Controversy heats up over NORD Commission

10th June 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Zoe Sullivan
Contributing Writer

Memorial Day was hot fast cash mcg and sticky. Certainly nowhere near the level of stickiness we can expect to feel in a few weeks, but still, sticky nonetheless. At the Olive Stallings Playground near the Fair Grounds, a few high school students sat on benches near the jungle gym. Ashley, a sophomore at Science Academy had a bikini on under her clothes. Another group of adolescent girls stood on the corner across from the park with towels around their necks. But in spite of the fact that the pool was supposed to open for the season, it was closed.

Leo Coakley sat comfortably in the shade on a picnic table in the playground. His white t-shirt had “lifeguard” emblazoned in red across the chest. “This is the jewel of the 7th Ward,” Coakley boasted. “It’s the biggest pool outside of Audubon…The community em­braces this playground, especially the pool.” When asked about the pool, though, Coakley replied: “They was going to try to open it today, but I guess they reneged. That’s NORD for you.” In an interview prior to Memorial Day, Roy Glapion, Chair of the NORD Commission, said that he expected pools to open June 6. This information, however, apparently did not reach a broader audience.

Five months after the New Or­leans Recreation Department transitioned from being a city agency to a public-private partnership, The Louisiana Weekly set out to check in on the commission’s work and on the status of playgrounds across the city that have experienced issues ranging from toxins in the soil to neglect.

While there are definitely positive steps forward in the Recreation Department, such as serving roughly 4,000 children through “Kiddie Camps” and an additional 1,000 youth served through teen camps, a program that was not offered last year according to Bobby Garon, the NORD Foundation’s President. Roy Glapion told The Louisiana Weekly that the new commission had doubled the number of summer camps from 14 to 29, and that the Red Cross is expected to provide swimming lessons to roughly 7,000 New Orlea­nians this summer.

These increases in services how to earn free cash fast come from a budget that has more than doubled. Last year, NORD had a budget of approximately $4.5 million. This year, the city has allocated $10 million, and the NORD foundation has raised over $1.5 million since the start of the year. In spite of this however, community members see shortcomings and disparities in local playgrounds. Many are also upset about WDSU’s revelation last week that the members of the commission are following a script prepared by City Hall essentially verbatim during their meetings.

In an interview conducted before the scripting story aired, Bobby Garon told The Louisiana Weekly, “The improvement has been recognized, at least in my eyes…but we have a ways to go.”

In a subsequent interview, Garon said, “We’re having to wean ourselves from a situation where the mayor and his staff have a lot of input and certainly have assisted the commission. We still are moving in the direction of being a stand-alone, independent commission.”

Garon also underlined his support of the work being done and his conviction that the new commission is making noteworthy efforts to encourage citizen participation.

I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about where we’re going with this,” Garon told The Louisiana Weekly.

In a statement, City Council Vice-President Arnie Fielkow said, “The new commission that replaced NORD in January is still making this transition from a city department to a public private partnership, a process which is not without challenges.”

In contrast, Marjorie Esman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana had harsh words for the commissioners who have played along with the scripts. “A detailed agenda is a way to promote efficiency in a meeting. [You can tell the chair] ‘Make sure you get a vote on this issue,’ but once you dictate who’s supposed to make what motion and who’s supposed to second it, then you’re taking away any ability for the body to conduct business because you lose the opportunity for discussion. What if somebody wants to talk about payday advance santa cruz it before they vote on it?…That’s not efficiency, that’s a charade.”

Commission President Glapion did not respond to e-mail or phone inquiries asking for comment prior to press time, nor did Councilmember Fielkow’s office respond to a request for comment on the issue of scripting.

The Mayor’s Communications Director, Devona Dolliole, said, “It’s common practice for staff to provide board members with information on parliamentary procedure and items on the meeting’s agenda.” The script and videos of meetings presented by WDSU go beyond what is suggested in Dolliole’s response, however, by indicating which commissioner should present what motion and who should second it, for example.

“Disheartening” is how Danatus King, president of the New Orleans Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), described the scripting revelations.

“We’ve had crises in confidence relating to the administration going back to the very inception of the administration and actually going back to before the new mayor was sworn in. There were questions as to transparency and questions as to the processes that were being put in place, and we see that there’s been a steady erosion of the public’s confidence ever since that very beginning. The issues dealing with the scripted commission meetings, the issues dealing with the public belt railroad, [where] the mayor was a member of the board but allegedly didn’t know anything about the operations where the railroad cars were being rented out, and used for free by railroad employees, and outlandish expenditures. So this latest about the scripted meetings, that’s just another nail in the coffin.”

While much criticism has been addressed to the mayor in this, however, the commissioners are responsible for their own actions and chose to fall in line with the staging. “It is my hope that the new commission will soon meet the goal of being an independent body in order to best serve the youth of our city,” Fielkow said in a written statement about the commission’s work.

During a tour of several NORD commission playgrounds, need a loan bad credit no brokers The Louisiana Weekly found a range of conditions. At the Olive Stallings Playground near the Fair Grounds, there were few complaints about the facility beyond the fact that the pool wasn’t open, although Calvin, who was playing dominoes in the shade and asked not to give his last name, remarked that “the bathroom isn’t open. Kids might want to use the bathroom.”

Ruth Ann Delpit, who has lived across from the playground for 37 years, complained that she didn’t feel it was safe for her 10-year-old grandson to go to there. “I don’t think it’s safe for children because they’re a lot of grown men who hang out in that playground on a daily basis, smoking, drinking, playing cards…Other than the lifeguards, I don’t see any security around that playground. I would like to see some security, especially if there’re going to open up the bath house because the children would have to go in there to change their clothes,” Delpit told The Louisiana Weekly.

At Norwood Thompson playground in Gert Town, the facility building had been colorfully painted, but neighbors pointed out that its roof had never been repaired and that pigeons were nesting in it. “That’d been the first thing [to do]” Raymond Hogan said. “They could get some lights in there. I don’t know what’s taking so long.”

“The kids are playing in the dark,” added Charles Clark, who owns the Forshey St. Café directly across from the park. Some residents feel that that there is a disparity between the resources allocated to parks in communities with different socio-economic status, but the Mayor’s Press Office contests this. “We’ve seen tremendous improvement in facilities,” while acknowledging “there’s still a tremendous way to go for the amount of facilities that were active pre-Katrina and are inactive now.”

Up Forshey Street several blocks is the Cuccia-Byrnes Playground, which, has the Carrollton Boosters logo painted clearly on the front of the field house. Isaac Turner who lives across the street from this playground said that the treatment reserved for the children online cash advance lender who frequent this park is particular, because they are the “Mayor children, Chief of Police children….When they out here, they have patrol cars out here until the last child leave. They well-protected and everything.”

Dave Sumrall, president of the Carrollton Boosters, confirmed that the organization provides security for its recreational programs. He also said, however, that while 90 percent of the children participating in activities at Cuccia-Byrnes come from the Uptown area, they come from a range of neighborhoods. The community immediately surrounding the playground is one of modest economic means. “The immediate neighborhood has always had a big impact on our programs, and we’ve always done outreach to try and get kids in the immediate neighborhood involved in our programs.”

In spite of the issues at Norwood Thompson Playground, it, like Olive Stallings, had a brand new jungle gym with a spongy base around it to cushion falls. These jungle gyms, however, were installed by Kaboom!, a national non-profit organization that aims to create playgrounds within walking distance of every child in the U.S. According to the organization’s web site, it has made similar improvements to 65 playgrounds in New Orleans.
While this organization has managed to have a clear impact on the city’s playgrounds, local residents complain that they have been unable to volunteer with the commission.

Norbert Rome, a 9th Ward resident, told The Louisiana Weekly, “I offered to work for free, and they’re not getting back to me.”

Richard Jackson, who coached high school football for years and taught swimming at the old New Orleans Department of Recreation, complained that in spite of his experience in recreation and multiple relevant degrees, no one responded to him when he submitted his resume.

Mr. Glapion did not respond to inquiries from The Louisiana Weekly about the way in which the commission selects volunteers.

This article was originally published in the June 6, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper