Governmental Affairs Committee.

And so I just really want us to think of NORD as an organization for our babies to the oldest resident in our city. But thank you for answering the call to serve. Can I just say something? Sure. And I said I represent the Lower Ninth Ward all day. I served on the board in the Lower Ninth, the Homeowners Association. Sanchez Center, that was our last center of bringing partnership in. And those elders at that center, the child within them is what made me love even more of what I do. And when I see them still to this day, whether I'm on stage or in the community, they always talk about the arts and how that lives. And so, yes, I agree 1,000 percent that our children are from 0 to 99 and beyond. And so, yes, NORD is important because when they don't have the swimming pool, when the lactation center is not available, or when staff is shortened, who suffers? The community. And so I want to make sure that I advocate for everyone. So thank you for that gentle reminder. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. And I just want to say I'm just so excited that you are willing to serve on NORD. It is a tremendous time commitment, and you really have to love the game and love the kids. Yes. And you really do have that love for our children in our city. Thank you. So I will move. Can I get a second? Second. Second by Council Member Caron. Please vote your machines. Five yays, no nays. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have Lamar Gardere. I was just talking about you yesterday, Lamar. I was volunteering you to go do some data. Oh, well, that's my job, so I'm happy to jump in. All right. Why do you want to be on the Finance Authority for New Orleans? Yes. So I am Lamar Gardere, Executive Director of the Data Center here in New Orleans. It's my job and part of our mission to democratize data, to understand how that data works to inform decision-making for broader prosperity in our region. And so when we analyze that data, when we analyze that information, and we see all the indicators across the city that tell us how we're doing, consistently one of the bright spots is homeownership in New Orleans. And FANO, over its history, has had an amazing role in making that happen. Through its programs, it's one of the agencies that has actually helped to close gaps over generations. I'm a native New Orleanian. My family has been here for a long time. I want this to be a great place. I want to be part of that. With FANO's expanded mission to improve commercial development and their focus on data these days, I think I'm a great choice for it. I would like to be involved with it. I'm ready to do my civic duty to help New Orleans be the place it should be. All right. Well, the board is clear. Councilman Harris moves. Councilmember Hughes seconds. Five yeas, no nays. Thank you very much, Mark. Thank you. Kevin Nguyen. Mr. President, for the record, on this particular nomination, I am going to recuse myself from discussion and voting on this item. In full transparency, Mr. Nguyen is my blood uncle. I didn't realize he was pursuing this post. And though he doesn't necessarily meet the definition of immediate family under the law, out of an abundance of caution, I am going to recuse myself. All right. Well, good morning, councilmembers. My name is Kevin Nguyen. And I was approached to sit on New Orleans' loan authority on the board. And with that in mind, I went and did my research to see exactly what it pertained to, what exactly involvement. And looking at the first thing that came out was community, community activity, community involvement. And with my experience in banking in 35 years and, you know, working with home loans and just getting people access to capital, I figured this was right in my wheelhouse. This is something I love to do. So I just wanted to make an impact in the community. And this is why I'm here. I'm looking forward and excited about what is going forward. All right. Well, the board is clear. I will move to approve. Take a second. Second by Councilmember Green. Please vote your machines. Four yeas, one recusal. You'll be afforded full council board confirmation. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Nguyen, if you have any problems with this nephew of yours, you just let us know. Because one thing is certain, he can't comment on anything that we say about him relative to you. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you. That was okay. All right. John Malazzo for FANO. Same question, Mr. Malazzo. Good morning. I'm John Malazzo, and I'm appearing before you as a returned member of the Finance New Orleans Board. I have served on that board a full term, and my term has expired. So this is the first time I've had an opportunity to come before you to address you in, I guess, a re-upping of that position. I have enjoyed that term. I come from a credit union background. I was in commercial banking for nearly 40 years. I served as president of LSU's credit union, campus federal credit union for that time. We dealt mainly with people who had modest means. I find that that same commitment forwards into the Finance New Orleans commitment as well. I'm committed to helping my community, and I look forward to serving and continue to serve as a citizen of New Orleans. All right. John, I just want to thank you for agreeing to a second appointment to finance. To all the members, the new board members and returning board members, this agency is so critical, especially as we go forward with the Housing Trust Fund, in making sure that you as board members understand what the city of New Orleans needs and makes those recommendations on how we should spend the commitment of money that the voters committed to improve affordable housing in this city. So I just want to say thank you, John, and to the new board members, and I look forward to working with you. Thank you, Ms. Harris. Thank you. Thank you. Moved by Councilmember Hughes, seconded by Councilmember Harris. All in favor? Five yays, no nays. We forward the full board for confirmation.

Next up, we have the Ethics Review Board. We have Sian Quiet-Smith. Please make sure – I pronounced your name correctly, right, Sian? Yes, you did. Okay. You did. Good morning. The lofty responsibilities of the Ethics Review Board to enforce and administer the provisions under the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics to support the initiatives of this board, the programs of this board, and the training of this board that really leads to how this esteemed body and, if I'm so selected, this board will help to maintain the integrity not only of its functions, but of your vision, your goals, not only of this board, but to create a stronger, more accountable city, is one that I am committed to, passionate about, and strongly endeavor to achieve. And why it makes sense and why I'm so passionate about it is because for, gosh, the better part of 15 years, over six institutions of higher education, including being a FEMA certified command deployer, I've always had operational responsibilities in addition to academic responsibilities. And that meant in that portfolio that being responsible for, at a cabinet level, compliance matters. I've managed human resources. Conduct matters on the student side as well as on the staff side. I believe that those experiences, that skill set, and we all know by going back to command center operations, you have to be in sync, but you have to have a higher standard of accountability, communication, and transparency because in those situations it saves lives. So I present and I feel that I am equipped, passionate, but most of all humbled and honored to be considered and to serve. Thank you very much. The board is clear. I'll move for approval, seconded by Councilmember Hughes. Please vote your machines. Five yays, no nays. Thank you very much. Next up, Nick Harris. Good morning. All right. Nick, why do you want to be on the Ethics Review Board? Well, I'm really excited about being on the Ethics Review Board. After 37 years of working at Dillard University under six presidents, and with the, my background also with the city of New Orleans working in federal programs, I understand the both public and private side. But most importantly, ethics is very important to carry out, not only in the public and private sector of government, but also for the community. And the community see everything that's going on to bring in support, to bring in support, and transparency, everything that happens. And I think that with my experience in having the pulse of the community and different neighborhoods, by inviting them and having events and everything in the community, it's very important for them to understand what's going on. And I'm just very excited to be a part of it. And I, it's a committee that I feel as though through my formal background, my present background, that I'm able to deliver a good message. So I'm happy to be here. All right. Thanks, Nick. The floor is clear. Councilman Hughes moves. I, oh, Councilman Harris seconds. All in favor, five yays, no nays. Next up, we have Boris Vijay. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Let me say this. I serve as the President and CEO for Volunteers America Southeast Louisiana. So it's a blessing that I've been asked to be nominated to serve on this particular board. Serving on the Ethics Review Board aligns with my character. And I believe that was the reason why I was asked. Integrity, transparency, and accountability in processes, people, services, and all that we do within our community. So I am looking forward to seeing if I can serve on this board, if you all accept me as a member, so we can continue to do well and uplift this community. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Harris moves. I second. All in favor, please vote your machines. Five yays, no nays. Next up, we have Cheryl Sims-Taplin. Good morning, Councilmembers. My name is Cheryl Sims-Taplin. I am currently a shareholder at the law firm, Lisco & Lewis. And I would love to be on this board. When I was asked by the President of Loyola to serve on this board, I saw it as an honor and an opportunity to come back into the fold of the city of New Orleans and provide a service. As a native New Orleanian and my family being a part of this city for generations, and this city is home to me both professionally and personally, I have a deep respect. For the responsibility that comes with public service at every level. And I believe that ethical standards matter because they create a culture of credibility and trust in city government. And I've seen firsthand how that impacts our community every day. I believe that when people trust our city, it strengthens our communities. And I believe that my experience as an attorney for the past 24 years and working within an ethical framework will help lend my experience to the board. And I look forward to serving the board in that capacity. Thank you, Councilmember Harris. Councilmember Hughes moves. Councilmember Harris seconds. Please vote your machines. For, missing one. Oh, all right. Four yeas, no nays. You are forwarded to confirmation. Next up, we have Savitri Wilson-Taylor for the Downtown Development District. Good morning, Council. I'm excited to be here and to be appointed and nominated for Downtown Development District. I have spent the better 15 years as a owner, working as well as living and playing in downtown. And so it definitely is not only a tremendous honor to be nominated to this board, but to serve in this capacity. Many, many years ago, over 15 years ago, I had the opportunity to serve as secretary of the Downtown Development District in Baton Rouge. And in that position, was able to tour other downtown development districts across the country. And I think that New Orleans is not only positioned to grow and expand and to be seen on a national level, but an international level. And it's downtown. It's just ripe for opportunity. And I'm looking forward to being a part of it. Councilmember Hughes.

Thank you, Mr. President. Savitri, first, thank you for answering this call to serve. I had a front row seat to your career over the last two decades. And I'm just really, really excited that you are going to bring your talent and innovation to our Downtown Development District. And I look forward to you and the board working to bring our downtown to the next level. So thank you. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Hughes moves. I will second. Please vote your machines. Five yeas, no nays. Thank you very much. Next up, we have Ronald P. McClain for the Sandy Kresnoff New Orleans Criminal Justice Council. Come on down, neighbor. Tell us why you want to be on, I think you're already on Sandy Kresnoff, right? Yes, yes. All right. Why you want to stay on Sandy Kresnoff? Oh, thanks so much. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I'm Ron McClain. I'm executive director of the Institute of Mental Hygiene. Which is a local philanthropic organization that provides grant making to agencies and organizations that work with and on behalf of children and families. So I have a long history working in this town. One of my first jobs, in fact, was at Youth Study Center over 40 years ago. Over the years, I've worked with perpetrators of crime as well as victims of crime. When I ran Children's Bureau and Family Service of Greater New Orleans, much of our work was with victims of crime. Well, I appreciate the fact that we've had a significant reduction in crime. I think we have a long way to go to ensure that victims of crime get the support they need. And also that we can do a lot better job at preventing crime, particularly early on. And so I think I've added value to the council over the years that I did serve at the mental health representative. And I'm committed to continue to work on behalf of the citizens of this town. To improve conditions, help coordinate the criminal justice system. Provide advice to the council and the mayor around ways to continue this progress that we've made. And do more. So thank you for entertaining me today. Thank you. I will move. Can I get a second? Second by Council Member Jason Hughes. Please vote your machines. Five yeas, no nays. Thank you very much. Appreciate you being here today. Next up, we have for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, we have the Honorable Bernadette Johnson. I mean, I don't think any introduction is necessary. I do want to give full disclosure after Mr. Hughes. I believe the judge and I are third cousins. Third, fourth cousins. I'm not recusing myself, but I do want to make sure that everyone knew that. And I don't think it's an issue because once you get to fifth or sixth, everybody in New Orleans is related. That's right. By some degree. Thank you so much, Mr. President. And to council members, thank you so much for this invitation to be here this morning. I retired as Chief Justice of Louisiana Supreme Court in 2020 after serving as a district court judge and then Chief Judge of the Louisiana Supreme Court. I have been a member of the New Orleans Aviation Board. And I felt that this was a good fit for me to rotate from the Aviation Board to the Redevelopment Authority because I think this might be a good fit for me at this point. I've lived uptown on Phillips Street. I've lived in the Lower Ninth Ward on North Robertson Street before my family bought a home in Pontchartrain Park. I'm interested in the whole city looking good and we want to focus on the plaza towers and those commercial buildings that have been blighted for so many years. I'll probably be asking for some help from a city attorney to look at what we're doing in terms of liens, how are we forcing property owners to take care of their property and what resources does the city have to force them to do something. I think it's just unconscionable to have a plaza tower that's derelict for 30 years or to have Lindy Boggs' facility there derelict for so many years. So having my background in law, I've been a lawyer for a lot of years, perhaps we can look at what resources are available to the city to move the city forward and take care of some of the blight and I think we ought to focus on the big property owners first and not folks who don't pick up trash. All right, well the board lit up, Sarah wants to say something. So we'll start with Council Member Green. Judge Johnson, I thank you very much for your continued interest in our community, our city and our state. It's so very honorable of you to want to continue the service after having so many decades of service to all of our people and I think and just your remarks that you've made show that you are certainly going to be taking this particular responsibility on in a very motivated fashion. It's such an important agency and thank you very much for your service. Thank you for those comments, Mr. Green. I know, I appreciate. all of the help and appreciates council member Harris and everything she's done to encourage me. Mr. Council member Hughes J.P. Morrell of course council member that you've done over the years. But it's an I thought I'd be sitting at home drinking tea. OK. But if there is any way I can use my background to move the city forward I'm certainly happy to do it. Thank you so much for this opportunity. There are others. You got you got to go go fast. I want to wait. That's all right. I still want to say one other thing though. I want to thank you. But I also want to thank the many citizens and residents who are being confirmed today likely by this committee. We certainly have to vote. But I want to thank all of you all. I could have said something after almost every person's name here because I know so many folks. But we have entrepreneurs today. We have folks who are represented representatives of universities. We have folks who have served in capacities that want to continue serving.

So for the thousands of people who are watching and the thousands of people who will see this afterwards you're seeing something very very special today in our city. Folks who have done so much for our city and want to continue to do things. And I know this expression gets used a lot. You all are all in just like I'm all in our city is moving forward in a very positive direction. And part of the reason is because of your willingness to serve our community. You're doing a good job. We're making progress. And thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Thank you. All right. Councilmember Harris. Justice Johnson I just want to say thank you. I wasn't kidding. Everybody. Pardon me. I didn't know you were addressing some comments in the council. Yeah. It's OK. Justice I just want to say publicly to the thousands of people who are watching. Thank you for being a role model in the legal field. Thank you for being a role model to young black women everywhere. Thank you for your continued service to the city of New Orleans. I can tell you along with finance New Orleans Nora is one of the partners in the housing trust fund which will address affordable housing and your remarks on blight around the city is something that I take very seriously. My team with other council members are working on tightening up our blight rules to make sure that properties can be quickly adjudicated and gotten into responsible homeowners and businesses hands so that we don't have all these blighted properties sitting around or buildings falling down after 30 years of just sitting. So I just want to say thank you for your service and just thank you for being you. Look I worked in this building as a city attorney in the 80s and I'm going to enjoy talking with city attorneys again about you know what resources do we have. What laws do we have on the books. What can we do. Because that's the kind of person I am. What can we do to move something forward. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Still got more. Jason Hughes. OK. Thank you Mr. President. Madam Chief Justice I'm going to be quick but you can't have living history in front of you and not say so much. So as I always tell you thank you for paving the way for so many. I stand on your shoulders. We all do. But I'm glad that you are once again answering the call to serve and not just sitting at home drinking tea because you have too much intellect and too much public service in your heart. In District E I just want to you know put this on on your mind Madam Chief Justice as you know you once lived in District E. It is a beautiful community with so much promise and so much potential. And in the lower ninth ward we just need that catalyst. We need that grocery store. We need health care. And I know Nora is going to be a great vehicle. And as you talk about commercial blight and slumlords don't forget about 6700 Plaza Drive the poster child for blight in New Orleans East. And I'm looking forward to leaning on Nora to be that catalyst to help me relocate sewage and water board from St. Joseph Street to New Orleans East. I don't just want a piece of it. I don't just want an annex. I want the entire footprint. Employees trucks everything. So I'm looking forward to Nora helping me with that. Thank you so much. I have a 15 minute speech. But I'm gonna I'm gonna let you go. OK. Thank you. I'll see you at the reunion. We're good. All right. Wow. So Harris moved. Green seconded 5 0. Thank you very much. All right. That ends all of our confirmations for today. We're going to talk about temporary alcohol beverage permits. So if y'all don't want to sit through that y'all are good. Y'all can go. All right. Yes. All these are all these items will be on the consent agenda. Correct. There you go. All right. Austin bring down your team. We're going to talk about temporary alcohol. Tell him. I don't want Kevin on. That means people are going to talk about it. Yeah, you're good. Well, they might still put us both. We knew it. Right. Oh, all right. All right. Let's talk about temporary ABOs. As many of you know, I believe Austin we began this journey last year. Repeatedly. So I believe at this point, due to a tremendous amount of work of the administration and the council, we have a series of amendments to this ordinance. I will go over, generally speaking, what the amendments are. We actually can't add the amendments, I believe, until the full council meeting. Okay, the amendments, I'll discuss what we're doing to the ordinance as because as filed that there will be some significant changes. The amendments that will be proposed at the full council will be a temporary the temporary permit will now be 90 days as previously 60. We've clarified zoning review for all temporary permits and licenses occur within 10 days of submitting the application. Now there's five calendar days for finance to issue an occupational license previously 10. The entire permit process is a maximum of 15 days. If Department of Safety of permits or finance does not grant of grant the approval of temporary permit within 15 days. If the yeah, it is automatically granted. It still requires councilmatic approval for automatic grant. If application is denied applicant receives written reasons for the Nile within five days, the applicant would then have 15 days to appeal the denial to the CAO or his designee. If he disagrees with the purpose decision, and general chair general changes to clarify wording. The goal is to create a process as safety and permits and this has a has a drop dead date, I believe a 2027. Correct. The goal is for us to give the opportunity for business to move forward while safety and permits builds out and gets back to through the backlog. So this will create a mechanism where we can have businesses that are new businesses that are opening where they can have a reliable process to get opened while we're waiting for safety and permits with your leadership Suzanne to build out.

Is there anything y'all would like to add in regards to this? No, I just wanted to express my gratitude for the help from council and administration for pushing this forward. It's moving us in the right direction for making business easier for New Orleans to show that we're open. So I just thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions from the council? Hearing none, I will move forward on this out seconded by Councilmember green. All in favor, please vote your machines. For years, no nays, this will not go on consent because there's the amendments at the full council. All right. Thank you with that Councilman green moves that we adjourn Councilman McCarran seconds extensively all in favor, please vote your machines. Five years no days we are adjourned. Thank you Transcribed by https://otter.ai Transcribed by https://otter.ai Transcribed by https://otter.ai Transcribed by https://otter.ai