Gambit June 12, 2012 by Gambit New Orleans

scuttlebutt Quote of the week “Thank you for saying yes.” — Mayor Mitch Landrieu to interim District B City Councilwoman Diana Bajoie, a former state senator the mayor appointed June 6 to fill the council seat vacated by Stacy Head. The full City Council had not convened since May 2 due to a dispute over how to fill the seat.

A tisket, A casket state funeral BoarD seeks to Bar monks from making coffins in Louisiana, there’s only one kind of place to buy a coffin, but a series of court decisions could change that. A years-long legal battle between the state’s funeral board and the monks at st. Joseph’s Abbey in Covington

entered another round June 7, when a three-judge panel at the 5th U.s. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from lawyers representing the abbey and the funeral board. The board is asking the 5th Circuit to overturn a lower court’s ruling that struck down state laws allowing only licensed funeral directors to sell “funeral merchandise,” including coffins. The monks have a long history of crafting handmade wooden caskets. Attorneys for the monks challenged the law as unconstitutional, and last June, a federal judge agreed. saint Joseph Abbey, et al. v. Castille, et al. caught the eye of The institute for Justice (iJ), which is fighting the issue as an “economic liberty.” it filed a lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality on the monks’ behalf in August 2010. — ALex wOODwArD Grading the Job Police to take a comPrehensive joB satisfation survey Tulane University criminologist Dr. Peter scharf last week announced a comprehensive web survey on job satisfaction within the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). The survey, which will be completed by June 17, will be available only to police officers. it follows a February letter — attributed to a group of anonymous officers but released by the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO) — critical of NOPD’s leadership and direction. “everybody’s talking about the police, but nobody’s talking to the police,” said scharf, who is conducting the survey independently, not on behalf of Tulane. The February letter from PANO identified a number of alleged issues within the department, including an overreliance on obtaining arrest statistics, inadequate staffing and unfocused leadership under Police Chief ronal serpas. “Now, several months later, we are in the wake of increasing street violence and faced with more ‘plans,’ more ‘missions,’ but fewer and fewer officers due to an appalling attrition rate and astonishingly low morale, not to mention a shrinking fleet,” reads a June 4 PANO statement about the survey’s release. in a Times-Picayune story last week, NOPD spokeswoman remi Braden was quoted as saying that PANO did not contact the department before the survey was released and adding that NOPD plans to conduct its own. in late February, the city released a request for proposals seeking a contractor to design and perform a satisfaction survey to include NOPD employees along with citizens and detainees. As of last week, no contract had been awarded. — CHArLes MALDONADO correction: in “Bouquets + Brickbats” (June 5) we misspelled the name of Timolynn sams, executive director of the New Orleans Neighborhoods Partnership Network. Gambit regrets the error.

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Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > june 12 > 2012

Old Allies Diana Bajoie nameD interim District B councilwoman Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s appointment last week of former state sen. Diana Bajoie as the interim District B member of the New Orleans City Council was hardly a surprise in political circles. Landrieu and Bajoie go back a long way. The two served in the state Legislature more than a decade ago and had similar voting records in the House. Bajoie later served in the state senate as well, while Landrieu went on to become lieutenant governor. As legislators, they both worked on state budgets and pushed issues important to the city on behalf of Mayors Sidney Barthelemy, Marc Morial and Ray Nagin. Their longstanding political friendship naturally raises suspicions that Bajoie will be an easy vote for Landrieu on the council. Given Hizzoner’s sometimestesty relationship with four council members — Stacy Head, Jackie Clarkson, Susan Guidry and Kristin Gisleson Palmer — he needs a sure vote to sustain possible vetoes. in fairness, the mayor’s relationships with council members at times is good. in recent weeks, Landrieu has been at odds with the four-member majority on some key issues, particularly the fight over Tulane University’s plans to build a new stadium. Bajoie’s appointment ended a monthlong council stalemate after a May 3 walkout by District D Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and District e Councilman Jon Johnson. HedgeMorrell and Johnson were absent from council meetings until last week, leaving the council one member short of a quorum and thus unable to approve the appointment of Head’s preferred replacement, urban planner Errol George. On June 1 — 30 days after Head took her oath as the new at-large council member — the choice became Landrieu’s. Bajoie will serve as the interim District B council member until at least the Nov. 6 primary. The City Charter bars Bajoie from running in that election. A runoff, if needed, will be Dec. 8. — CLANCy DUBOs and CHArLes MALDONADO

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