Monday’s mayoral forum at Delgado Community College proved to be a somewhat staid affair. Whether due to the Saints’ victory the night before or the debate’s inconvenient start time of noon, only four of the six leading candidates made it to the event, with both John Georges and Mitch Landrieu absent. In front of a sparse audience, the candidates repeated many of the same talking points (and jokes) they’ve delivered at previous forums across the city.
The focus of the debate was largely on crime and the need for a new police chief and greater accountability within the NOPD. The candidates did not address ways to foster better understanding and relationships between youth and the NOPD, though Nadine Ramsey nicely highlighted the link between New Orleans’ historically faulty education system and the city’s high crime rate and also spoke of increasing mentorship opportunities in local businesses for city youth. James Perry and Troy Henry both reiterated their commitment to expanding and improving NORD, with Perry contending that if NORD received the funding levels it has had in the past, the city’s crime rate would plummet in the summer months. However, throughout all the debates, despite the attention they’ve paid to it, the candidates have yet to seriously commit to or even really discuss a restructuring of NORD that would place the department in a separate district outside of city government — one of the Afterschool Partnership’s 10 for 2010 priorities for the next mayor. NORD can’t remain dependent on the whims of city government.
Rob Couhig has constantly hammered home his point that high taxes in New Orleans drive away residents and potential businesses and his promises of budgetary transparency remain the most encouraging of all the candidates in the field. But until the candidates start to provide concrete funding plans, it’s hard not to remain skeptical of the potential of many of their promised initiatives actually coming to fruition.
