Business Alliance set up as N.O. seeks jobs
Members tapped for public-private panel
Times Picayune – August 14, 2010 – A long-awaited public-private partnership to lead New Orleans’ efforts to retain and recruit businesses began to take shape Friday with the announcement of the names of most of the new group’s 17-member board.
Many business leaders and City Council members have been pushing the idea of such an economic development partnership for more than three years, but they were long stymied by former Mayor Ray Nagin.
New Mayor Mitch Landrieu, however, embraced the concept during his campaign, leading to Friday’s announcement on his 103rd day in office.
“This is a landmark step for our city, ” Landrieu said. “For the first time, both the public and private sectors will partner in a single coordinated effort to deliver new jobs and economic opportunities for this city.”
He said the effort “will facilitate economic growth by linking government, the private sector and the nonprofit sector while leveraging our resources. It’s another step in our goal to restructure and transform city government by implementing best practices that improve our quality of life.”
The new partnership is intended to replace what are widely seen as City Hall’s repeated failures under a series of mayors to conduct successful economic development initiatives. The effort has been endorsed by many local business organizations, which say the public-private model has worked effectively in other cities.
The board of the new organization, to be known as the NOLA Business Alliance, is expected to hold its first meeting shortly and begin searching for a chief executive officer.
Landrieu said he has appointed Henry Coaxum, president of Coaxum Enterprises and owner-operator of seven local McDonald’s restaurants, to serve as president of the board.
Leslie Jacobs, executive vice president of Strategic Comp and a longtime education reformer who ran briefly for mayor last year, will be the vice chairwoman.
The new organization will receive $1.5 million a year from the city’s economic development fund, which gets money from a special tax millage, and the private sector is expected to contribute at least $500,000 annually. Jacobs said it also is line to get $1 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
The NOLA Business Alliance will handle business retention and expansion, negotiations with businesses thinking of moving to New Orleans, marketing, small-business services, entrepreneurship initiatives, international business development and strategic planning, Landrieu’s office said.
The city will retain responsibility for business licenses and permits, neighborhood economic development programs, work-force development, federal grants, housing, historic preservation and several other business-related programs.
Nagin promised in 2008 to give the public-private partnership $2 million in 2009 and $1 million a year thereafter. The private sector was expected to match that with $400,000 the first year and larger amounts in later years. But Nagin often showed little enthusiasm for the idea, which was strongly backed by City Councilman Arnie Fielkow, a frequent Nagin critic, and in August 2009 he shocked many business leaders by pulling the plug on it.
Nagin said he was killing the plan because nominees to the proposed governing board lacked gender and racial diversity, the private sector had made only a “minimal” financial commitment and there was what Nagin called “posturing for ultimate control of this entity.”
Gregory Rusovich, chairman of the New Orleans Business Council, said at the time that Nagin’s action would “hinder economic development progress in the city” and reduce “opportunities to build new jobs.” He and others denied that the prospective board would have lacked diversity.
Fielkow called Nagin’s decision “incredibly irresponsible” and a “thinly camouflaged retaliation for the outcome of the council’s vote on the Chevron building, ” a reference to the defeat a week earlier of the mayor’s proposal to move City Hall to Chevron Corp.’s former local headquarters.
Fielkow said Friday, “I can’t tell you how happy and excited I am” by the fact the new organization is finally coming to life. “I think we’re going to soar because of the work of this partnership.”
Virginia Miller, chairwoman of the Horizon Initiative, a private group that has championed the idea of a public-private partnership, said she was “gratified that this mayor has pulled the trigger … for New Orleans to be an economic player on the national level.”
Besides Coaxum and Jacobs, Landrieu appointed Regional Transit Authority executive Justin Augustine and Saints executive Rita Benson LeBlanc to the board. Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson will represent the council.
Other members, all nominated by various local business organizations, include Hal Brown, Andrea Chen, Lucy Chun, Patricia Hightower, John Hope III, Darlene Kattan, Michael Kearney, Charles Rice and Ron Sholes. A few members remain to be appointed.
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Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.
