisory committee meeting, so you can get a sense of where we are and what's happening.

Uh just is just a map that I put together on the total number of applicants, the 325 applications, what parts of the city they're coming from.

Clearly, some of those neighborhoods, those individuals are more than 120 percent of the area median income uh just based on location without having looked at income, uh, but nonetheless, that gives you a sense that uh the word got out and folks applied.

You see applications in the Lower Ninth Ward, you seek applications New Orleans East, uh Uptown, Central City, uh Lake Lakeview, all of across the city.

This is just uh uh for this advisory committee to see what the where those applications came from and individuals that applied to Louisiana uh Department of Insurance.

So I thought it was important I shared that information with you.

And so, since we have launched that program, uh one of the things that I know that this advisory committee wants to know is well, you did that, so now what you're gonna do about the rest of them.

And so uh we thought we'd just share that with you as to what our launch dates are.

So on the homeownership construction program, which we have tentatively named, uh homeownership expansion and resilience opportunities as the HERO program, which is the homeownership construction uh subsidies program.

Highlights of that, we expect to launch that uh by September 30 on September 30th of this year.

We want to make certain, if you recall, that's for uh potential uh 40 plus uh housing uh homeownership housing opportunities for individuals to create uh more housing opportunities uh with that.

That's uh fortified uh uh roof uh are required, development of storm resilient homes.

This is all new construction, affordable homeownership opportunities.

One of the things that this uh advisory committee mentioned at one of its uh previous meetings was to make certain that when with these uh housing opportunities become available, that we make certain that we let folks know uh who they are, where they're building.

So we'll be able to come back in some upcoming meetings after we've made that selection and launch as to where those units are houses will be created.

Um individuals have the opportunity to bring their own land to this uh build and construction on if they want to, but we will also provide uh for NORA lots if individuals do not have those.

Uh so uh we provide those lots at a subsidy, 10% of the appraised value.

Uh it's a nominal amount if you're talking about if you don't have land.

So we've added that to that.

I know that that was one of the things that uh was said uh by the uh when this was being developed that there wasn't a requirement that they use NORA land, which it isn't, however, I do want to afford that opportunity, and we'll make those lay-in opportunities available.

Um the next is our owner uh occupied uh roofing uh fortified roofing program.

That's our the program that is uh for roofing uh fortified roofing for up to uh 25,000 for individuals who are low to mod income.

Uh it's uh not only it's uh any additional uh uh minimal uh work that is needed to receive the roof will be included as part of that.

We're projected to launch that in November of this year.

The uh the other uh program, which is our small rental rehab program, which is really our we're referring to as our rental investment uh and improvement program.

Uh we're projected to launch that in January of 2027.

And the reason why we're launching this, we're trying to launch them one after another and not have all of those launched at the same time.

We've looked at what our portfolio is, what we work and what makes sense, and what staff is working on currently.

Uh and then with that, I just highlight as we talked about the programs and what we are doing and potential launch dates.

I wanted to spend a few minutes just to share with this advisory committee and the general public the efforts and steps that we've made to communicate and share with where we are and what things are we're doing.

Uh, one is that we've sent out eblasts, those are where eblasts that were sent out to the targeted list of award recipients for the fortified NOLA Gap program.

Uh emails then have been sent out uh alerting recipients that applications are now open.

So that went out on yesterday.

Uh web page is created and lives on the NORAWorks.org uh website.

One page it was created, sent out to uh City Council, Housing Trust Fund, Advisory Committee, and the Office of Community Development.

We have the Housing Trust Fund landing page.

Uh we're working with the City IT department uh in building out the housing trust fund landing page uh that will live on the city's website.

Uh both NORA and uh FNO has provided the content uh and submitted that to uh the city's IT department and are working with them to try and get that set up so that we have that information.

I do know that over the course of the coming month or so, we'll be working with uh the city office of community development.

Uh we have that on our list uh to talk about what a dashboard and reporting format will look like.

More to come on that, uh, but I am happy to say, and I want to give uh a great uh public shout out to the NORA team, particularly the real estate development finance team and our disposition team and the entire organization for helping to stand up that fortified NOLA program in such a short period of time.

With that, I open myself up for questions.

I'll just second that motion on congratulations to your team.

That's really really impressive in such a short period of time, and we greatly appreciate it.

Are there questions from us?

I think we are good.

Thank you so much.

I know you are, but don't we're so grateful, so much gratitude.

Congratulations.

It's from us as well.

So thank you.

Thanks, y'all, and thanks to your whole team.

Um you all have been responsive and working so hard, and I know we we see that and really really appreciate it.

So I do not have public comment cards for Norris O Finance New Orleans is up.

Shout out to Liz for helping with the admin on all of this.

Our audiovisual um assistants from Liz today.

Thank you, Liz.

Beautiful.

So when y'all are ready, please introduce yourselves and y'all can take it away.

Awesome.

Good afternoon.

My name is Blake Stanville.

I serve as the executive vice president and chief operating officer at Finance New Orleans.

And good afternoon.

I'm Sydney Shivers.

I serve as director of housing finance, excuse me, housing programs and policy, also a little bit of finance or two, honestly.

Absolutely.

So thank you to the committee for having us today.

We're gonna walk through a few slides, just giving you some updates on the programming, where we stand with the housing trust fund, um, and our the programs that we've developed developed and the next steps afterwards.

So in terms of where we are today, as you just heard from our colleagues over at NORA, we have a fully executed uh agreement with the city that's been uh finalized and executed, and the and our funding is is on the way, so we have to follow those steps in the process in terms of actually uh getting the check dispersed um to us, but we are implementation ready.

So we have policies and and procedures and operational systems that are on target to uh be able to be completed and launched by September of this year for all of the programs.

And so that's the goal that we're moving towards.

Um Sydney and uh team and Jock Hawkins, who's uh running our single family component of the the Housing Trust Fund programs, have been working diligently to get us to the point that we at now.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Sydney to walk through the programs and the next steps associated with them.

Excellent.

Thank you, Blake.

And hello again.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to give and just really exciting update on where we are with our steps to implementation on these three programs that you see on the screen.

So on the left are our two fortified loan programs, which are part of the flexible uh fortified program allocation from the last allocation year.

So of one million, we have the re up loan program, which we are retooling to issue 0% interest loans for homeowner occupied um homes with one to four units.

And we also are still open to seeing if there's a need for rental uh occupied loans and want to continue to coordinate with the city and rebuilding together on the piece that we spoke about earlier.

Um see if there's a there's room for us to fill a gap while the city's figuring out how to fund that.

Um our legacy renovation loan that is a forgivable second mortgage, specifically to ensure that new homes that people are purchasing and renovating have a new roof that are built to fortified standards.

So both of those programs are consistent with the trust fund recommendations, um, allowing up to 25,000 per home to be lent to homeowners.

And then our small multifamily affordable and resilient is the affordable small rental program, um, which is coming in and just shy of 3.4.

This is going to be a construction to permanent forgivable loan that is available for development or substantial rehab of small multifamily rental and owner-occupied properties.

So we're really excited about the engagement that we've been doing around the development of both of these programs.

And we are going to walk you through a little bit more nitty-gritty on where we are at this stage on our path to deployment.

So for the smart loan, just taking it back a little bit.

But have really been diligently working on modeling, making sure that we are looking at best practices from other cities around the country on how to deploy programs like this and outlining the program guidelines.

We brought those outlines to partners, both in the development community and lenders in June and early July to just really check our blind spots.

We're endeavoring to make 100%.

There are a lot of details in deploying really two programs, these two programs with the smart loans.

So August and September, developers will be applying.

We will be scoring and selecting six to 10 awardees depending on a number of variables.

And we're setting really ambitious timelines for use of these funds.

So that means that our expectation is that any awardee will be closing and breaking ground within six months, and then construction will be complete well within 12 months from then.

So we're we're hopeful and excited to be targeting seeing units built and projects on the ground around this time next summer, if not sooner.

And then on our flexible fortified programs, ReUP and Legacy.

Again, this is these are both programs that Finance New Orleans has been working on for quite some time.

Last year we were fortunate to secure a partnership with this Solar Energy Loan Fund, which is a national green bank bringing two million of private capital to New Orleans for a whole gambit of repairs for single family and small rental homes geared towards many of the things that we've talked about today.

ADA, weatherization, energy efficient appliances.

Similar, again, we're re tooling that to focus on fortified using the trust fund dollars to ensure that we can loan at zero percent.

And similarly, we've been in dialogue with Eustace Mortgage about leveraging their loan capital for mortgages and renovation loans since last year.

So really excited to have program guides developed here after a lot of engagement on this front as well, trying to understand where lending, repayable loans can fit into the landscape where fortunately we have a lot of grant funds to serve those most in need, which is excellent.

We we anticipate that there is also going to be demand and market for more moderate income earners who are going to need loans to make these repairs.

So we are working through, as Blake mentioned, putting the final pieces together for operate operationalizing these programs in September and October, and similarly, we'll be looking to deploy funds by quarter four of this year.

And so just on a similar note to where Nora wrapped up, we do have information available on our website with financeNola.org/slash housing trust fund.

This information is live today.

This is also where we will be posting our applications for smart loan, and then you can learn more about the re-up and uh legacy programs through our website as well.

Um and then as Ms.

Brenda mentioned, we're hopeful to see this sort of landing page for both of our programs as well as some of the admin and advisory committee updates launched in the in the next couple weeks as well.

Um so that is all we have for now, unless anyone has questions or additional comments.

Thank you.

I have a question, but it's really short.

When you talked about the Solar Energy Loan Fund, I don't want to confuse myself because I'm aware of the Energy Smart.

Is that two different things?

Yeah, okay.

Similar but different.

A million dollars for the supposed is that the um the million dollars for re up and is that a million combined and do you is it first come first served or how is it split?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um I think we're kind of leaning towards first come first serve at this point.

Um as you know, you know, there's a buying season in New Orleans thing this the deployment of funds will fluctuate, fluctuate over the course of the year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Quick question on the um your re-up where you're considering your lending to landlords leasing to qualify tenants.

Um is that any consideration for like is it the landlord has to be living there or um yeah, a great question.

Again, lots of details here.

Um so currently with the homeowner loans, we can loan to homeowner occupied one to four unit homes.

Okay.

The program that we want to ensure is in demand in the market is purely renter occupied, small rentals.

And consideration for like also the period of affordability with that pretty much exactly aligned with what Will described earlier.

So um tenants, uh rents, targeting tenants under 80 AMI and period of affordability of at least three years.

Thank you.

Well, thank you both so much for the updates and for attending to all of those tiny details and decisions along the way to get us to where we are.

We're really happy to see the progress and look forward to what comes next.

Appreciate it.

Awesome.

Yeah, thanks.

You all have been great partners too.

Thanks for all you do.

Thank you.

Totally looking forward to looking at the dashboards.

We're excited about that too.

Yay, Dina.

Yes?

Let's see if I can do this one up here.

All right, we do not have any public comment cards.

So we'll be moving on to our last agenda item number four, which is the review of available housing trust funding for 2026 and 2027 programs.

Thank you to everyone for staying.

It's not working, so let me just drop it.

Okay, hi again, everyone.

I was hoping to do that from up there so you I could see your faces, but um, so we wanted to do this review.

Uh the goal of this item is to review our process for how we're making decisions about 2027, uh 2027 money, and try and be as transparent as possible about what the constraints are and what our options are, and then most importantly, to create space to hear from you about your priorities for 2027.

Um we mentioned in the last meeting that this meeting today is gonna be focused on housing needs, and then our next meeting on August 26th is where we'll present a budget for 2027 and vote on it.

Um that vote is happening in August because the entire budget and housing trust fund timeline has been moved up this year, in part to create more transparency and ensure things aren't so rushed at the end.

But we also didn't, you know, we didn't want to only talk about needs today and then show up with a budget at the next meeting without creating some space here to review what our options are and hear from y'all about what your priorities are.

So that's the goal of this item here.

Um and we welcome your comments.

So what I'm going to try and do uh before we take those comments is outline what our choices look like and what's realistically possible for 2027 so that we're like all on the same page.

Um and so that starts with our revenue scenarios for 2027.

Um we don't have a revenue, like this is a city total city revenue uh estimate for 2027 yet, the last revenue estimating conference.

Um they expected we would have more revenue at the end of this year, 2026, than we initially expected by about 29 million, which is really good news, but the city still finances are pretty touch and go for 2027.

So this is what I did is I tried to look model what it would look like in three different scenarios.

The first is sort of our our worst case scenario where revenue is a hundred million dollars less than it was this year.

Um the next is fifty million dollars less, and then the last scenario is if it stays the same as 2026.

So you can see, you know, uh revenue this year was about 800 million, so $50 million less would be 750, 100 million dollars would be 700 million, and what that works out to here on the housing trust fund total is either 14 million, 15 million, or 16 million, and then the program funds, which is the actual amount we get to spend, that's the part that's not dedicated to rainy day fund or admin, uh looks like about 12 million, 12.75, or 13.6.

Um if you remember this committee also uh passed a resolution recommending that the majority of the 2027 program funds be used to support about 360 units of affordable housing and multifamily rental developments.

Those are the ones that Jeff gave us an update about earlier.

They're close to the finish line, and the city already owes money to them.

So the the goal is to use some of that money to finally get them over the finish line.

Um that amount is a and Jeff let us know that that amount is still in flux, but in previous conversations we've talked about it being as much as $10.5 million.

It could be less, depending on there being you know other sources available, and Jeff talked about that infrastructure bond money, home funds, etc.

Um, but that decision about whether the city ultimately makes good on its promises to those developers is not ours as the advisory committee.

Um it rests with the city council and the mayor.

As of right now, we have every indication that that is the plan, that they are gonna move forward with that.

We've already made our endorsement of that plan, and so I think the way that we're gonna try and plan as best as we can is move forward under that understanding, assume that to be the case.

Um and then we can also consider in our annual report put out putting out contingency recommendations for what happens if for some reason some of those developments don't get funded.

Um there is one important built-in constraint here though.

Um the housing trust fund ordinance is very clear that of the total program funds in any year, at least 15% has to be spent on each use.

And so you can see the different uses here, uh homeownership, rental supply expansion, and rental preservation.

So 15% has to be spent on each of those three, and then the remaining 55% of the program funds is discretionary.

We make recommendations the council gets to choose where that goes.

But what that means is that the maximum amount you could spend on any one use is 70%.

15% plus the full discretionary 55%.

Uh and that would leave 15% for the other two.

So uh the roughly 10, 10.5 million of 2027 program funds that would be spent on multifamily buildings all falls under rental supply expansion, that one bucket.

So in all of our scenarios, if you look at here again on the far left, you've got the program funds again.

Um then uh where was in all of our scenarios, it would look it would likely max out the total amount allowable on rental supply expansion.

Um so I I know we've talked about that before in past meetings, but I want to make that absolutely clear.

So this is all three budget scenarios, the maximum amount or 70% of program funds, um, allotted to rental supply supply expansion is under the max rental supply expansion column.

So you can see here uh it's 8.33 million, almost 9 million, 9.5 million.

In either case, right, we said it could be up to 10.5.

So in any of those cases, this is likely to max it out.

Now maybe we find other sources uh for the multifamily, and so it doesn't, and that leaves us more money, but uh we're working on sort of worst-case scenario here.

So that would mean that the remaining amount of program funds would have to be split evenly between home ownership and rental preservation.

So we've got a column here with remaining amount of program funds between three and a half and four million is what we're looking at, which means that splitting them evenly between home ownership and rental preservation looks at bet like between 1.8 and about 2 million dollars to each of those uses in 2027.

So we talked about how you know there are other scenarios here where the multifamily developments find other sources and then that gives us more money.

We know Jeff is advocating for that.

We uh invite all of you to join with us in advocating for that.

Um but this is at least one of the more likely scenarios where we have about two million dollars for homeownership and about two million dollars for rental preservation to play with in 2027.

Um knowing that, I want to also just look through the menu of programs that we generally have to choose from and what that looks like for each of these buckets.

So we look at home ownership possibilities, and again, assuming we have about two million dollars.

These are the five programs that we funded already or discussed funding.

Um and again, this is you know, this like I I sort of capped this, the the our options based on what we've talked about before, which is that we want to make sure we're funding programs that both our administrators and our contractors and developers are at least somewhat familiar with.

We we obviously want to be able to be creative and start new things, but we have to balance that with making sure that things are actually good off the ground.

Um so these are the programs that we have some familiarity with.

Homeownership construction is the first one there.

Uh Nora um just talked about that program.

Um it contracts with developers to build uh new homes with fortified roofs and sell them in a discount to families up to 100% AMI.

Um and you can see there I included the amount that the housing trust fund has allocated for that in 2026, about 2.69 million.

That includes the $600,000 in revenue we allocated to this program at our last meeting.

That was the revision.

Um and then doing my best here on estimated subsidy per unit and estimated units.

Um I'm happy to be corrected.

Um the next program is owner-occupied roof rehab.

Again, NORAS program that pays contractors to put a new fortified roof on homes for families up to 120% AMI.

And we added $600,000 in that in new revenue to this program to specifically help families that won that state lottery, that gap program that Ms.

Brenda talked about.

Um that's why you see that the estimated subsidy per unit is very different, right?

It could be 25K if you're doing the whole roof, but if we're just filling the gap, it could be five or ten K.

So the number of units that you might get out of it depends on sort of uh that difference there.

Uh the next program is the flexible fortified roof program that Sydney just talked about, that um FNO is running.

Again, a million dollars there that we uh put in last year or for this year, and then the um small multifamily mixed tenure is the smart, we're now calling smart, which I'm down for.

Um is uh but this is specifically looking at the mixed tenure program.

So this is the one, this is the FNO program.

We categorize this as a rental program uh for 2026.

Uh and it builds two doubles on the same lot, um, and they can be all rental, and that's why we categorize it as a rental program for this year.

But the mixed tenure option allows a developer to build two homeowner units, each with a rental unit attached that would each be affordable.

And so when we funded this for this year, the mixed tenure model was an option.

But we could just as easily decide that in 2027 we were specifically interested in the mixed tenure option only, and then I think that could qualify as a homeownership program just as much as it qualified as a renter program for this year.

Um so I think that is potentially an option with our homeownership money for next year.

And then lastly, uh the owner-occupied rehab program.

Um this is not one that the Housing Trust Fund has funded, but we've discussed it because it's a program that OCD is currently funding, and um, thanks to Jeff and Will for giving us updates about it uh this time around.

Um I uh will happily update these numbers, Will, because I know now that it the full amount for 2026 is not 2.4, that was a three-year contract, so that's less for this year.

Um and the estimated subsidy per unit is something that I think came out of a conversation we had years ago.

I heard you say today it's closer to $20,000 a unit.

So we can okay.

35K is the max, thank you.

Um and we got some information about how that program is harder to fund with OCD money than it could be with housing trust fund money.

So that could be relevant as we consider that as a possible option for 2027.

Um so again, like I said, we could choose to fund other new things, but these is this is generally the options that we have funded in the past for homeownership, and so I'll move on to our last bit here.

Um rental preservation possibilities.

Uh because this is the other bucket where we would have about two million dollars.

We have a lot less choices here.

Um the small rental rehab program is the only rental rehab program that the Housing Trust Fund has funded, uh and it's brand new this year.

Uh we funded it at uh 2.87 million, and then OCD is also funding it at 5 million, so that's a total of almost 8 million.

Um you can see under the estimated units that we've given that program enough money to potentially serve hundreds of units, hundreds of people.

Um so given the amount and that it's new uh and will likely be working out some kinks.

I would be very surprised if it was able to distribute all of that funding in one year.

I'm happy to be corrected.

Um then the only other uh rental preservation program that I know of that the city has funded is a large multifamily rental preservation program.

So this is essentially helping older uh low-income housing tax credit projects recapitalize, do major repairs, and ensure affordability for another 30 years.

Um in the past, OCD has used some uh HUD funding through the home program um and allowed developers to apply for this use.

Um the city has also used affordable housing bond dollars to do this in the past, and we plan the plan that we endorsed with the multifamily developments would send about six million dollars in affordable housing bonds to two different affordable developers to preserve their affordability.

That includes uh two million to Gold Seal, which is thirty-one units, and four million to the meridian, which is seventy-two units.

So based on that small sample, that's roughly six million to do a hundred and three units.

That's about fifty thousand dollars per unit uh per sub per subsidy or subsidy per unit.

So potentially um that suggests that like the full two million in this bucket might be enough to offer one preservation award to a developer like this, if we were to go that route.

Um again, we could consider new programs that fit into this category, but uh uh we have to do that balancing of ensuring that our administrators know how to staff it and get the money out of the door in a timely manner, and that we have developers and contractors with the experience to apply.

Um the last option I'll mention is potentially allowing administrators some flexibility in moving some of the 2026 money we've already allocated to a different use.

If it seems like the program it was awarded to is moving slowly.

So currently under the CEA, our administrators have two years to spend down all the 2026 money that they're being allocated.

So let's say so they they're getting the money next week or two, they have until 2028 to spend down all of that money.

Um but we could use our report this year to encourage an admin an administrator that still has money left over after one year to move it to a program that might be oversubscribed.

So we could, you know, uh like as an example, if after 12 months FNO's flexible fortified roof program was underscore subscribed, but their small, their smart small multifamily program was oversubscribed.

We could include in our report a suggestion or a recommendation that they move any remaining money after a year to the small multifamily program.

If that's might be a way that we can sort of like nail some other funding sources and other programs.

Um that's it.

I'm gonna stop talking.

We can get questions and comments.

I just wanted to lay that possibilities out.

Okay, I have a quick question.

Is it in the policy already about the updates the way you explained it?

And if it isn't, could we add it as like a three-month or a six month into that 12-month two-year update?

That way we're kind of like what I'm saying is we they have two years and similar to Nora.

There's an update that they're doing, but we understand it takes more time, but that way we're able to we have that information and we're tracking it too.

And um, yeah, that's that's my only question.

That way when we look back, we can say, well, the four months, the quarters, the fiscals, it looks like that's that's all.

No, yeah, yeah, Tasha, you're absolutely right.

Uh and that will be I mean, so we are required to report quarterly to the council on that.

So we'll be getting regular updates.

Yeah.

Did you want to make public comment on this matter, ma'am?

Yes, ma'am, I do.

You can go ahead, and if you don't mind filling out a card when you're done.

I didn't know which card to fill out.

I didn't know if you all were even taking cards, so I just decided to come and stand up because I definitely feel like it was through God's great intervention that I'm before you today.

My name is Kim Ford, and I purchased the property from the from Nora in the aftermath of Katrina because my neighbor did not come back with her disabled son.

So I was able to benefit from Nora's uh community programming.

The lot next door program.

All right.

And so right now I'm in court fighting with Nora because I have not been able to get any type of assistance from Nora and rehabbing this property, which I was gonna use as a place for my mother who's now 91 to live.

And all of those hopes and dreams, I was so excited that I was able to get gather that property.

But as you know, this I don't know if you guys know or not, but residents from New Orleans, especially African Americans, have not been able to benefit from home ownership and home ownership opportunities because of rentlining in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And I feel like because Nora was awarded all of those properties from the road home, that they have uh uh uh uh some kind of fiduciary responsibility to my community, the citizens who have lived here all of their lives like I have for 65 years, and to be able to just walk in by half a stance because I see my friend coming in here, and that you all are making all of these uh acknowledgement to these millions and millions of dollars that Nora has access to for programming, but all they can do is use their legal team to take me to call.

And I said that, I said that from Nora.

I get that from Nora because they were disingenuous to receive those properties and behaving like they were gonna make opportunities for the citizens of this community.

But all I hear is developers this and developers that opportunities for developers.

What about for the citizens in this community?

And I'm wrapping up right now because I really want to know if my family's farmship and have the representative ourselves from state, because no attorney wants to go up against them.

No attorney wants to do that, and Nora has its own legal force.

But me to have to go up against.

And then you guys sitting here talking about these students, just give me a portion of that, so that I can rehab my property, even if it's a loan.

You understand that I'm gonna be able to get the money back.

But if we don't have we don't have opportunities for the citizens, if we only sit back and make opportunities for developers, that's disingenuous community, and that's why we have not come in your street.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate your comments.

And please go to call the Nora, I swear to God, I'm gonna put it on everyone and stuff.

I want you to also give look, look, look, there's yellow cards down there.

One of the other ways that your public comment is important and it can be shared is when you fill out the card, not just talking.

So it's okay.

No, you got it.

Thank you.

I think there is another card over there too, Tasha.

Oh.

You can go ahead.

William Studd and the executive director of rebuilding together New Orleans.

I have to leave right after this.

I appreciate the work that you guys are doing.

I think Maxwell for in the conversation, this is a building from the last conversation where we said if we we set aside this amount of money, we're gonna have very few cards to play.

The challenge that we have is that because the program implementation was lower, it's the easiest easiest thing was whatever programs were working, fund those.

And so I think speaking to that of you guys have a hard decision to make of like where are we gonna allocate money next year when we don't know what's working this year, and so it's a lot of it's it's guesswork and it's community feedback.

It's not enviable and it's challenging.

Wherever community organizations can be supportive in answering questions, like we don't have to wait for, and I know you guys aren't waiting for the data or the support.

The owner occupied read program is like the numbers that we were talking about and shared is our whole program, not specifically just the C D BG funded elements of those those programs.

So I just wanted to kind of put that caveat out there.

Uh and I also work with all of the nonprofit rebuilding organizations.

We have a collapse a collaborative where we meet every month and talk about fortified roofing, what's working, what's not working, how we can bring in other resources that are not just HTF that are state dollars.

Um and so you know, happy to continue to work with this this body and appreciate the work you're doing to support homeowners.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you, Colin.

Mr.

Colin Felsman, please.

Uh Mr.

Colin Felsman, uh People's Housing Plus.

Uh just building on what Will said, I think there's so many promising programs and so many people ready to do this work that the best way to think about the 2027 dollars is to look at which programs are oversubscribed.

When we have applications coming out for heroes relatively soon and for SMART, that's the kind of work that People's Housing Plus does.

We'll see if there's a real oversubscription for SMART programs.

Then maybe there is a chance to reallocate some of those dollars.

We're very excited about the mixed tenure piece, and we think there's a lot of opportunity there.

We're gonna be applying for a number of those for smart, and we have a whole bunch that we'd love to do in 2027 if the funding was available.

We also obviously do a lot of single family work and would be excited about that.

And I think Will mentioned the roof programming.

There's no shortage of roofs we could put on this.

So I I just think demand is gonna outstrip the dollars that are available.

You have tough choices and appreciate how you're making them.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Did you want to make another comment, ma'am?

No, I have the statistics.

New Orleans is leading the country with the number of women buying houses in our city.

So order Bahazen is definitely a demand here.

And I will give you a copy so you can see for yourself.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

And then I had a card for Mr.

Eugene Bell or Beth, I think he may have left.

Ben, I think he left.

Did he write what his comment was?

Can I make a how can old partner with how can OCD partner with small developers under the new administration?

Very patience there.

We'll follow up with we'll follow up OCD on that.

So what do we do?

All we have left is adjournment.

Do we have any?

I just want to say, Maxwell, thank you, Maxwell again.

You know, this great great work and helping frame this for us.

In some respects, I this it's not gonna come out the way I intended to come out.

In some respects, I think it's easier for us to make decisions for next year because of the limited amount of funds that we have.

We kind of only have to allocate four million dollars instead of the 13 million like we had to take on that test.

So I think in some ways it buys us time over the course of the year, so that really went what what I'm hopeful that we're doing is planning for 2028.

So that you know, with four million to allocate for next year, and really taking the time that I'll be able to 18 months or whatever in a bigger planning process, so then when we gear up, we'll certainly have more information about programs and what's working and what's not working from our administrative partners and also hearing more from the community.

So but thank you.

And that you know, and then I would would I don't know that we formally asked yet, or if it's implied that we wouldn't want to be explicit to Nora, FNO, and any of our other partners that let's get data on your subscription rates.

Like what what do you already have in the pipeline before we come back in August so that we are ready to make some decisions and not have to receive that feedback and make a decision you know in real time about it.

So if we can we'll we'll send out a formal request to you all to get of as much of that information as we can in the next couple of weeks.

Um our meeting is in about five weeks.

So we hope we um can get some information for you in the next two to three weeks so that we'll have time to process it and see where we are and and put some uh more meat on the bones that Maxwell has uh provided for us.

I mean, uh yeah, I think that's really important.

I also I I want us to be realistic about it because I was tracking and writing down when Nora and Ephano were talking about their applications being open and and closing, and a lot of them were dates in September and October, and we have to make this decision by by August 26th.

Um so we are largely not going to have access to that data, and that's just I mean, that's a factor of what this looks like.

Uh, I think what you said the the piece that I was really pulled out there, Alan is that like that data is going to make a big difference for 2028.

In 2027, we're gonna do our best.

What I want to say is that we want things to already be done and perfect and set, but we're understanding, and I'm acknowledging the developers and the renters and everyone in this room who was on a fixed income, who is trying and partnering that this is a process.

And for my example earlier about the boot, the city cameras has switched over.

So now an OPD has taken it.

So where before I would call and say, hey, so and so now I have to go through these different avenues because someone else has picked it up, and that takes time.

So I'm so grateful for all of you to continue to show up, advocate for yourself, for the people, the programs that you're in and that you're doing, because all of this to that point is going to make the best perfectness that we can we can do.

Thank you.

That's all I got.

Anyone else?

I want to be able to send you all some communication so that I need to get your information so that I can be able to put it in writing and be able to be aware of what you all are doing because I will be watching and monitoring and being and invited my community to be a part of it as well.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, I'll just last.

Thank you.

Can I um I just want to give a quick shout out to Council Central staff who's done all of the planning, scheduling, and uploading documents for these meetings.

Um, Kennedy Anita and Nathan, we couldn't uh logistically make this happen without them, and they've been very generous because this is not necessarily in their realm of work, and so really appreciate them.

Yes, and and sometimes at the last minute too.

We really appreciate them.

We appreciate their attention to our very last minute requests, of course.

Um can I can I add one more thing?

Um I really apologize.

There was a comment earlier about the IT department um that is doing some of the dashboard conversation.

And if it's at all possible that we have a community voice or someone from the housing, you know, that would yeah, that would be great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

So we have a motion to adjourn.

I'll second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thanks, everybody.

I'd like to call the meeting to order, please.

Welcome everyone who's in attendance.

Very happy to um to have a nice crowd today, and we appreciate the public who have joined us.

I'd like to call a meeting in order at three thirty-four.

And quickly uh get through the business so that we can get to the business of interviewing candidates that we're here to do.

So first uh approval of the minutes from May of uh from the May meeting.

Um I'd like to ask for a motion to dispense with reading of the minutes.

So move.

Any discussion, questions?

No.

Do I have a second?

I'm saying second.

Okay.

Um call for a vote.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

We have four board members president present today.

And we have uh our committee chair, Dr.

Cowan.

So we um hearing none opposed, all in favor, motion carries.

I'm asking for the monthly report of the inspector general um to be provided in writing.

Dame we have received that.

It's attached to the agenda, yes, ma'am.

So motion to accept that as read.

Our motion to accept the minutes as read.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor aye.

Moving on to the monthly report of the office of the independent police monitor.

We have to attach.

We've attached that to the um agenda.

Do I have a motion to accept this that report?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Monthly report of the ethics trainer.

Do I have a motion to accept that report as entered?

I move to accept the report.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

The last report that we're accepting today is from our general counsel and executive administrator.

Do I have a motion to accept?

A motion to accept the report from the general council.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

So we would like to move on to the business in hand item number seven.

We're here today to uh interview three applicants for the um position of independent police monitor.

And I will turn that over to Dane.

Dane, do we want to ask all three applicants to come forward?

Um I would think just uh one at a time as they present.

Okay, I'll let you uh make those introductions and call it.

I'm sorry, can we get a copy of the agenda?

The agenda is posted online.

Uh yeah, the first the first uh up is Stella's amendment in alphabetical order.

Can I get an agenda, please?

Can I get an agenda?

I'm sorry, I don't have any real copies of all my thank you.

Oh, yeah.

I think it's right around the tab.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Um Madam can I have a question.

Can we have legitimacy place for the public?

Is that is that possible, please?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, they need to talk to somebody else.

Why don't we take Patrice Rose first?

She's already voted her up.

Okay.

Dane, I believe you had some opening comments on the process.

Can we make sure we have agendas in place for the public for our next next meeting?

Can we make a notation of that, please?

Yes.

I wanted that to be on the record.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, we just by way of of an overview of the process that brought us all here today.

The board voted back in February to commence a national search for an independent police monitor.

That search uh started in February with a publication in uh numerous national journals.

We received more than a hundred and sixty or seventy applications.

Those applications were all distributed to the board.

The board engaged uh Professor Michael Cowen uh from uh emeritus professor from LSU to assist in the review of those those uh applications after reviewing the applications, the board members sent nominations to you, madam chair.

Uh from those nominations, you chose three people to present today, and uh that is uh is where we are.

Thank you.

Um I'll add to that that there was a review by the committee to make sure that the process and those applicants met the requirements of this of the um code related relative to this position.

Thank you, Dane.

Um Madam Chair, yes, I have a uh question uh with Dana before we move on.

Um we had over uh 176 individuals throughout the um the U.S.

that applied for um these jobs this particular position.

The qualifications for the um for the individual for this, um I'd like to know if that information is also made public and uh shared with the community as to what the qualifications that we are looking for.

Uh absolutely they're set forth in the code of ordinances that uh that the board considered back at its May meeting, and uh they are they are public.

In that process, did we hear from any um individuals from the community?

Relative to that.

Relative to the um qualifications.

And the reason I asked that question is because as you know, this position, one of the main parts of this position is more of a liaison, a person, you know, to represent the community as well, and having um their uh information provided for them so they can see exactly this entire process, you know, to be very open and clear, the process in which we went through.

Okay.

Yeah, the short answer is we had a public meeting in uh May where all those issues were discussed.

And uh no members of the public attended all day.

Okay.

The okay.

I just want to make sure that the public is very aware of what we're doing here today because of the importance of this individual that will hold this post.

And uh and it is community-based.

So I just want to make sure that you know it was, and so you were saying that uh members of the community, no one attended, and it was published in the newspaper and whatever, you know, uh the process we go through and notifying the public that this meeting, that meeting was held or was to be held.

Correct.

It was a duly noticed public meeting, just like today's meeting is a duly noticed public meeting, and the members of the public are here.

Okay.

Yeah.

I just want that to be part of the record.

Okay.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have a question.

Where was it published, uh, Dane?

If you can tell us, please.

On the City of New Orleans website.

Okay.

Ready to proceed with the introduction, Dane and Yes, the first candidate is Patrice Rose.

Hello, Patrice.

Hello, good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

My name is Patrice Rose.

I am the Chief of Inspections and Evaluations at the New Orleans Office of Inspector General currently.

I appreciate the members of the Ethics Review Board and Dr.

Cowan for giving me the opportunity to present today.

I hope to spend just a few minutes talking about who I am, my professional experience, and then just a couple more minutes on what I would like to see from the office of the independent police monitor.

So who am I?

I am a New Orleans native from Algiers.

I'm a graduate of Eleanor McMaine High School.

People from the city want to know what high school did you go to.

I went to McMaine.

I'm married with one daughter, and I'm a member of the local chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.

I am professionally a civic minded professional who believes in fairness and transparency.

I obtained a bachelor's degree from Hampton University in Virginia and then a master's in public health from the University of South Florida.

And after working in the field of public health for several years, I went back to school and got a law degree from the Southern University Law Center.

I started my career at the Louisiana State Health Department, conducting surveys and evaluation evaluating programs that provided education to the public and to the community about chronic diseases in the state.

So after law school, I joined the OIG to join my two interests, one being public policy and the other being the law, where I hope to affect positive change through government oversight.

Over the course of my years at the OIG, I've obtained a few certifications.

Because I I strive to be up to date in the field of oversight and compliance.

So in 2018, I became a certified fraud examiner.

2020, certified inspector general evaluator, 2024 certified compliance and ethics professionals.

Even though I had been working at the OIG for several years at that point, in 2022, I became chief of my division.

And when I started as chief, there were only two of us.

It was myself and one other evaluator.

And we really couldn't get the work that we needed done because our standards required us to have at least three persons.

So since then, I have grown the division from two members to five.

And by contrast, the evaluations division only garnered about $2 million in PELP in the four years prior to my becoming the chief.

Some of the reports that I've done of the 17 that have been done since 2022 have been directly related to NOPD and NOPD policies and procedures.

And in the course of those projects, I've met with officers.

I have conducted policy reviews, analyze NOPD data, provided findings and recommendations to the NOPD.

And in addition to the various reports that I personally have worked on or overseen, I've also worked with OIG investigators to analyze data related to NOPD for their numerous investigations.

So my vision for the office, my personal vision for the office is that it would be an independent office that provides unbiased, objective reviews, while also strengthening relations with between the NOPD and the public.

Also assess the quality and timeliness of NOPD investigations and conduct pattern analysis.

That's a lot.

That's a lot for one office to handle.

So how do I see all of that happening?

The IPM, the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, gets approximately one to 1.2 million dollars every year.

And while that seems like a lot of money, for the amount of things that they're required to do, it's really not enough.

So it's critical that this office make the most of every dollar.

And in order to do that, do that, I would streamline the operations and hopefully use that money to hire additional staff.

While the office is doing a lot of things right now, there are areas that I feel need a little bit more attention.

And one of them is the risk management, early warning system and pattern analysis.

This is a core function that the code of ordinance and the memorandum of understanding that the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and the NOPD have in their MOU.

The MOU actually addresses this seven times.

And right now, the NOPD's early warning system is suboptimal.

It's not working the way that it's supposed to work.

But the IPM is supposed to provide an assessment of that early warning system.

For those who may not know, the early warning system is a mechanism that the NOPD is supposed to use in order to identify patterns of behavior in police officers that may indicate negative interactions with the public.

And so this is very important that the public and of the independent police monitor is assessing whether or not though the NOPD is actually monitoring those behaviors.

Another area where I think there's an opportunity is to evaluate the academy training.

But there also needs to be an evaluation of the effectiveness of that training.

Here are a couple of areas where the consent decree monitor.

We know that the New Orleans police department, the consent degree is now ended.

And here are some things that were under the responsibility of either the consent degree monitor or the NOPD had these responsibilities as a component of the consent decree.

But now that the consent decree is over, there's not necessarily this mandate anymore.

And so I'm advocating that these are some things that the IPM can take up themselves to make sure that the measures and the gains that were made under the consent decree do not slip back.

And one of them is to revive the PCABs of the community advisory boards.

This is not technically a responsibility of the independent police monitor, but I think it is something that because the NOPD had this responsibility, and they are now floundering.

I think it's something the IPM can do to kill two birds with one stone, if you say.

Also, the audit of the PIB data and reports.

This is another responsibility of the consent decree monitor that I think could be done by the IPM.

So final thoughts.

I feel like oversight, if I'm sorry, if I was appointed, my goal would not be to take a sledgehammer to this office and demand dismantle all of the work that is currently being done.

Rather, it would be to carefully consider each program, assess whether they help the office meet the objectives laid out in the ordinance, and whether they contribute to a process that is independent, transparent, and unbiased.

So thank you for this opportunity.

Any questions?

Thank you for your um your presentation and for your um obvious professionalism.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um you're familiar, I can see, with the uh final report of the of the monitor.

I am.

Um would you point out a thing or two in there that struck you as really important?

Oh I definitely felt like the issue of the early warning system was important.

Um as I said, it's mentioned several times in the MOU.

But in the monitors report, he discussed the fact that the NOPD has not uh created a new system, the one that they have right now is not functioning.

Uh and he stressed the fact that it does need to be revived so that the patterns can be reviewed.

Uh some people uh look at that um that report of 12 years of monitoring, and they see a waste of time or a boondago.

Other people look at it and see a remarkable transformation of our police department underway.

What what would your view be?

I think that the police department has definitely been transformed over the course of the years that we had a consent decree.

I don't think that we are at a point where there's no no further need for monitoring.

I think that there is still some gains to be made.

Uh, but I do think that there has been some improvement, which is one of the reasons why I feel that it would be very important for the IPM to take on some of the responsibilities that the consent decree monitor had been doing so that we don't slip back into some of those other uh behaviors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Ms.

Rose.

Enjoyed the presentation.

Thank you.

Okay.

Question.

Uh huh.

You mentioned three areas.

Now I I have a whole list of questions now, but you know, I know we only we don't have length of time, but you mentioned risk management, uh, academy training, and community advisory board.

I want to go back to academy training.

How involved are you all would you be?

Are you now or are you suggesting to be involved with the uh academy training?

I personally am not involved in the academy training at all.

So do you see there is a need before doing the process that the young men and women that's going through this academy training have some type of uh knowledge of the community in which they're about to enforce uh provide services for?

Do they have do you see a need for them to understand the importance of a relationship with the community?

And do you see they basically I'm trying to see how you you mix that into a training?

It's just like any job, you know, you find out what the whole job is about, and you find out who your your demographics and who you're dealing with, who you're working with, how you relate to them.

And uh so is that a part of do you see that being a part of having a very important role because in the final analysis after they go through the training, you guys are the ones that's really gonna be part of this overseeing, okay, making sure they have community engagement, accountability, and everything else.

So why not have a role in that initial training in the academy with these young people that's going through that?

Do you see a role?

You see it, you understand what I'm saying?

Yes, I understand what you're saying, and and I think that having a role in the training is perfectly fine.

I think that is uh it's a great idea.

Uh my point in the presentation was that after the academy training is over, there needs to be an evaluation to make sure that what was taught at the evaluation is actually learned in the computer.

Yeah, and I really think that what we're talking about now should be a part of the training.

Yes.

Okay, uh, to look at that.

The other part that I'm very interested in is the community advisory board.

Um the community advisory board I found, especially right after Hurricane Katrina and having in different uh neighborhoods was very effective.

And they gave the residents in these different neighborhoods an opportunity to come to these different meetings and explain what was going on in district uh three and and one and five and whatever.

Uh are those boards still in uh together, or they've been dismantled.

Uh if you're speaking of the police community advisory board, it from their website, it looks like they have not been meeting.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that individual who was the community policing part there was no longer part of it.

Wasn't part of the uh for the sent uh decree, you know, to have a a person to uh have these kind of boards initiated?

It was and I think that's kind of where I was going with, you know, once the consent decree ended, uh in fact it it appears that these boards started slipping even before the consent decree ended.

But because this was under the consent decree, the fact that the consent decree is no longer there means that they're really not obligated to do it anymore.

They're not obligated.

Okay, all right.

Um I'll come back.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, uh, Ms.

Patrice.

I appreciate you so much.

Um I'm gonna kind of stay in the same vein.

Um my question is what specific outreach initiatives would you launch to in educate citizens on their rights and the role of the IPM?

Of course, community trust and engagement are very, very important to me.

So I'm just trying to see how you feel about that.

I think it's very, very important as well.

Um, and I do believe that the uh community advisory boards are a critical uh component of that.

Uh right now the IPM is charged with having quarterly community uh meetings in each district, and I believe that is where they provide that type of education.

Uh and I would like to see that the uh police community advisory boards and the boards that are already involved with the IPM on a quarterly basis could be joined so that information can be given out, information can be distributed, uh we can go old school, we can do barbershops and beauty salons, you know, to provide information.

We can go to churches and distribute information.

You know, uh giving that kind of information out is critical to the public.

I I think while um the IPM has to be very uh unbiased.

I also feel that providing the information to the public so that they have the knowledge to advocate for themselves is uh a critical component of this job.

Thank you.

I have one question.

You talked about opportunities as it relates to PIB audits and data.

How do you see your role in I guess monitoring, or what is your role, or how do you see that playing out in terms of monitoring the PIB reports and data?

Um currently, well, formerly under the consent decree, the consent decree monitor reviewed the um the audit, I should say audited the PIB reports to verify whether or not they were accurate.

Uh and so that's that is what I would suggest the IPM take up that role.

Is that something that's not occurring now?

I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

Uh excuse me, uh Dana.

Uh for the um next meeting, uh we'd like to have some agendas, you know, for the public.

Um there's no agendas out there.

I think we for the next meeting.

I don't know if anyone can make some copies so that the public can have some uh agenda because I have one in my hand here.

So uh we'll make sure that everyone has an agenda for the next meeting.

Okay.

If all the questions have been asked, go ahead.

Yeah, I have just one more um question.

Um my question is centered around community.

And I was listening to your presentation, and um how would you interface with the community?

That's right.

How would you interface it with the community?

You know, one of the parts of the um of a this position is uh not only to uh work with our local police department and elected officials and everyone else, but also the community as well.

And to present information to them so they'll be very knowledgeable about the processes that you actually have to go through in order to get things accomplished.

Everyone has their own ideas.

Oh, this should have been done, this should have been done, this should have been done.

Okay, but I know there is a process, you know, to go through and join that.

Uh the the processes you use.

You have a very I I don't know how large your staff.

How large is your staff?

You said you want your previous staff that he was working with.

You said you had two people, but you increase it to five.

Right, but right now I am at the Office of Inspector General.

I'm not at the IPM.

So my staff at the Office of Inspector General is uh five members including myself.

Do you see a need for improvement with the community uh through this new position?

And how would you go about improving uh the community and I think I I have to be honest, I think that uh the community involvement of this office is commendable.

I think that they are they are doing a great job in uh reaching out to the community.

Okay.

Yeah, that was my my question.

I I think that they're doing a great job right now of reaching out to the community.

You're asking me, do I feel like I can improve that?

Yes.

I think that I would like to build on the momentum that they already have.

Okay.

Um certainly, as I said, I the only thing that I can I can put my finger on in terms of better outreach to the community would be the community.

I out community advisory groups, which have floundered in the last several years.

And that was my question, really.

Uh what strategies would you use to improve the communication with the community?

Um what strategies would I use?

Um, a bit a meaningful relationship with the community.

I would I would reach out to the various neighborhood associations and meet with them.

I would meet the community where they are.

You know, I would go to the churches, I would go to the uh schools, I would go, I would go to the to the community members where they are.

Yeah.

And at their neighborhood associate association meetings at uh any anywhere where I think the community is congregated, that's where I would be.

Okay, that's good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Dan do we want to move as a minute.

Are you all set with your email is cut?

And I should be able to access it.

So let's see if his email is actually approved sign in.

I know.

Is it on the open up?

I mean, it should be he said that his email is always open on this.

Yeah, I might have to.

Unless.

Oh, here let's see.

Uh we don't have the code.

Um that's gonna call him.

Maybe he'll approve it.

Yeah.

Because he's the one who told us to sign in the Steve.

Get started whenever you're ready.

Scroll.

All right.

Well, I guess we're gonna have to just deal with it in a scrolling manner instead of slides.

Yeah.

To save time, I'm I'm not an IT guy.

So is that all right?

Sure.

I'm gonna also hand out the uh spirit the uh PowerPoint for you.

And there's a copy of that.

So what what Dane is handing out to you is a copy of my uh PowerPoint.

This one?

There we go.

Okay.

So there's a copy of my PowerPoint there as well as a a a case study um that I wanted you guys to have a a chance to read.

It's uh it's a very uh poignant investigation that I did at the at the end of my career uh with the FBI, and it's very germane to the to the work uh that we're looking at right now for the office.

And I'll I'll actually get into that case study in a little bit.

Ready to go?

Please introduce yourself and okay.

So my name is Steve Kruger.

Um I currently am the uh assistant inspector general uh for the city of New Orleans, and um I've got a whole slew of experiences uh that I'll I'll draw to draw from uh in my background.

And you've got my resume, uh, but I've only pulled stuff off of my resume that is uh specific in germane to this to this um application uh for the I for the IPM.

And um I want to draw your attention uh to three specific things um with my background, and that's the uh the DEA and the FBI laboratory um experience that I have, as well as the uh the FBI training division experience that I have as a senior leader uh at the FBI Academy uh at the end of my career.

And also specifically the FBI uh Little Rock and uh and Lafayette work where I was managing those offices, um civil rights programs.

I I managed everything that was happening in those offices, but specifically for this presentation, I'm I'm focusing on the civil rights outreach, which for the FBI and managing the FBI's civil rights program, it's two parts.

It's it's there's an operational piece and an administrative piece.

The operational piece is where the agents actually are investigating civil rights violations from police officers, but the outreach piece is uh where you know I I met with the the the U.S.

attorney and the DAs and the law enforcement partners in the community, we would have quarterly meetings in the community, and we would discuss issues surrounding civil rights topics.

So we'd share information.

We'd they would tell us, they would tell us what their concerns are, and we would tell them more than anything, educate them on what we can do and how we do it.

So you can better, if you see it, you know how to report it.

The most important part of that outreach was I got your number, you got mine.

There's an open line of communication, it was the outreach.

It's analogous to I think what what most folks think of is uh civilian oversight of of policing.

I mean, that's what the Bureau called it our civil rights outreach program.

Um I managed that for Southern Louisiana, and I also managed it for the entire state of Arkansas while I was there.

Uh so that's the that's the I mean I did a hundred other things too, but this is what's germane to this office.

So I handed out a copy of my case summary, um, which is really important, it's really impactful because it's a story of an it's a story of one agent, one FBI agent, which is which was me, who went to a police department to help them solve a homicide.

In the course of solving that homicide, I tripped over and slipped on all kinds of unconstitutional policing practices by that department and the sheriff's office and others surrounding.

And this is in your backyard.

This is in central Louisiana, and it was ten years ago.

I tripped over all kinds of issues that were significant.

I I couldn't even believe I was experiencing it.

It was so egregious.

So I went back to the FBI office, I had already opened up a homicide assist case.

I'm gonna I'm gonna help the PD work the homicide case, but I'm also gonna work this civil rights case because I'm gonna look into that, I'm gonna try to verify that this stuff is actually happening.

I I I couldn't believe it.

Um so the the document that I gave you is gonna give you a lot more detail than what I'm gonna try to do in my 20 minutes here, okay.

So, but I will I will I will get to the end of the story, or at least the most significant part of that story, is the fact that what I uncovered in that police department on more than 600 separate instances in a three-year period, people were incarcerated in the put in the city jail without probable cause.

I I couldn't even believe that that was happening to one person, let alone finding out after a subsequent search warrant of the jail records that it happened 600 times in a three-year period.

That's that's two people every every three days.

That's terrorizing that community.

And that is the reason why I became to understand why the citizens wouldn't talk to me when I was trying to help solve the homicide.

They would not talk to me because they thought I was a law enforcement officer, they thought if they talked to me, I was gonna put them in jail for 72 hours.

Because that's what was happening.

That's with the practice in that community.

And it was it's it's amazing how far, how far policing can go wrong if it's not monitored, which is the whole moral of the story that if you are not, if if a system does not have a method, in order to marshal its troops back to and back in line, it will continue to it will continue to move further and further away.

The practice becomes the norm and becomes the policy.

The practice gets further and further from the policy, and then if nobody's there to pull it back, it just goes horribly wrong.

And that's a case story, case summary of how it can go horribly wrong.

And it's uh it's the natural process of how the culture, the culture, or the practice of policing, can get so off track because what ends up happening is the the police academy, they all knew what to do coming out of the police academy.

Because what ends up happening is the police academy, they all knew what to do coming out of the police academy.

The minute they start working at the police department, nope, we're gonna do it the way they do it because that's the way they've been doing it, and they've been doing it that way for decades.

And that's the story that I was getting over and over.

Those police officers knew it wasn't right, but that's how they were instructed to do it.

And nobody, nobody checked them.

The DA didn't check them, the public defender didn't check them, nobody checked.

So it's a really, really interesting read.

Um, and if you have any questions about it, I I'd be I am happy to discuss this at any time.

The problem with that investigation is it took me two years.

It took me two years to finally gain the public's trust, and and I had I had 15 or 20 people at the end that finally trusted me in order to do something about it.

And I I feel like I gave them what they needed, I because at the end, DOJ did come down and they initiated a pattern practice.

There's a federal uh monitoring program in place right now, they're still struggling with it.

It's about 10 years old, and um, and it's uh it's uh the moral of the story is policing, if it's not checked, can get off so far, and it can go so wrong, and everybody does it.

So what was happening was I had all these headwinds in trying to identify all the stuff that was going wrong.

I was trying, I mean, it was egregious civil rights criminal violations, but I couldn't find a prosecutor in order that that would take the case.

Why?

Because everybody was doing it.

Who are we gonna charge?

So I couldn't find there was no criminal remedy for it.

So the only the only thing that I could do for that community was to try to get DOJ to come down and do an investigation and do the pattern and practice case that resulted in a in a monitoring program, which is what which is what ended up happening.

And this slide is basically telling you all of the entities that I struggled with, one FBI agent was trying to mine through all of this madness, the federal prosecutors, the local prosecutors, the state prosecutors, they all had one reason or another to not do anything.

And I gave you the federal prosecutors' reason.

The uh the state and local police, they knew it was happening, they knew it was happening, and they did nothing, they just had their head in the sand.

One of them, I'm not gonna identify the they said, Well, if we get a letter from the chief that says he wants some help, we'll we'll consider helping.

I'm like, well, the chief's not gonna send you a letter to come investigate him.

So it was it was obnoxious, and then um the public defenders, I called them.

Well, surely, surely they're gonna help me out, and they said, Well, no, this is this is just the way it's done up here, and then at the end, as if it couldn't get any worse, as if it couldn't get any worse, I found out and discovered that the that the district court judge was signing arrest warrants and search warrants without probable cause, no probable cause affidavit attached.

Signs the warrant, 200,000 bail, no probable cause.

I I couldn't believe it.

The DOJ couldn't believe it either.

They ended up coming down and doing it uh doing their own investigation, which ended up uh in a federal monitoring plan for that city, um, and it wasn't just the police department, it was also the sheriff's office.

Um that story right there is a culmination.

There's only there's less than two FBI agents that have ever done a case like that, and you're looking at it.

No other FBI embed agent has ever done a case like that that resulted in a uh a federal monitoring program all by himself, and the and so it at the end, DOJ did come down and they didn't did an investigation, they initiated the plan, the the monitoring plan.

I did end up solving the homicide case of two individuals are in Angola right now for that, and um I I helped them with some other things, and the irony is I also along with those two cases, I I investigated one of the police officers in that department for corruption, convicted him, and the irony is that was the police officer that was the lead detective in the homicide case that I went up to help to begin with.

So the reason I'm I'm telling this story is to give you the sense that policing can go very, very wrong in your own backyard, and you don't even know about it.

Those citizens didn't know any better.

They didn't understand what the law was.

They didn't, that was how they lived, that's how they grew up.

They understood that if the police were coming to talk to you, they were going to jail for 72 hours.

That's just the way it was.

Um in that story, and I think it's a really good read.

And there was also there was also the the DOJ report is linked.

I gave you the link for the DOJ report.

Uh New York Times did an article, ProPublica did an article on that investigation.

Um it was widely publicized at the time.

So now what I want to do, and and I'm I'm I'd be happy to answer any questions after on that.

Um so what I want to do now is I want to go over some some issues or some um some things that were identified in the final report of the consent decree monitor.

And um, and the reason I think that's really important is uh so the federal monitor was the captain of our ship in the monitoring of the NOPD.

He he was the captain of the ship, and now the captain is gone, and he's left, and what is he left us this document, which is the roadmap, which is the guideline, which is how do you keep moving forward?

You know, we have care, you know, we've taken this ship as long as far as we can.

Here's the keys, here's the wheel.

Take the wheel, manage the ship.

He's given us the directions and the roadmap on what to do next.

So, in that, I'm gonna identify just a few things.

On page 15 of that is the introduction, and he's he's basically says that um this document was written to serve as a roadmap to the many stakeholders, which is the city.

And specifically to the ethics board, he's basically saying that the the recommendations set out in this report should help the ethics board guide the post-consent decree tasks that office might assume, as well as the abilities the people of New Orleans should expect to find in an IPM.

So he's basically identifying what are the qualifications that you should be looking for in an IPM to carry this ship to its final destination.

So in doing so, he identifies in the executive summary and and in to some degree more detail on page 38, that the IPM, as far as he's concerned, should have law enforcement experience simply to contextualize the operations.

I mean, it kind of logical to think that if you're gonna if you're gonna monitor uh a profession, you probably should be a practitioner of that profession to be able to monitor it effectively, which is what he's saying here, and and he said that his team, the law enforcement experience proved invaluable uh to his team to have the law enforcement experience.

In addition to that, he also submits that the IPM should have subject matter expertise in the manner of civil rights, constitutional policing, probable cause and use of force.

Well, I would submit to you that the story that I gave you in the case that, and that was just that was just a part of my career.

Um I certainly have the experience in civil rights, constitutional policing, and probable cause in reviewing over 600 people that were arrested without probable cause.

And in addition, uh specific to the subject matter expertise and use of force, um, my uh while I was at the FBI training academy, uh I managed the physical training unit that revamped and redid the policy for the Bureau for use of force, and that was when we added in the less lethal techniques into our use of force policy for the Bureau, for the FBI.

And then the third, the third piece that uh the federal monitor is saying that we should have is investigative experience.

And he's saying that that that skill set proved indispensable throughout their tenure as the monitor.

He he was there for 12 years, and he's basically saying that the person who needs to lead this forward, the person who's gonna steer this wheel at that ship should have these experiences, these qualifications.

So, in it in addition, um, on in a separate part of that report, he talks about the use of force, and it was a little telling because the theme of the use of force issue in the executive summary on page five, and also in more context on page 19, is a general lack of cooperation.

Apparently, he witnessed between the NOPD and the OIPM.

And he says on page 19, the relationship between NOPD and the OIPM has been a rocky one over the years, and the city should identify ways to foster greater cooperation between the two organizations.

So this is coming from somebody who's been doing the monitoring for 12 years.

In addition, on page 32 and 33, where I think I'm value added in this office, especially is in the training piece.

So after the investigation was over that led to the led to the beginning of the consent decree, that investigation identified quote the training NOPD has provided to its officers during the last several years is severely deficient in nearly every respect.

And that was the status of the training at the beginning of the monitoring, right at the end of the investigation, at the beginning of the monitoring.

Now, this document says that they have made strides to improve, uh, but again, he's leaving.

We're taking the wheel.

He left us with seven recommendations.

Those seven recommendations, uh I feel with my senior level executive work at the FBI Academy, where we taught and trained new agents, and all the executives of state and local law enforcement in the National Academy, I think I bring a lot of experience in order to get those recommendations met and get that training academy up to speed.

Because when you have an outstanding training academy, a police training academy, you have an outstanding police force.

If you have a bad training program, guess what you guess what your tree grows.

It is vitally important that the training program is established and it is it is it is running on high octane.

Um and you've got to find new ways.

You've got to find new ways to train your troops or your your officers.

And the last the last part, um, which I think is it's pretty telling because in the acknowledgement, he's basically thanking everybody that has helped him and he's collaborated with over the last 12 years.

He's he identified more than 60 people in that, but never once was the IPM mentioned in the acknowledgement.

Sister agencies monitoring, both monitors, the same department for years, and he doesn't even acknowledge the IPM.

It's telling to me, and then I personally have collaborated with a federal monitor more than the IPM did over the past two years.

And I I was working for the IG's office.

So understand that that's a this is a really this is a key document in moving forward.

It is our it is our it is our roadmap, it's the methodology that we can use to get better, to do what we need to do to get better.

And the federal monitor is a wise man, and and he's very intentional, and there isn't a word in here that is not meant to be in that document.

And he's been doing the he did this work for 12 years at the federal level of the department, and and I really think that that document is our when I and when I say our roadmap, whoever you select for the IPM and you, you oversee it.

It's a really, really important document.

It's our roadmap.

And we we probably should stick to it.

So now the question is, okay, so we we have this, we have this conundrum of of okay, what kind of experience should an IPM have, what kind of experience shouldn't an IPM have?

And the the National Association of Civilian Oversight is gonna suggest to you that the lead monitor should not have law enforcement experience because of the perception that it could it could be to where you know what?

If you put that law enforcement guy in charge of that of that office, the public's gonna think all he's doing is protecting the blue wall.

Well, I don't I can't I'm not gonna disagree with that.

I I I agree with that concept, but you can't you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, right?

I mean, what about finding the guy who has the expertise who you trust won't do that?

Maybe that would be a possibility.

But in either case, the city ordinance says you could, the city ordinance says if you got five years of law enforcement experience, you're qualified.

That's why I'm sitting here.

If if it didn't say that, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have even been able to apply.

And then the federal monitor who has been here for 12 years and widely respected, he says you should have law enforcement experience.

So now you're sitting here and you you've got an entity that says you shouldn't.

You got you got the ordinances says you could, you got the monitor who's been here for 12 years who said you should.

And the point is, in practice, you actually can because there's examples.

There's examples across the country where lead monitors have significant law enforcement backgrounds.

And these are commissioners and deputy commissioners that are all lead monitors in uh meridian and and the Louisville one just got uh just got appointed so it can happen.

And in those cases, what you have is you have a federal judge who has seen through it and said, you know what?

I understand what the the National Association is saying, but I'm gonna pick the guy who or gal who's got the subject matter expertise, who I trust is not gonna is not gonna be partial, and is going to ferret out bad policing.

So there is a precedence that's set uh for having law enforcement experience in the IPM position.

Did I go?

I thought I had one more slide.

I guess that last slide isn't there.

But my uh the last piece that I was gonna do before I I have some general thoughts is that um so my law enforcement experience is entirely as an FBI agent.

I I was never a police officer.

I I spent my entire law enforcement career as an FBI agent.

The FBI work is not your normal state local policing work.

We we don't we don't do normal policing.

Uh we, the FBI does not does not do that.

We have the responsibility for policing the police.

We are the the FBI is the only federal agency that has the authority and the jurisdiction to work civil rights cases to actually criminally investigate police officers.

Our objective in policing was to police the police as an FBI agent.

So I don't think me personally, I don't think I fit into that perfect category of having law enforcement experience when you look at it from that perspective.

Um and on top of that, I've never been a member of any police fraternity.

Heck, I I was never even a member of the FBI Agents Association.

Um I am respectful of the difficult profession, but not a protector of bad policing, and not certainly an advocate of the blue wall.

And I I I hope that this story, which is my life experience for two years, will tell you who I am and what I'm all about and how I am an advocate for citizens who were terrorized for decades.

And finally they got some they got some um, they got some justice, not criminal justice, couldn't find a prosecutor for that, uh, but they got some administrative justice.

Um and my final thoughts uh that I've got that I've written down here are so and and I think um I think uh Stella has also said this that the the ordinance the ordinance in the MOU are old and times have changed, technology has changed, things have changed, and I think there needs to be a concerted effort to to update them, make sure they're more poignant with with the with the struggles that you have today instead of I mean uh I know the the ordinance was written in 2016 and it was updated, but there's even edits to that that probably should be made.

The MOU was 2010.

Lots changed since then.

The future IPM to prevent any backsliding from the 13 years of monitoring efforts needs to get their hands dirty and roll up their sleeves, getting into the business of how policing works and begin identifying systemic cultural problems that cause cops to deviate from policy.

It happens everywhere.

You've got to get in there and find it.

That's the that's the issue.

You can't wait for it to show up.

You've got to get in there beforehand and find it and stop it so that the practice doesn't deviate from the policy.

The office, the IPM office, should have law enforcement experience and an auditing capacity.

There is a lot of auditing that needs to be done.

And I've got some other things, but I'll I'll I'll finish with this that the uh that I think my experience lends itself to having experience both in the laboratory that I think I can be helpful.

I think I can be helpful in the training academy, and I certainly can uh think I can be helpful in uh making sure that the practices stick to the policy.

I'll leave it at that.

Do you have any questions?

Yeah, thank thank you, Mr.

Kruger.

We uh I think we have 20 minutes for these uh interviews.

Um I I want to say in this interviewing process, the uh the MOU and the processes may be old.

One thing that is not is the community and um their relationship with um the police officers and and all the other leading law enforcement uh entities in the city of New Orleans.

The important part to me that you you mentioned, and I want to talk about it a little bit more for you to expound on it a little bit more, is education and building trust.

Education uh part of it is what we were talking about before, uh having um a community advisory board, you know, uh how we work with the community because that's the most important part.

This is the community that you're looking at right now, the advisory board, and the other part is building trust.

If there is no trust, then you really you know you have problems.

The on top of that, on top of the problem part of it, is that I mentioned earlier about having a role uh in the academy uh during the training process, and that's how you're gonna start the process and eliminating some of the problems you're having with new recruits coming in.

I just want to see uh on your part uh on those three areas of building trust, um education, and um educating the academy at the beginning stage of their career as a law enforcement officer.

Yes, so and kind of briefly because I know other people have to have questions.

Go ahead.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna answer that from my perspective in the FBI Academy.

So we we trained we train the new agents in a plethora of different categories.

We had all the federal statutes that we had to train them train them on, and we would bring in and you know, we would bring in public we would bring in entities that were um that that were um advocates of the of the public in different areas so that those agents could have a different perspective.

They have to be you have in order to be impartial, you have to be able to observe from different perspectives.

Well, the only way you can really do that in an academy is you've got to bring in people from the outside to come in and talk, talk to your uh to your your new agents.

And that's that works both ways because when you have them come in and and inform the new recruits, the new recruits get that sense, but the response from the recruits gives that individual who's presenting a little more trust and confidence that the message is getting received, if that makes sense.

So the trust and and once that person has a feeling that that trust is being gained, goes back and tells others.

And we we we welcome that routinely, and oftentimes it was a little contentious because we we would bring in people that that had negative views uh about a lot of things to make sure that those new agents knew that this is these are the people that you're gonna have to work with.

So you've got to understand it from their perspective.

Some people liked it, some people didn't, but we did it anyway.

Is that um I have a question?

Can you give me three specific things you would either improve on or implement with the Office of Independent Police Monitor that will help the NOPD continuously improve based on the roadmap that the um the monitor's final report kind of lays out?

Well, I would be doing a much more aggressive approach on evaluating the culture in the department, a much more aggressive approach.

Uh and I would certainly the first thing I would do is I want to have some auditing capacity in the office, so I can I can go in and I can start to find out where the practices are deviating from the actual policy.

And that isn't just that that isn't just identified by statistics.

You have got to talk to those officers who are doing that job.

You you you've got to communicate.

You have got to develop sources, if you will, that are gonna tell you what's going on, what's going right and what's going wrong.

I think there needs to be a much more aggressive approach in doing that.

Um certainly, and then when you have that information, you gotta be much more active, I think, in the policy board.

When when the when the NOPD is getting together to review their own policies, that is that is the perfect time to start discussing what's going right and what's going wrong and how can we recorrect that which is going wrong?

Because if you aren't doing it there, it's gonna happen out there.

And the the point that I I was making in in reference to and we saw it in the FBI too, and I'm not trying to throw stones, but if you're trying to solve problems with a complaint desk, it doesn't it's not very effective.

And why is it not effective?

And it's not because you aren't addressing the issues of the public.

You definitely want to hear that.

But you want to stop it before it metastasizes to a public problem.

You don't want it, you don't want to wait until it materializes into the a problem with the public.

So you've got to get you gotta get your hands dirty and get into the business of policing and figuring out why it's going wrong, where it's going wrong, where it's going right, and and and do everything you can to fix it.

Before it before it creates problems.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, uh Steve Kruger, we appreciate you.

Uh my question is, how do you plan to leverage technology to streamline the intake and tracking of civilian complaints?

Well, um how do I try how what my plan is to streamline intake complaints?

Yes.

So at the IG's office, we had before I got there, uh we didn't have a formalized intake process.

It was managed off of one of the one of the investigators' voicemails.

So we have a case management system now.

Everything that comes into the office, everything, whether it's written, digital, phone, whatever it is, it gets documented and it gets memorialized in our case management system so it's tracked.

And we've got all of the uh and it's marked and tagged accordingly.

Now, how does how does to streamline it?

What once we set that up, we wanted everybody, everybody to call us with information and problems and concerns.

Because the more information you've got, the more intelligence you've got, the better decision making you have.

You make better decisions, the more information you've got.

So I don't know that I would want to streamline, I would want to have that amplified.

I I would want, I'd want so much information from the public that I don't have space to store it in.

Because that's that's power.

That's what allows you to make decisions.

But the the point I was making before is man, you've got to get in front of that though.

I mean, you want to solve these problems before they show up out there.

I mean, it's like driving a car.

You want to do preventative maintenance.

You want to just drive the car until it breaks down.

You gotta do the preventative maintenance.

And every hour that you spend doing that pre that that that preventive maintenance is uh three days worth of time that you're gonna have to deal with on the backside with a problem in the public.

Uh thank you.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Kruger.

Um the um going through your resume is an experience all by itself.

And um there's a great deal of diversity in it.

Um sometimes diversity is actually chaos, but your diversity I think is ordered.

There's a pattern to it.

There's an integration and an integrity.

And what I um what I what I find in there, what I see in there, and it's been I haven't really had a chance to listen to you very much until today.

So a resume can only carry so much, right?

But but today the person behind the resume was speaking, and what I what I um what I see is or my view is that out of out of those years of experience.

You have you have ended up with wisdom, with uh passion and with clarity of purpose.

Um not all of us fashion those things out of whatever we've done with our lives, but in my view, you certainly have.

And um, I appreciate your service already, and I appreciate your willingness to serve.

Thank you.

Um just to give people a minute to take a break if you need to, and we'll come back at four fifty five.

Thank you.

Like to call the meeting back to order, please.

Bear with us for just a minute.

Okay, we're back.

Back at our meeting.

Thank you.

Stella.

No, you must be ready for you.

Please begin.

Good afternoon.

I am Stella Cement, and I'm the independent police monitor for the City of New Orleans.

I want to start this presentation by thanking my stakeholders.

The public, the police department, organizational partners, the ethics review board, and elected leaders.

I want to thank you for the trust and support you've shown me over the last five years.

I want to thank you for your appreciation of the integrity, objectivity, and value I brought to this work.

Thank you for your partnership.

I want to use this presentation today as an opportunity to explain who I am as a police monitor.

I will start with my vision of the OIPM, then I will move on to what principles are required of the independent police monitor to achieve that vision.

And then I will finish by outlining some of my future goals and the corresponding initiatives for this office.

The first principle is the law.

In the next slide, I'm going to go into more detail about the laws that govern the Office of the Independent Police Monitor.

The second principle is the unique history of New Orleans.

It's police department, its oversight, and its community.

I'm going to go into more detail about the importance of these histories in two upcoming slides.

The third principle is understanding and adapting to the current legal, structural, political, and cultural realities of New Orleans.

These are the factors that shape our policing priorities and our public needs.

These could be realities like the consent decree coming to an end, spikes in crime, changes in the budget, and new legal holdings that affect employment law or policing standards.

Factors like these are catalysts for necessary reviews and updates.

The fourth principle is national best practice and standards adopted by the police departments and oversight offices across the country.

This is why I participated in LAPD's audit school.

It's why I attend and lead sessions at national trainings for police monitors and police officers.

I'm a leader in this unique field and utilize this field for national standards to inform our oversight work and to invite and to advise the NOPD on what other departments are doing and doing well.

These five principles are what shape my decision making and my interpretation of the role of the police monitor.

Now let's do a deeper dive into the laws governing the police monitor and how that translates directly into our work.

I want to focus specifically on the home rule charter ordinance governing the roles and responsibilities of the independent police monitor.

Under the Home Rule Charter, it states that the Independent Police Monitor shall monitor the police department's internal investigations, discipline, use of force, critical incidents, and in custody deaths.

In this statute, under the subsection on public accountability, the statute states that the police monitor shall provide complaint and commodation intake in languages and formats that are accessible to residents.

Putting this language into the context of my actions, this statutory language is why I created the 24-hour hotline for residents to file complaints and accommodations in their language of preference, including English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

And residents can file in real time in the format they are most comfortable in, including text, online, or over the phone, any hour of the day, any day of the week.

Next, under the statute, the independent police monitor is legally required to hold public outreach meetings in each council district of the city at least once every four months and to meet with police associations.

It's legally mandated that this office complete public outreach to engage with the people of New Orleans.

And it's extremely fundamental and important to the work that we've built together.

Under the subsection on mediation of civilian complaints, the independent police monitor is required to establish and administer a mediation program.

Under my tenure, we've expanded it.

We now have the post the post-investigation mediation program, and at the request of NOPD's district captains, we created the district-based community mediation program to help with disputes in order to stop unnecessary and repeated calls to 911 for officer assistance.

Under the statute, I am required to make recommendations to the superintendent on discipline and actively monitor disciplinary proceedings and non-disciplinary proceedings, like the use of force review board hearings.

This is why I've personally attended hundreds of these disciplinary proceedings, where I've given assessments and recommendations, both verbally and in writing, that have shaped force and disciplinary outcomes within the department.

Under this statute, I'm required to be involved in officer training and provide recommendations.

This statutory language is why I lead courses at NOPD's Academy on conducting constitutional and thorough misconduct and force investigations.

I lead these classes to help officers write reports that are able to withstand scrutiny in disciplinary proceedings and court appeals.

This language is why the Office of the Independent Police Monitor serves on the training advisory committees for the Academy and then partners with the Academy to lead public forums to get public input into the training curriculum for officers each year.

I fulfill the legal obligations in the legal interpretation of the independent police monitor role, and anyone serving in this role is legally required to continue this work.

Moving on to the second principle that I highlighted, our unique history.

When I talk about history, it's important to have a grounding in the recent history that shapes how and why we're policed the way we're policed.

This chart that I'm showing here provides a high-level summary of just some key moments between the NOPD and the public.

These moments may capture why the public may be concerned about certain police tactics or wrongdoing, like vehicle pursuits or cover-ups.

These key moments also may explain departmental priorities, trainings, and even fears because officers have been killed in the line of duty.

Understanding this type of history of New Orleans is also important because whenever we talk about the potential of backsliding in police tactics and reforms, it's important to know what history we are referencing that backslide to be.

What does backslide mean to you?

To our community, what does backslide mean to you or to our police department?

What version of NOPD are you referencing?

And as the independent police monitor, I've been committed to hearing and understanding these histories and how they shape the priorities of today.

When I talk about history, I'm also talking about the history of oversight, which itself has different origin stories.

For some, oversight started with the consent decree, which was written in 2012 and implemented in 2013.

The consultant in this process highlighted a report on the creation of the Office of the Inspector General and the Ethics Review Board in 2006.

But others would point further back to 2001 when Mayor Mark Morreel convened the police civilian review task force that issued a report in 2002 to the mayor and to the city council.

And that 2002 report led City Council to unanimously pledge support for the creation of the Office of the Independent Police Monitor in 2003.

For perspective, 2003 was the year before the Department of Justice began their eight-year investigation into the NOPD.

But even as I say this, I know that there's histories and scholars of history, there's students and scholars of history that have told me that I cannot effectively lead this office without understanding the significance of the Office of Municipal Investigations, which City Council created in 1981.

And that office was responsible for receiving allegations of wrongdoing in the NOPD and investigating it.

What you choose to make the origin story for this office matters because it becomes the basis for the purpose of this work.

In the third principle, I highlighted current need.

On that note, I want to address the consent decree and the federal monitors.

For years, the Office of the Independent Police Monitor was seen in comparison with the federal monitors, who had the weight of the federal judge behind them and significantly more funding.

But other than that, they had a very different work model.

The federal monitors conducted primarily meta audits of the audits conducted by the professional standards and accountability bureau within the NOPD.

This is a different work model than the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, which utilizes a different approach of on-site monitoring, intake, programming, recommendations, reports, and public information.

Our offices were created at different times for different functions.

Now the federal monitors are gone, and OIPM remains.

It's fair to ask if there's functions of the work that were done by the federal monitors that should be adopted by this office.

And since I worked closely with the federal monitors for years, as documented in years of annual reports and monthly reports, I think I'm well placed to lead those conversations moving forward.

All of this work and information translates into three categories.

Effectively, my vision for the OIPM.

We ensure compliance and reform through through reviews of investigations, advising on policy, monitoring, and partnering with the NOPD's Academy.

We amplify the needs of the community by writing reports, conducting intake, running our mediation programs, and facilitating public forums.

And we make the NOPD a safer and non-discriminatory workplace by providing recommendations, by monitoring disciplinary hearings and user force review boards, and monitoring and advising on promotional processes, the policy advisory committee, and supervisory decisions.

Now I will discuss what I envision the future goals for the Office of the Independent Police Monitor to be and highlight some possible initiatives to achieve those goals.

Today I want to focus on four proposed goals for the future of the Office of the Independent Police Monitor.

The goals are to expand public information about the police, to build system improvements within the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and the NOPD, to ensure policy compliance through audits, and to create metrics to understand impact, perception, and need.

Next, I'm going to explain what initiatives I envision this office should prioritize to achieve these goals.

First, the goal of increasing public information about policing can be achieved through these proposed initiatives.

The first of which is the creation of new reports that focus on relevant issues that matter and explain policies, processes, and impacts.

Some of these proposed reports that we've already started can include a report on facial recognition technology and how it's utilized by the NOPD, use of drones by the police department, and addressing misinformation regarding this technology.

The use of force review board, how it works, what it does, and the impact it has on the department, from training to policy to police culture, and lawsuits and claims, and how it impacts taxpayers and the police department.

Another initiative is to expand publicly accessible information and data about the police department.

And to do that, I believe we need to complete the police misconduct force and award database.

This publicly accessible database is a joint project between then Councilmember Helena Moreno, Capital Projects, the NOPD, and OIPM.

This database will include public records of officer uses of force, sustained discipline, and award history.

So stakeholders all over the city can search in the database for relevant information.

Finally, we can work collaboratively with the new with the NOPD to create informational videos explaining police processes, addressing misinformation, answering commonly asked questions, and introducing the public and employees to systems that they have to navigate.

Moving to the second goal to build system improvements within the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and the NOPD.

One highlighted initiative to achieve this goal would be the creation of peer-to-peer mediation within the NOPD.

This is a service that the NOPD has requested from the Office of the Independent Police Monitor, and the Office of the Independent Police Monitor is already informally providing.

This initiative would expand our mediation program to address the internal conflict that sometimes exists between NOPD employees and NOPD employees and their supervisors, and these conflicts often bog down the grievance process and the misconduct system.

Potentially, this service could increase officer retention and improve the workplace for officers and supervisors who need to be focused on doing the important work.

On the same page, I highlighted another initiative, the truncated case review.

This is based on public demand that our office is receiving for more Office of the Independent Police Monitor case reviews of investigatory outcomes and misconduct investigations conducted by the Public Integrity Bureau.

This new type of case review would be less time and staff exhaustive for the OIPM.

The truncated case review model would be a review of one question or one relevant component of the investigation.

This could include a timeline violation question, the selection of the investigated allegations, or whether all available evidence and witnesses were considered in the investigation.

Another initiative designed to improve our systems is to create a recommendation tracker.

This would be a method to document, track, measure, and share out the recommendations that the Office of the Independent Police Monitor is providing to the NOPD.

These recommendations come from feedback that the Office of the Independent Police Monitor receives from police associations, public forums, the media, and stakeholders.

This tracker would close the communication loop and show how recommendations are formally provided to the police department, go under consideration by the policy advisory committee that the OIPM is a part of, and then may be adopted or implemented by the police department.

Another initiative designed to improve systems is to create the law enforcement consultant for the Office of the Independent Police Monitor.

The goal of this position is to have someone on staff or available to the staff with a background in only law enforcement who can provide their unique perspective and expertise to the reports and recommendations generated by the office.

My next goal is to ensure policy compliance through audits.

The two identified audits to achieve this goal that I would like to discuss today are a concept of comprehensive audit of PIB intake and classification.

This is particularly relevant now that they've adopted new classification models such as other.

We would evaluate compliance with NOPD policy, relevant timelines, and legal compliance with civil service and the officer bill of rights.

The second audit that I'm proposing would be of the district attorney's case refusals under NOPD Chapter 1.2, paragraph 16.

This audit would look at case refusals and evidence exclusions to determine if there was officer misconduct or illegal searches and seizures that would influence a successful prosecution.

From this evaluation, we would work with NOPD's Academy to create teachable moments and more informed police investigations moving forward.

The final goal I'm highlighting today is the goal of creating metrics to understand the impact, perception, and need of the police department and oversight from the department and the public.

Under the consent decree, there was a requirement of biannual surveys of police officers, the public, and those detained by the NOPD.

The goal was to learn their perceptions of the NOPD, to determine the quality of police resident encounters, to understand the attitudes of the police personnel within and towards the police department, and the general perception of public safety and police in New Orleans.

Through surveys, we can measure shifts.

The information gained in the surveys can inform projects, priorities, and how we talk about the work.

And these surveys could determine how the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and the NOPD is best situated to serve in post-consent decree New Orleans.

In closing, though I'm not here to defend my record, since you've received numerous reports from me on how oversight has been conducted and how the OIPM has become an accessible resource for the public and the police department.

I do still want to acknowledge the important work that's been done by me and my team during my tenure because we're a team of seven people, and what we've managed to create is a great accomplishment.

We have written reports on police responses to hurricanes, promotional decisions, and secondary employment.

We have written formal letters assessing investigations, disciplinary outcomes, use of force, and promotions from captains to sergeants.

We have written case reviews analyzing if there was misconduct or thorough investigations into potential wrongdoing or bias in accident responses, death investigations, neighbor disputes, calls to service and supervisory decisions.

We've submitted hundreds of letters of complaints of misconduct and monitored hundreds of disciplinary hearings.

We've gone to countless officer involved shooting scenes, critical incidents, and autopsies.

We've met with the families of those impacted, and then went to the USAFORS Review Board hearings where we provided our assessments on officer force and public safety.

We have led public forums with the NOPD and with city leadership on topics ranging from facial recognition technology to officer training and academy curriculum to hurricane season changes in policing to how the Public Integrity Bureau operates.

We've held mediations between police officers and community members.

We created the Constitutional Policing Award for police officer recruits, which is now given out at NOPD's Academy's graduation.

We have created courses for NOPD's Academy and taught trainings to every rank of officer.

We created a weekly radio show to interview policing stakeholders, police officers, and the community about policing issues and break down complex systems to increase public information and knowledge about the NOPD.

We have done all of this while also handling public record requests, monthly reports, and all the other day-to-day work that we achieve.

And again, we're a team of seven people.

I want to sincerely thank my team.

I want to thank the NOPD, the public, and the Ethics Review Board for trusting me with this important work for the last five years.

It has been an honor.

Dr.

Cowan, do you want to start?

Mr.

Myth, thank you for your presentation.

I I don't think there would be any disagreement with the notion that the relationship between the police department and the monitoring agency is important.

It is extremely important.

So how would you assess the strengths and the limitations of your office's relationship with NOPD?

I would say that our office, based on how much we're monitoring now outside of what was ever initially envisioned by the request of NOPD and NOPD's leadership, that that relationship is extremely strong.

The superintendent calls us and asks us to monitor promotional hearings.

We were in the room when the national leaders were brought in to do a secondary review of the promotion hearings of sorry, the promotion decisions that were recently conducted for majors and captains.

We have been a part of the promotional process only at the request of NOPD leadership for years.

We've been asked to serve on every new type of board they create, from the training academy's new training video advisory committees to the new policy review committees to the new serious misconduct review committees.

We're always asked to be a part of NOPD's processes.

We're informally called all the time for advice, and police officers themselves ask us to monitor when they're under investigation to ensure that that investigation is fair.

I would say we have a very strong relationship with the police department, and we're able to regularly partner with the police department to serve our community.

Thank you.

And um could I just ask, I'm sure you're familiar with the something called the roadmap, the report by the monitor at the end of the process.

What would you how do you see that document and what would you do with it?

I do not agree with some of the findings in that roadmap.

I think that certain aspects of the consent decree that were extremely important have been enshrined under city ordinance and will continue.

And many of those things were not factors that were envisioned in the Federal Monitors Final Roadmap.

The final roadmap did not include any mention of the police community advisory boards, which we've heard today, how important they are.

And it included almost no reference to local oversight and the very important role that we've played in that process.

Ultimately, I think audits are extremely important.

But now that there's been this budget change in the NOPD, and we have seen almost all of the professional standards and accountability bureaus staff be laid off, a lot of those audits are no longer continuing.

And that means that a lot of the aspects of that Federal Monitors Roadmap can't even be realized because they were dependent on meta-audits of audits that were already being conducted by the professional standards and accountability bureau.

While I think that there's a lot of important work and information that could be taken from the Federal Monitors time here, I again would say that our office has a very particular jurisdiction, and there's only so much that we can go into.

And a lot of the jurisdiction that the Federal Monitors were able to go, the scope of their work was defined by the consent decree, and it was the most expansive consent decree in the country still to this day.

So I would be very open to having critical conversations about re-examining our office and what role we play in auditing the police department moving forward.

We've been working with community partners.

I've written a document that envisions an independent police auditor who would be responsible for auditing not just the areas that our office has jurisdiction over, but the areas that were envisioned under the consent decree.

I think that there is a way forward, but I think we do also need to acknowledge the unique differences between our offices and the purposes that we're meant to achieve.

So am I right that um in what you just said you find your reactions to that roadmap that cost the city 20 million dollars?

Everything you said was negative.

Just now.

I don't believe it was.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for uh the response uh to that.

Really appreciate it.

Um your presentation?

I understand uh the commitment of the office and your your your staff, your small staff and the work that's being done.

My interests and to ask a question toward to you is based upon how are you delivering that message and that compassion and that education to understand exactly the roadmap that you are following and the processes that you have to go through to the general public?

What type of support are you receiving from the public?

What type of information?

How often are you asking for comments or recommendations from the uh community in order to build up a level of trust when you have the different um obligations that you must meet, you need support from the community.

Yes.

But if the community does not understand exactly what your role is, and only we only hear if they only hear about it, so what would you do to make that difference to get that support and trust in the community to support what you're doing?

That's a really important question.

Um I look at it in terms of of two answers.

There's what I'm doing to be able to get awareness about our office and our resources out there, and then what I'm doing to be able to get the support and input from the community to be able to continue our work.

So to be able to get awareness out there, we had a billboard campaign about our 24-hour hotline.

We had the radio show that was on WBOK on Fridays at noon for a year and a half, where we interviewed like the chief of police, deputy chiefs, um uh community members, organizational partners, lawyers, elected leaders, um, and police monitors and other police chiefs from across the country.

Um we have held public forums all over the city, the West Bank, New Orleans East, Holly Grove, you name it, we've held a public forum there.

We also try to hold less formalized events such as coffee with the IPM.

We try to utilize social media platforms to be able to reach people where they are.

We understand that social media has turned into such a vital communication tool for our community and our public to be able to see things about the police department and talk about their experiences with the police department.

And I will say it's it's hard to see, but we are tagged in a lot of videos on social media by the public for people that want us to know about something that happened or want us to review or get involved in something that happened.

We try to be interviewed by local news, we try to engage with our media, we try to partner with NOPD on events that they're doing, we try to partner with elected officials on events they're doing, from fun stuff to informational stuff.

We try to find a way to get incorporated so that way we can kind of ride their tailwinds because we know that they might have a larger budget and more access and more followers than we do.

We try to get creative about the way that we're reaching the public and raising awareness about our office.

But if I can be honest for a moment, there's still so much work to be done because all the time people don't know who we are, what we do, or how to reach us.

So I wildly welcome the support of the community in helping make us a well-known name and a well-known well-known resource, just like 3-1-1 for people to be able to utilize our services.

Again, they can call our hotline 24 hours a day in any language of their preference.

So we want to make sure the community knows how to utilize our services, but knows how to support our office and give us their input into how the NOPD is operating.

And the NOPD can only be as good as the community feedback that we're receiving about it.

Community feedback is vital.

What I say in all of my trainings to NOPD is the community is not an obstacle.

It's actually your greatest resource in crime prevention and crime solving.

And so we really do want the community to come to the table and be a part of these processes, which is why we try to get NOPD leadership out of NOPD's headquarters on Poydris, which is really difficult to get into.

It's really difficult to break in.

And we bring them out and we bring them to Nord Centers in the Tremay and the Lower Ninth Ward, and we make them available to the public so everybody can come and can engage.

And we also stream, we're streaming right now on our social media account so people can comment and email and engage online, even though they're not here.

But again, there's still so much work to be done, and we have to be very, very mindful in how we partner and move ahead with people, because it was brought to my attention by the Ethics Review Board last year that partnering with elected officials, particularly during campaign years could give the wrongful impression that we're not independent.

And I was very thankful for that feedback, and that's why we now include disclaimers in our in our photos and in our reports to try to explain that.

But we want to find ways to be able to reach as many people as possible while not unintentionally excluding anyone, offending anyone, because we are government, and we want to make sure that um that we're bringing people in and not turning them off.

Are we still on WBLK?

No, sadly, we we had to cut that with the budget.

Okay.

The budget change.

Okay.

But all of those radio shows are recorded in part of our policing archives, which actually we we partnered with with a wonderful community leader to get all of their resources about policing from the 80s, the 90s, what have you, and we put them all online and we created a policing archive, which is available to reporters, researchers, community members, the the media.

And now all of our radio shows are also part of that public record.

So people can go back and re-listen to those shows, almost like podcasts, to be able to hear directly from the NOPD or from different leaders about different policing issues and understand these systems.

I would recommend also to all the interviewees today to consider looking at the different universities we have here in the city of New Orleans, because each one of them as a police department.

And you have over 20,000 or 25,000 young people that's coming into this city every day and bringing their parents with them.

So please consider that as part of your interviewing processes and uh how we reach out to more people in the community.

Thank you.

That's great feedback.

Any questions?

Um I was noticing the goals you you outlined.

Do you see there there being a need for a larger budget with the goals that you have?

So sorry a larger budget with some of the goals you have outlined.

Of course.

My office would love additional money.

However, at as was brought to our attention by the Ethics Review Board in previous years when our office did work with the CAO and with City Council to be able to get additional money to be able to achieve some goals that we had that year.

Um we need to be mindful about additional streams of of money funding that comes to our office and who it's coming from, and if there's anything that's tied to that funding that might alter our independence or the perception of our independence for that reason, um we do not currently have any plans to ask city council for a larger cut of funding other than what we receive under the general fund, and due to our commitment of ethics review board, any additional um funding that our office does pursue, we would notify the ethics review board in advance.

That said, I think there's a lot of programmic areas of our office that would be supported through grants, and that is something that I would like to pursue moving forward.

Not that that doesn't have its own catch, but it's different.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think unless there are any more questions, we're gonna move to a to the public comment period.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And still average I would say that with the budget crisis.

Um I think lots of things are are up in the air.

You know, there's uncertainty.

But certainly the ethics reboot review board could ask the council for additional funding, and that's a project that the ERB should and could work on together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Mr.

Thielen.

Mr.

Celino is going to call for the individuals who want to come up and speak that you saw in the sheets.

You'll be allowed two minutes to speak to the board and the public.

Thank you.

Right.

And as the agenda says, we're going to start with sheet one, then go to sheet two, three and four, and then start back with the second person on sheet one, two, three, four, until we run out of 30 minutes.

So the first person up on sheet one is Tim Four.

Oh, so the sheet.

I'm sorry, it's Tim Ford.

Tim Ford.

This is for the speaker.

Come on, Lisa.

Are you going to speak?

Well, she and I came in here.

We were the first ones here today.

And she was the first one here, and she bought the A.

So I didn't know anything about I found out about it from her.

So she was the first one here.

Okay.

After we were already here.

You were the last one to arrive.

So you wouldn't know who was there first.

Right?

But you had the list, so hey, that's how that went.

Sorry, but that's how it went.

No, no.

So Kim Ford is first, but Kim Ford doesn't want to speak on the list.

Yeah, I do want to speak.

That's not what I said.

Can you clarify what she one, two, three, are before without the public?

Yeah, the first in alphabetical order.

See?

What is the point that she wants to do?

Yeah, describe what she wanted.

Yeah, she one that says speak regarding the men.

She too in alphabetical order is speak regarding Kruger.

She three in alphabetical order is speak regarding Rose, and she four is speak regarding the process.

Right there.

See where it says one.

And two because that.

But it has the number.

It is very clear.

I mean, I'm trying to tell you that.

So I'm videotaping it online so that the world can see that you have it confused because you came late with the list.

And that's what I just showed to them.

It has number one, Alicia Plumber, and two.

And it's like that because he didn't put the list up there.

I'd like to late.

Don't bamboozle this DS up here.

I'd like to ask for order.

We've been doing this alone.

Everyone will be given an opportunity to speak.

Ma'am.

That's why two is first.

Let's get this late.

Let's get the meeting moving forward.

Everyone will have an opportunity to do that.

That's what we go ahead and do.

Ma'am.

Please let's let's get the meeting.

No, there's no intention for disrespecting the money.

Yes, let's let's respect Ms.

Matt.

Don't do that to me.

I don't deserve that.

You might not know me, but I'm not brave yet.

That's right.

You might not know me, but I'm not brave.

Would you guys like to get back to the meeting?

Let's talk about it.

I definitely would like to get back to the meeting.

That's why I'm much respect the lady at the podium.

Thank you, ma'am.

I appreciate it.

Sorry, two minutes.

I appreciate it.

Go ahead, Alicia.

I'm Alicia Plummer, long life resident here in New Orleans.

And I want to speak on a couple of things.

First off, this is really a joke.

A joke.

Because Mr.

Cowan shouldn't have anything to do with this process.

Mr.

Celino shouldn't have anything to do with this process.

The IG shouldn't have anything to do with this process.

Raphael going at you either.

And I want to know for the ones who were who works for the uh with um the the IG and it's applying for this job.

First off, they should have nothing to do with it.

They should have a moratorium on those people trying to get these jobs.

Where were they when the inspector general said he wanted to shove a metal pipe up Sheriff Susan Hudson's vagina?

Where were they when he said he didn't like the fact that Stella Cement has a fat ass and she twirls her hair in the meetings?

Where were you all?

And we were there when we were trying to not him get an extension on his job.

He got the extension, plus he got a raise.

But you all do a national search for Stella.

How unfair.

How favored are you all doing?

What's the sexist that's going on?

Stella is the person who should be there.

This is who the people trust and also police officers.

And she should not be taken out because these people want her out.

And the inspector general himself should have been thrown off the bench.

I mean, thrown off the board, but he was not.

You have 20 seconds remaining.

Uh 20 seconds.

I keep saying Stella's the person.

Those people who are involved in involved in this process, it should not be.

Those people who worked for the IP uh for the um inspector general should not be allowed to do this here.

Apply for these jobs.

It needs to be a moratorium.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Poor Doug, thank you for hearing me today.

Um my name is Chuck Williams.

I'm uh the chief investigator for the Office of Inspector General.

I had the pleasure of working for Steve for approximately a year and a half, but have had the pleasure of working with Steve for many years at the FBI.

Um I think that that is is one of the things that will make him a standout candidate, is that he has that law enforcement experience, but he also has the experience of investigating police when there's been allegations of wrongdoing.

And fairness must be applied on both sides.

And um I've seen it in my personal work with him and for him that uh he approaches all the investigations in a non-biased manner.

He will listen to both sides, collect all the facts before any append or judgments made, and apply the facts uh as as they as they come on board.

Um I think it's been mentioned here a number of times.

Uh I've also seen him have compassion for victims.

You know, all of our intake is called complaints.

It's it's the the uh the nomenclature of how things come into our office, but oftentimes those are from victims of crimes.

And uh, you know, I think that it is important for the victims to be heard.

I think that their voice uh does make a difference.

And uh I've personally observed Steve uh make sure that that happens within our office and uh back at the FBI.

So um I believe that he approaches um uh interaction with with people that come into the office with complaints with a compassion, with the non-biased attitude, and he demands that from uh his workforce.

So I believe that he would carry that uh very well into um the uh Office of Police uh independent police monitor.

Thank you very much.

Good evening.

My name is Sholanda Cole Bibbins.

I have known Patrice Rose for 23 years.

I first met Patrice when we were both working for the State of Louisiana within the Chronic Disease Control Program at the Department of Health.

At that time, Patrice was a professional epidemiologist with a master's in public health.

She was responsible for working on the behavioral risk factor surveillance system, or the BRFSS, statewide survey, in which she was tasked with developing and analyzing large public health databases as a part of an epidemiology work group within the State Health Department.

During our time working together, I observed Patrice being professional, thorough, integrous, and consistent in her work.

Managing CDC grants is difficult work that requires unwavering respect for outcomes and processes as well as commitment to accountability and accuracy.

Patrice embodied those qualities as a natural leader, and I believe her background as an epidemiologist coupled with her qualifications as an attorney, make her uniquely qualified for the role we are here to discuss today.

I wholeheartedly support her and and recommend Patrice for the appointment of the role.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mary Hall.

Good afternoon.

I'm here to speak about the process.

And I think you all are going to hear a lot of frustration from people today about this meeting.

Um I found out about this Friday by reading the article in Verite.

And there are many people who've been following and been involved in this since for decades and had did not know that this was going on and have not had the opportunity to respond.

I sent you all a letter.

I hope that you got it, with some information about it, and I wanted you to defer the hearing because I thought the tropical storm was coming.

That's gone.

But there's another storm brewing here.

And it's one about the need for the community to feel that people are being heard, they're being recognized, and that they're an important part of this process.

I've been involved in this work for almost 50 years.

I was a member of the task force in 2001.

After we made the recommendation, and we made the specific recommendation not to go with a review board, but for an independent monitor system.

And we also wanted mediation and we wanted an ombudsman.

And we ended up all of that got folded into one office, which was the OIPM.

It took us years to get the pass by the City Council.

We, for years, myself and Reverend Norwood Thompson, um uh Ted Quant, several of those who were on that task force appeared in front of the City Council and said we need to do it, we need to do it.

It wasn't until after Katrina when James Carter was on the city council that we finally got it passed.

And I would tell you that um today I think we are in one of the most crucial periods of this entire effort over the last 50 years that I've been involved in trying to reform this police department.

And the decision you all have to make about this appointment is going to be one of the most important votes you will ever make on this board.

And I want to tell you why.

We're at a turning point.

Almost every major police department, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, et cetera.

I've sent you all the articles.

When it has gone through what we've gone through, has gone, had to had to come back and redo it.

They have had relapse, they have had backsliding, and they have also had uh the situation that we now we're on our own.

There is no Federal Department of Justice Civil Rights section that's gonna come in right now and help.

I'm sorry that cut off.

We can't hear you.

We can't hear you, Dave.

The mic timed out.

I am so sorry.

I yield my time.

So we yield in their time.

I mean the agenda doesn't allow.

It doesn't allow.

We're not allowed to extend the time.

Okay, extend it time.

But I do I do appreciate your comments.

And I do have 15 years of civil rights lawyering in the city.

Why don't we motion to extend for a time?

You want to reply to the Max and Course.

Jane.

Jane is our executive admin and counsel.

Ms.

Howe, we did we did get your letter, Miss Howe.

Just want to acknowledge we did receive your letter for the record, and we do have it, so your letter is in the record.

Just please look at your own room.

Kim Ford.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Kim Ford, and I was the first black baby born at Camp Lee Roy Johnson, right here in the city of New Orleans on Lake Punch Train for those who are brand new.

But uh I am a community activist, uh advocate, and a revolutionary.

And I've been doing this work now for many, many years, but most actively since Katrina, and most recently in the past two years, I travel all across the country from the work that I've done with the independent police monitor's office about the importance of police oversight, having fair and just oversight by a competent official, not just a former police officer or former uh agent and the inspector general's office.

I talk with people all across the country, and I work with families who have been victimized by police violence.

So I know the work that Stella is doing, and I've been knowing Stella and these people here.

I have to, in my politics, I have to know you before you run for office.

Because I'm I'm boots on the ground in the city of New Orleans.

If I don't know you before you run for office, you cannot lead a division such as this in my city.

I got a problem with that.

Because you're not here.

You not boots on the ground.

You got to see me before we get here.

I can't meet you here up at this podium.

That's not what we need here in the city of New Orleans.

The city of New Orleans is a rare gym because we are resilient recoverers of Hurricane Katrina.

So that alone makes us different.

You can't come and do things brand new with us.

We've been here before, we've done this before.

And my time comes to a short.

But I definitely stand with Stella Smit.

I learned her last name.

But guess what?

She's been up front.

And she's true, and she's real, and the community needs that.

We don't need to be seen or heard.

That's not what victims want.

Victims want justice.

Oh, we want death.

You're being a dog.

You want that.

That's what you want.

We don't want you to see up in here.

Oh, yeah.

This is a deal breaker right here.

This is the deal for the case.

Thank you very much, Bruce Riley, deputy director of vote for the past 15 years.

Norris Henderson sends its regards.

I hope you got his letter.

This process, and I know that if you cut short public testimony, you're probably going to get sued behind it.

This process has been, in someone else's words, a joke, but a public meeting that has maybe five people at it is arguably not a real public meeting.

A public meeting that has zero people at it is definitely not a public meeting.

There was a posting on the ERP's website on May 1st for a meeting that happened on May 5th.

You're not Manny Fresh, people are not following your gram.

Nobody found out about it because nobody showed up.

This alone was very shortly uh broadcast.

Uh like others, I only found out about it through uh an article, and then even when you go to the city council's website, it's not on the city council website where most people look for stuff that's happening here.

It's on y'all's like side website that's part of the city sub sites and all that.

So that is like a terrible way of doing things.

And let's keep in mind, this isn't the police department's hire.

This is not Mayor Helena's hire.

This is the people's hire.

This is where this thing came from.

And y'all know this, and I know y'all respect it, and we need to make sure we go with that.

And honestly, the the FBI agent, you know, he kind of mentioned this even to himself.

No one's gonna trust me.

He basically said that.

That's what I heard.

And if you look at some reports the ACLU has done on the Office of Civil Rights outreach that the FBI has done before, it's been criticized as being a way of monitoring and taking information around people's protected First Amendment activities, which is a violation of federal ordinances.

So clearly it's already a suspect situation, so I would just rule him out all together.

Miss Stella has done a really solid job, and I really appreciate the work she's doing now around surveillance tech, because maybe y'all didn't know, but that whole thing about weaponizing drones, we should all be worried about that.

This police monitor is worried about that, and I appreciate her for that.

Thank you.

And I'm available for a deeper conversation.

This is not my comment.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Megan Reghaney.

Um I have worked closely with Patrice Rose for over ten years, and so I wanted to just share my experience and highlight the qualities that I believe would make her an excellent fit for the independent police monitor position.

First and foremost, Patrice is totally committed to the idea of improving city government so that it works better for all New Orleanians.

Uh from her work with the Office of Inspector General, she has a deep understanding of the operations of the New Orleans Police Department and city government overall.

Even more importantly, she is also an excellent strategic thinker with a talent for identifying the root causes of an issue and getting to effective constructive solutions.

Uh Patrice is unrelenting when it comes to getting to the truth of an issue and also fair when it comes to weighing all of the factors at play.

She's extremely intelligent and skilled at translating legal standards, best practices, and other resources into improved operations within local government.

I have repeatedly watched her work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders to bring the focus back to solutions and improvements, even in situations where tempers might be running high.

This approach has directly contributed to better city operations and an improved experience for citizens.

As a manager, Patrice screwed the inspections and evaluations division at the OIG significantly while handling all of her supervisory responsibilities in a way that allowed her staff to work efficiently, effectively, and in accordance with high professional standards.

As a leader, she mentored more junior staff from a wide range of professional backgrounds, helping them to grow their skill sets and work to their highest potential.

As a colleague, she has been a joy to work with, and I am constantly impressed by her intelligence, her warmth, and her character.

Other than the selfish desire not to lose her as a coworker, I have every confidence that Patrice would do an incredible job applying her many skills and talents to the independent police monitor position.

Thanks.

Julie Ford.

Hello.

Um, my name is Dr.

Julie Ford.

These opinions are my own and not those of the organizations I work with or for.

I'm here today to talk about the process and to stress the importance of the IPM's duties relative to both public transparency and NOPD oversight.

In late 2023, using public data, I discovered NOPD had under-reported approximately 400 rapes to the FBI.

Mary Howell and I brought this information to NOPD, and they publicly acknowledged and corrected the error.

The consent decree monitoring team has often used our work as an example of NOPD transparency working, which they also acknowledged in their final report.

Fast forward to today, and the data I use for that analysis is no longer publicly available.

Nor has NOPD publicly released any new internal audits since November 2025.

NOPD's special victims division reported a clearance rate of less than 10% in 2025, continuing a disturbing trend we highlighted in our consent decree public comments.

These are just a few concerning examples which show a serious need for oversight and accountability, not just related to internal police complaints, but also NOPD policy and procedures, including investigatory practices and public transparency.

Because this appointment is happening during such a critical moment, I would have hoped there have been more assertive public outreach by this board beyond posting meeting agendas on cities on the city's website, which many citizens may not have access to, nor the time to check daily.

It's important to note the rules for this search, state the ERB is required to quote maximize opportunities for public participation.

I would have liked to have seen candidates' visions for this office outlined and discussed in detail before today and before a final appointment decision by the board.

I do plan to make myself and my research available to whomever is appointed as a resource in the future, and I hope sincerely they'll take me up on that offer.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Christian Jamal.

Hello, I am Christian Jamal.

I am a current employee of the OIPM, first as a legal intern and then as a full-time employee.

I speak today in support of the current IPM, Stella Cement, and urged the board to reappoint her as the IPM for the City of New Orleans.

Stella has a proven track record of success as the IPM for the City of New Orleans.

She has been the IPM for several years during the tenure of multiple NOPD superintendents and oversaw civilian oversight of the NOPD during the NOPD's consent decree, including during the conclusion of the consent decree.

She brings years of hands-on experience, which should not be discounted.

She has overseen hundreds upon hundreds of civilian complaints and mediations.

She has been a firm but respectful voice in disciplinary proceedings and use of forest review board meetings, advocating for the concerns of the community while upholding the standards set by NOPD internal policy and the law.

The OIPM is an incredibly unique office with unique challenges that are near impossible to comprehend without direct hands-on experience in civilian oversight.

Losing Stella could diminish the trust within with the community that the OIPM has worked for years to build.

During Stella's time as IPM, the OIPM has completed record numbers of complaint referrals, showing public trust in the OIPM as an office.

The OIPM's mediation program has completed record numbers of mediations, regularly shows high civilian and officer satisfaction rates, and is viewed as a national role model for mediation best practices.

Stella led expansion of the program to civilian civilian mediations as well as post-investigation mediations.

The OIPM established a 24-7 complaint and commendation hotline.

The OIPM has exited the consent decree, a testament to, of course, the work of the NOPD, but as well to the OIPM and Miss Cement herself.

The OIPM community outreach has expanded under Stella's tenure, including regular community events, public forums on relevant issues, and events hosted with the NOPD and various community organizations.

Stella has direct firsthand experience in monitoring the NOPD.

She understands NOPD policy and practices on a level only a handful of civilians in the entire city do.

She understands police policing and specifically she understands New Orleans policing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Morgan Levinger.

Before I start, I still have questions.