Alan Gutierrez

The Unified New Orleans Plan web site. Click on any page and you will see the front page. People are flustered by this. There is no there there. It’s day 329. Well, it’s not the only web site that is empty around these parts.

I’m pleased, actually. They got one thing big thing right.

I’m pleased to see that the content of the UNOP will be released under the Creative Commons. There is a link to the Creative Commons license they chose. This is the only web site in New Orleans that I know of that has made this decision. The Creative Commons license tells you exactly how you can share the information.

We get a lot of email from lawyers, to our mailing lists, with stupid email disclaimers. They think they are sharing information? These disclaimers do not apply to me, of course, because I have my own disclaimer.

What ever they post at UNOP, it will be more accessible than anything posted almost anywhere else in New Orleans civic web sites.

Xy and Editor B tell us about the Lafitte Housing Projects.

We are standing in line for $40-90 billion. We can’t get the $40-90 billion until we have a plan. That plan depends on neighborhood control of the planning process. Basically, the money waits until we have some idea of how it will be spent. Karen Gadbois said yesterday, this money has come to the city on the backs of people who have lost their homes, which sums it nicely. I ask you to help me wrap my head around this planning process, where it’s at, what it means, and alert me to the many ways in which I’ll be relieved of the burden of self-determination by those that are old hands at spending money that begins with a ‘B’.

Mark Folse has written an article called The Firebirds which you all should read. On Wednesday a similar sight as two Blackhawk helicopters in civilian livery of some sort, shuttled over the French Quarter, to the Mississippi, and in the direction of the Treme. It appears that is was a [fire on N Rampart].

Empty cities tend to burn. This was the experience of Detroit, Michigan which would burn for the foreign press, annually on [Devil's Night].

Flood damaged wires, squatters cooking on open flame, or arson; the threat of a sweeping fire in the dense, wood-structured neighborhoods of New Orleans is intense.

Working backwords from Paul Baricos.

Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 13:36:22 -0500
From: “Paul Baricos” To: “Gerald W. Billes”
Subject: Re: Hollygrove Planning

Mr Billes:

I have been told many times before to go to hell, but never so thoroughly. First my personal response. I found your email insulting, divisive, and detrimental to the good of the neighborhood. We have been told in no uncertain terms and many times that we (neighborhoods) must plan if we are to survive. For months now we have been doing just that in Hollygrove and in scores of other neighborhoods. At the meeting last week at St. Joan of Arc we asked you, Lonnie Hewitt, and Shelia Danzig if planning efforts currently underway by local groups would be taken into consideration and you all responded emphatically yes. Now we are told not to get in the way, leave it to the so-called professionals. This is outrageous. We have worked very hard, have attempted to be as inclusive as possible, and have welcomed everyone in Hollygrove and surrounding areas to participate. We will not be excluded from this process.

I will pass along this email to our group at our Saturday meeting. We are not “confused” about what we have been doing “uninterruptedly” for over four months. I will recommend that we contact the Lambert group and/or the City Council to get an explanation on your role and ours in the “official” planning process.You are being paid with public money and we deserve such an explanation.

Paul Baricos

This is in response to this response.

On 5/26/06, Gerald W. Billes (gbilles@billesarchitecture.com) wrote:

Paul,

I appreciate the information you have sent to me. No one from our Neighborhood Planning team will be attending your volunteer group meeting on Saturday.

Although your efforts may have been well intentioned prior to our assignment to the Neighborhood Planning project currently underway, we ask that you respect the residents of Hollygrove and the planning team assigned by allowing the process to flow uninterruptedly. At this time my presence may only serve to confuse citizens in Hollygrove who may get the false impression that there is an association between our funded professional effort and your volunteer splinter group who has no official capacity to produce a “plan” for Hollygrove. You are invited to continue to attend our meetings and participate as other citizens have in our official planning effort and appropriately present information you have gathered. The information will be treated as a single point of view, however, until a consensus of those living in the individual neighborhoods has been reached. Points of view by those living in the neighborhood and expressed in our meetings will be given more weight than those by non-residents. We have begun to gather our own information through in-field surveys and other research methods and through neighborhood meetings we have begun to have. We will put pertinent material into our report and make recommendations that we feel is most relevant to the recovery effort.

We would appreciate you explaining these facts and the ad-hoc and unofficial nature of your effort to anyone attending your meeting. Please explain that there will be duplication of effort in what you are attempting to achieve and our planning process since we may be going through similar steps to gain information and insight into the needs and desires of the neighborhoods for which we are attempting to plan. Thank you for the invitation, non-the-less.

Gerald W. Billes, AIA, NCARB

Which is in response to this inquiry.

Mr Billes:

I met you at the Dixon/Hollygrove/Leonidas planning meeting. For several months a group in Hollygrove has been meeting focusing on planning issues. In addition to many smaller meetings we had several large meetings facilitated by architects from City Works - Angela O’Byrne was our primary contact. H.V. Nagendra of Blitch Knevel, a Carrollton resident, has also helped out. Steve Villavaso also attended several meetings. The meetings were primarily about visioning. At our last meeting we tried to put the vision into an action plan and also focused in on recovery activities (attached). Next week volunteers will begin surveying the Hollygrove neighborhood - both people and structures. I’ve also attached the survey instruments although we plan to modify them somewhat.

At our next meeting scheduled for Saturday, May 27, 9:00 am, Carrollton United Methodist Church, 921 S. Carrollton Ave., we planned to break into small groups outlined in the planning summary document attached. These groups would then implement the action items. We also want to identify and recruit block captains to keep communication’s open.

The impetus behind this has been an organization called Trinity Christian Community (TCC) - a social service organization located in Holly grove for over 15 years or so. Kevin Brown heads it up. We also started a CDC associated with TCC - I work with it as a volunteer. I live on Cohn St. in Carrollton, near the cemeteries.

We’ve tried to be as inclusive and open as possible. We certainly want to work with you in any way possible and look forward to intergating our work with the overall planning of District 3. I hope that you can attend next Saturday (and help facilitate the process) and would appreciate any comments or suggestions on our work so far. Please let me know.

Thanks.

Paul Baricos

Paul Baricos hosted the Web Publishing Workshop at the New Orleans Housing Resource Center. A mere 24 hours ago, he earned my gratitide.

I’m not alone.

I know nothing of Billes Architecture.

Paul Baricos holds workshops to teach homeowners how to navigate the bureaucracy. He’s created a well appointed office space from which homeowners can work. His was an early response, and continues to be an effective one.

This outrage is circulating far and wide.

When we got back, those of us who could get ourselves in order stepped out into our yard and asked, where’s the city? Rather than wait, we organized to govern ourselves. It’s been difficult without any funding or government support.

Now that there are funds available, there are professionals to spend them.

Christian Roselund hosted an Independent Media Crawfish Boil two Sundays ago. I’m finally getting around to posting the photographs. (My PowerBook is but a spectre now.) This photoset makes for an entertaining slideshow, so click on Becky and join us as we attend.

We arrived as Christian was headed out for potatos, so he turned around and led us to the backyard, where there was an assortment of revolutionaries, sipping beer, and waiting on potatos.

I was leery, as always, of Common Grounders, Pacific-NorthWesterners. Carpetbaggers of all stripes annoy but non so much as the upper-middle trash with ideals lifed from the back of a box of organic corn flakes. Saving the world with their disposable income.

Or so I’m told. One of the attendees informed me that I was looking everyone askance upon entry. I don’t doubt it. All you need is one shlub suburbanite with exaggerated sensibilites to lead the team in compulsive, politically-correct mirth squeltching. Choose your words carefully, or else have them chosen for you.

These were locals, however. Christian Roselund is not one to suffer fools gladly. It was a crowd of locals.

There was one ex-Common Grounder, but he went native. Took a job, no less.

Otherwise, when Katrina came, everyone in attendance took a bite. I dipped into my own carpetbag to chip in for longnecks and get settled. I showed deference. I’ve been showing deference since.

Why? Because, I’ve been practicing non-sense avoidance. It was a watershed meeting for me.

Then and since, I’ve my litmus test. It is, simply, do you work here?

We’ve been washed in a wave of pity since Katrina. There has been an outpouring of useless sentiments. We are not OK. Not by any means. But we are still a city, we are still Americans, and best of all, we still eat crawfish, expensive though they may now be.

This is a group of people who put their stake in the ground years ago. They have been very active since Katrina at the New Orleans Indy Media website. This website, like NOLA.com, became a clearning house during Katrina.

In this crawfish boil, people discussed independent media going forward, while I discussed Think New Orleans and civic information systems. There was a disconnect, since their focus is on producing indigenous media, while mine is the clerical side of the Internet.

Here I learned more about differences, where the line should be drawn. It clarifies my focus, toward civic groupware, away from recordings. Recording town hall meetings is a task for those with a background in radio production, while my focus should be scheduling those meetings, say, or helping to both post and print the accompanying documents, the agendas and minutes.

I know my place. It’s a do unto others revelation. I was fortunate to have a seat at this newspaper and crawfish covered table. It was six months of uncertianty and unpaid bills to earn a seat at this newspaper and crawfish covered table.

It was a crawfish Thanksgiving.