By Milton Meyer
The capitalists’ media outlets and their educational institutions boast that the United States is a bastion of democracy uniquely endowed with the duty to spread its democratic vision around the world, often by military force.
But for working people, our so-called democracy is a sham. This becomes clear as day when we examine the workings of the New Orleans City Council (NOCC). When we vote for a city councilperson or a mayor, we assume that they will have the interests of all citizens in mind when they make decisions that affect the whole citizenry. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A favorite trick of the capitalists is to have mayors or city council members cede their decision-making power to non-elected boards such as the City Planning Commission (CPC). Unlike elected politicians, these boards don’t have to pretend to answer to the electorate. They openly govern on behalf of the capitalists at the expense of the working majority.
For example, the RTA board doesn’t include hospitality workers or drivers and mechanics; the Sewerage and Water Board doesn’t have laborers or renters making decisions. The capitalists and their lackeys make all the decisions while shielding the council and mayor from criticism for their unpopular decisions.
Who are the nine members of the CPC who decide on life and death issues like the expansion of the Orleans Parish Prison or a variance to build the Hard Rock Café Hotel?
Nolan Marshall is a VP of External Affairs and Policy for the New Orleans Business Alliance, an organization of city politicians and rich capitalists dedicated to “urban development”, aka gentrification. Katie Witry owns a real estate firm and Kathleen Lunn is a real estate broker. Robert Steeg heads a law firm that specializes in real estate transactions. Kyle Wedberg is a former administrator with the Recovery School District which pushed the charter school system on New Orleans. Lorey Flick heads an engineering firm with several multi-million dollar building contracts in New Orleans. Sue Mobley is a non-profit professional who specializes in projects funded by the Ford Foundation.
It’s clear that no one on this board represents the working class. There are no renters or hospitality workers, no one to stop the relentless gentrification of working class neighborhoods and the pushing of working people further and further from their jobs, no one who is forced to rely on an underfunded and mismanaged transit system.
And yet, the CPC “makes recommendations” regarding a variety of land use laws and codes that affect working class people including the Master Plan, the anti-worker gentrification plan created by the capitalists after Katrina. While the CPC supposedly only makes recommendations, it may approve, modify or deny applications, and its recommendations are rarely opposed by the City Council.
The City Planning Commission (CPC) was also asked to recommend whether or not to expand Orleans Parish Prison. That the city with the highest incarceration rate in the world, a crumbling infrastructure and a budget which spends only 3% on children and families wants more jail cells is itself obscene. That the decision is left up to an unelected board shows that our democracy exists only for the rulers and their flunkies. It’s only because of public outrage they backed off the recommendation to expand the jail.
It’s time for New Orleans, the Mayor and the City Council to stop governing behind closed doors where the whims of the capitalists give sway over the needs of us workers. Abolish the CPC and all other non-elected boards!