planning commission – Workers Voice

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!

In the New Orleans Workers Group, we believe in the political power of workers united together in struggle. We proudly support all the workers of New Orleans, recently deemed the #1 tourist destination in the world by the NY times. We salute BARE NOLA and all the workers organized against the recent raids on Bourbon St. clubs.

We recognize these raids as an attempt by the ruling class to separate women into legitimate and illegitimate classes. They think that they can get away with it because these clubs aren’t grocery stores, factories, or warehouses. These claims are flimsy excuses that rely solely on stigma and disorganization to work. They expect to be able to walk in and delegitimize these workers in the eyes of the city.

They expect to be able to attack without meeting organized resistance. The only ones they have delegitimized are themselves. Yesterday they were bold enough to parade their so-called “victory” on Bourbon and hold ceremony in front of the city.

Because of the resistance of the workers, Landrieu hid like a coward and the tourism board was made to look foolish.

The ruling class relies on a narrative that this city is full of vulnerable people broken by a storm, uneducated and needing to be watched for their own good; that the most vulnerable of these people are the marginalized women on Bourbon, forced into work against their will. Those organizing against these raids are not vulnerable women, but a group of women united, understanding their collective power.

For the New Orleans Workers Group, the recent ATC raids on the workers of Bourbon St. amount to nothing more than a cruel and illegitimate act of repression. Under the guise of a moral campaign against sex trafficking, these raids are a cynical effort by the ruling class to remake Bourbon St. according to their interests, without the slightest consideration for the workers who have earned them billions in profits.

We reject the so-called “moral authority” of Covenant House, an institution that advocates for laws that criminalize the youth they pretend to serve. We reject the conclusions reached in the APLV study of 2016, which was fabricated in order to bolster the case of real estate developers and their unceasing drive to make New Orleans a playground for the rich. Most importantly we recognize this campaign as an attack on the rights of women workers, LGBTQ workers, and non-white workers.

The city and the tiny class of owners whose interests it represents invoke a sexist “morality” in one breath as they pretend to defend the interests of women in the other. The Workers Group rejects any attempt to divide the city’s workers, and we denounce as criminal the firing of hundreds of our fellow workers. As fellow members of the working class, we stand in solidarity with the dancers and other workers fighting back against these raids. #letusdancenola

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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Tag: planning commission

Abolish the City Planning Commission!

Solidarity With BARE NOLA