Spend Money on Youth, Not New NOPD Headquarters

By LaVonna Varnado-Brown

The NOPD is pushing the city council for a new headquarters that would cost taxpayers $37 million. With the budget already choked, Mayor Cantrell names her top four priorities as: “Public Safety as a Matter of Public Health, Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Quality of Life Initiatives”. Claiming public health and safety as a top priority is pure hypocrisy, given the fact that Cantrell still has not drawn up an actionable plan to provide the residents of Gordon Plaza with a fully funded relocation. The police building located at 715 S Broad Avenue is old, but at least it’s not lethal.

In the Upper Ninth Ward, residents of Gordon Plaza live amidst toxic carcinogens as they fight for a fully funded relocation that is long overdue. For nearly three decades, residents have continued to file lawsuits and demand that elected officials be held accountable for selling them property on a toxic waste landfill. And to think that the NOPD, which regularly terrorizes black and brown people in the streets, is demanding that the city fund new headquarters! “We know we need a new building, and we need it fast,” said NOPD Deputy Superintendent Christopher Goodly in a budget meeting with city planning officials. “It’s basically time to consider looking at a new headquarters instead of spending the resources to repair a dilapidated building.”

The new building would have to be built on an alternate site so that the current headquarters can continue to operate during construction. Construction will likely cost an average of $350 per square foot. The money for the new headquarters is stolen money. This money belongs to the workers, who generate the revenue for the city budget. Currently, 63% of the budget goes towards cops, jails and reactive programs, while only 3% is invested in children and families and 1% in job development. We cannot stand by and watch those in power continue to repress workers and people of color. No more fully funded luxury office buildings while hospitality workers fight for a living wage!

No more high-tech police facilities while working parents drown in debt over childcare and transportation! The city of New Orleans belongs to us, the workers. We need affordable healthcare, childcare, and reliable public transport. Not a new police building!

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

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