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The long-awaited consent decree between the feds and the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) finally happened this year, but much will depend on how Chief Ronal Serpas and his officers work to make it a reality — and who gets named as the federal monitor to oversee the process. PHOTO BY CHeRYL GeRBeR
court’s first black chief. The federal courts intervened, at the request of Johnson and others, and nudged the high court toward resolving the issue in favor of Johnson. Meanwhile, appellate Judge Jeff Hughes won the race to succeed Kimball; his victory gives the court a Republican majority. Hughes’ campaign was hardly judicious: He ran as a gun-toting defender of traditional marriage and an abortion opponent, and he gladly got “independent” help from environmental plaintiff lawyers. 9. The CCC Tolls Fight — The closeness of a referendum to renew tolls on the Crescent City Connection showed how much every vote counts. it passed by a scant 18 votes out of more than 308,000 cast in Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes. state Rep. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, led the fight against the tolls — and against years of abuse by the commission that has spent toll money. Although he narrowly lost the toll renewal fight, Connick won the war to bring more accountability to the process of spending toll revenues. Meanwhile, a regional coalition of business, civic and political leadership came together to pass an unpopular measure for a very popular bridge. 10. Brawl on the Bayou — Reapportionment and redistricting after the 2010 U.s. Census put two Republican incumbents in the same south Louisiana congressional district. U.s. Reps. Charles Boustany of Lafayette and Jeff Landry of New iberia fought it out in a reconfigured Third District, where boundaries favored Boustany. A physician and traditional Republican, Boustany has more tenure and more friends in the state Legislature, which
drew the new district lines. Attorney and tea party firebrand Landry has a knack for garnering attention, but in the end he ran out of gas — and money. Boustany’s victory in the staunchly conservative district showed just how weakened the tea party has become — and how difficult it is for a political movement to sustain itself on anger alone. For once, Louisiana was in sync with the rest of the country as pragmatism trumped ideology. And for good measure, here’s one more to round out the list: The Sometimes-Picayune — One of the cardinal rules of journalism is that reporters aren’t supposed to be the story, but the decision by the owners of The Times-Picayune to publish only three days a week — and lay off scores of employees — changed a lot of rules. Among other things, the layoffs decimated the paper’s political reporting staff. City Hall reporter Frank Donze took a job at the Audubon institute, while husband-and-wife colleagues Bill Barrow and Michelle Krupa moved to Atlanta. Columnist stephanie Grace was among the leading voices silenced by the change (except for her recent contributions to Gambit); she opted not to accept the paper’s “offer” to return to daily reporting. On a larger scale, the Baton Rouge daily Advocate has opened a bureau in New Orleans in response to community pleas for a daily newspaper. NOLA.com returned fire by opening a bureau in Baton Rouge — just months after the T-P gutted its Capitol bureau. Looking ahead to 2013, local newspaper (and online) wars could make as many headlines as political skirmishes. it’s never dull in Louisiana.