Election Day

Today is election day. A day that we the people get to voice our opinions, our will upon how we would like to see government conduct its business in "our" interest. Elected officials are supposed represent their constituents. It seems that the current political body in New Orleans is only interested in furthering their agenda. They play the "race card" like they are at a booray game at Nanna's on Saturday night. How are they representing even "their" people when they seem to use the "race card" to keep the black community blinded to the real issues at hand?

I have posted this idea of a "New Municipality for a Greater New Orleans" on the forums on the Time's Picayune website www.nola.com. Of course, you can just imagine the responses. Fear and anger keep people from looking at the big picture and the long term effects of having a state constitutional amendment to reorganize the way we do government in New Orleans. Here are some of the typical concerns:

1. We don't want the crime and apathy coming into our parishes. Guess what, it's already there. Hurricane Katrina sent thousands of New Orleanians across the state and across the country. The FEMA parks on the northshore have had their fair share of violent crimes and a lot of these people will settle into your community. And as for apathy, your own attitudes follow along the same lines of apathy that you are preaching against.

2. Why should our parishes taxes be used to pull Orleans Parish out of the hole? Good point, however in the longrun, when New Orleans goes down the preverbial crapper, all of the surrounding area will follow. Why do I say this? Look at how many thousands of citizens commute from the Northshore, LaPlace, Jefferson Parish, St. Bernard, etc. into and around the Greater New Orleans area. What happens in New Orleans effects you no matter where you live in this area. When the politicians ran off the oil industry in the 80's and the port business in the 90's many of you lost your jobs. DON'T YOU WANT A VOICE IN WHAT HAPPENS in our metropolitan area?

And while there were many other more colorful responses to my posts on the nola forums, these two pretty much sum up the general overall view.

So today is election day, and most of you say that you do not want to have anything to do with New Orleans. When you go to vote today, you will see that there are state constitutional amendments and one of those is to consolidate the Orleans Parish Assessors office from 7 assessors to one. So, as you can see, you can have a voice in what happens in New Orleans.