New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu today announced the start of the city's public-private partnership for economic development, called the NOLA Business Alliance, and the composition of its initial board. He said the new venture will deliver unprecedented coordination for economic development across the city. "This is a landmark step for our city," Landrieu said. "For the first time, both...
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu today announced the start of the city's public-private partnership for economic development, called the NOLA Business Alliance, and the composition of its initial board.
'This is a landmark step for our city,' Mayor Mitch Landrieu says.He said the new venture will deliver unprecedented coordination for economic development across the city.
"This is a landmark step for our city," Landrieu said. "For the first time, both the public and private sector will partner in a single coordinated effort to deliver new jobs and economic opportunities for this city. And we 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 chairman of the 17-member board is Henry Coaxum, president of Coaxum Enterprises Inc. Businesswoman and longtime education reformer Leslie Jacobs, briefly a mayoral candidate in 2009, was named vice chairwoman.
The new organization will receive $1.5 million a year from the city and the private sector has promised to raise $500,000 a year.
Landrieu said the board will hold its first meeting shortly and begin the task of searching for a chief executive officer.
The public-private partnership, or PPP, 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 on its own.
The effort has been endorsed by many local business organizations, which say the public-private model has worked effectively in other cities.
Former Mayor Ray Nagin promised in 2008 to give the new venture $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 Nagin 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 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, and they noted that Nagin had not yet announced his own nominees to the board.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com