Louisiana Business: Education, New Orleans Recovery, Churchill Downs, Wachovia

New Orleans Education Forum

Tulane University’s Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives, Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, the Urban League of New Orleans, and the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region host a free forum to discuss the state of public education in New Orleans and to share with citizens ways they can actively support positive change in our public schools. The event will be held Monday April 28 at 5:30 at Tulane Dixon Hall. Speakers will be the following:

Opening Remarks: Scott Cowen, President, Tulane University

Keynote Speaker: Paul Pastorek, State Superintendent of Education

Panelists: Matt Candler, CEO, New Schools for New Orleans

Flozell Daniels, Chair, Urban League of New Orleans

Barbara MacPhee, past Principal, New Orleans Science and Math High School

Tony Recasner, Principal, Green Charter School

Closing Remarks: Ruthie Frierson, Chair, Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans

Churchill Downs

Churchill Downs Incorporated, Calder Race Course and Churchill Downs Technology Initiatives Company today filed suit against the Thoroughbred Horsemen's Group (“THG”), the Florida Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (“FLHBPA”) and the officers of each organization in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

The suit alleges violations under the Sherman Antitrust Act and is a result of the FLHBPA’s refusal, acting in concert with the THG, to approve the distribution of Calder races to out-of-state off-track betting sites, including advance-deposit wagering (“ADW”) companies. The suit requests that THG, an alliance of horsemen’s groups from around the country, be dissolved and the defendants be prevented from boycotting racetracks and ADW operators that do not comply with their demands, which include uniform terms for the pricing of racing signals.

Compared to last year, the ADW host fees negotiated for Calder’s simulcast signal have nearly doubled, as have the percentages of those host fees payable to Florida horsemen.

“Florida horsemen are preventing horse racing enthusiasts from wagering on Calder races, which is unfortunate for the racetrack, horsemen, and most important, our customers,” said Steve Sexton, executive vice president of Churchill Downs Incorporated, Calder's parent company. “Despite what we have accomplished for them, by nearly doubling the host fee rate paid to Florida Horsemen, the FLHBPA and the THG, are simply seeking even more money to the detriment of all other parties. We are filing suit to ensure those interests are protected.”

Calder opened for racing on Monday, April 21, and resumes live racing on Friday, April 25.

Churchill Downs Incorporated (“Churchill Downs”), headquartered in Louisville, Ky., owns and operates world-renowned horse racing venues throughout the United States. Churchill Downs’ four racetracks in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Louisiana host many of North America’s most prestigious races, including the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, Arlington Million, Princess Rooney Handicap and Louisiana Derby. Churchill Downs racetracks have hosted seven Breeders’ Cup World Championships. Churchill Downs also owns off-track betting facilities and has interests in various advance-deposit wagering, television production, telecommunications and racing services companies, including a 50-percent interest in the national cable and satellite network HorseRacing TV™, that support the Company’s network of simulcasting and racing operations.

Wachovia

Wachovia Corp. will pay up to $144 million to settle a US regulator's claims that the bank's oversight allowed telemarketers and payment processors to withdraw millions from customers' accounts.

Downtown Development

At the recent New Orleans Bar Association (NOBA) Bench Bar Conference, DDD President & CEO Kurt Weigle presented the case for keeping Civil District Court (CDC) Downtown. The DDD and NOBA have partnered to draw attention to why the CDC should remain Downtown rather than move to the proposed Criminal Justice Complex and Tulane and Broad.

Louisiana High Schools

As part of the ongoing effort to transform Louisiana high schools into learning centers that prepare students to become competitive in the global market, the High School Redesign Summit will be held Friday, April 25, 2008, at The Baton Rouge River Center. The theme is Making High School Count.

The high school redesign effort is an integral part of the vision and mission of the State Department of Education, dedicated to creating a world-class education system for all children. This initiative is designed to give high school students the education and training they need to become technologically advanced, productive citizens who will be able to contribute to the state's economy.

"In order to make that happen, it is imperative that we change the way high schools function," said Kathy Mouton, Executive Director of High School Redesign. "The traditional high school setting no longer works for all students. Twenty-first century high schools must provide a setting that fosters and nurtures each student's love of learning, personal interests, and skills and talents. It is no longer enough to have a high school diploma to be competitive in the workforce, so students must be guid! ed towar d the appreciation of learning as an integral part of leading a productive, successful life."

The summit will focus on several key areas, including how to connect students to the workforce. "Our students are the economic future of the state, and they must be able to take what they are taught in the classrooms and translate that into real earning power after graduation," said State Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek.

Some of the presenters include State Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek, Secretary of Labor Tim Barfield, and Kati Haycock, Executive Director of The Education Trust, as well as representatives from high schools in-state and out-of-state who have successfully implemented various high school redesign programs.

Louisiana School-Age Obesity

On Saturday, April 26, the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports is breaking new ground on its effort to educate the public about Louisiana’s high rates of obesity among school-aged children.

The Fitness Council is hosting the 14th Annual Elementary Championship Fitness Meet at the LSU Field House. For the first time in the history of the program, elementary school children will showcase their physical fitness on a televised broadcast to be aired by Cox Communications. The event will be broadcast in at least 14 parishes (check local listings for schedules).

Fitness Champions, selected through school competitions in 20 parishes, will participate in seven fitness events from the President’s Challenge Model to see which parish will take home the state championship. The seven events will be: the 50-Yard Dash; Shuttle Run; Pull-Ups; Standing Long-Jump; Curl-Ups or Sit-Ups; 600-Yard Run; and the V-Sit and Reach.

Elementary schools from competing parishes held Elementary Fitness Meets at the local level to select their Fitness Champions. The top two boys and two girls participated in a preliminary parish meet against other champions to determine which two boys and girls would represent their parish in Baton Rouge for the State Championship.

Opening ceremonies will begin at 10 a.m. The public is invited to attend.

At the conclusion of the event, the participants from the top three parishes will be recognized, and the top boy and girl in the event will be crowned Mr. and Mrs. Fitness for the State of Louisiana.

The Elementary Fitness Meet is the only event of its kind in the nation. After the competition, the Governor’s Fitness Council will meet with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in Washington D.C. to discuss plans for a National Championship Fitness Meet that could potentially be hosted here in Louisiana.

New Orleans Recovery

Several nationally recognized experts in community development and planning will meet Friday with staff from the Office of Recovery Development and Administration (ORDA) to offer their thoughts about the direction of the New Orleans recovery.

Members of the Technical Advisory Committee will meet with ORDA staff from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. to discuss topics that include housing, community development, hazard mitigation and other issues. This marks the second time the committee and staff have met together.

"The Technical Advisory Committee is a valuable tool for assessing the forward movement of our recovery," said Dr. Edward Blakely, Executive Director of the Office of Recovery and Development Administration. "As Mayor Nagin has stated, we are reaching the tipping point in our recovery, and we want to make certain that we continue to advance in a manner that is both consistent with what citizens mandated in the Unified New Orleans Plan and that is in keeping with the best practices from around the nation."

Members of the committee are:

Henry Cisneros, Executive Chairman of the CityView companies, which funds homebuilders across the nation to create affordable homes priced within the range of average families. CityView is a partner in building more than 40 communities in 12 states, incorporating more than 7,000 homes with a value of more than $2 billion.

Mr. Cisneros served three terms as a City Councilmember and four terms as Mayor of San Antonio, Texas. In 1992, President Clinton appointed Cisneros to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is credited with initiating the revitalization of many of the nation's public housing developments, with formulating policies which contributed to achieving the nation's highest ever homeownership rate, and with upgrading the nation's strategies to reduce homelessness.

Michael Banner, President and CEO of the Los Angeles LDC, Inc. (LDC), a community development financial institution and commercial finance company with a mission to provide capital and advisory services to foster positive community development impacts in distressed neighborhoods by aligning the needs of borrowers and investors.

Jay Chatterjee, formerly the Dean of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP). He is currently the Professor of Architecture and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Chatterjee's leadership at the College of DAAP, University of Cincinnati, and the State of Ohio has resulted in the development of a process whereby the world's leading architects were commissioned to design major buildings for the University of Cincinnati and the City of Cincinnati.

Carol Galante, President of BRIDGE Housing Corporation, the largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing in California. BRIDGE specializes in the development of affordable apartments and homes in an array of revitalization, transit-oriented, urban infill, and mixed-use/mixed-income developments. BRIDGE has created more than 13,000 homes serving more than 35,000 Californians. Galante is a Director of the national Housing Partnership Network, the California Housing Finance Agency, the California Housing Consortium and the Center for Creative Land Recycling.

Catherine Ross, Director and Harry West Chair of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development (CQGRD) at Georgia Institute of Technology. She has more than 25 years of transportation planning, urban planning and management experience consulting for both the public and private sectors. She has served in executive management positions charged with responsibility for enhancing both the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization while significantly increasing its productivity. A nationally and internationally known speaker and transportation planner she has extensive experience in transportation planning, urban and regional planning, quality growth and project impact assessments.

Ken Topping, President of Topping Associates International. He is also a lecturer with the City and Regional Planning Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and project director for preparation of the 2007 California Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan, undertaken by Cal Poly for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

Robert D. Yaro, President of Regional Plan Association, America's oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. At RPA, he led the five-year effort to prepare RPA's Third Regional Plan, A Region at Risk, which he co-authored in 1996. He chairs The Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, a broad-based coalition of civic groups formed to guide redevelopment in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. He also co-chairs the Empire State Transportation Alliance (ESTA) a coalition of business, civic and construction industry groups that has successfully advocated for more than $50 billion in major transportation investments for New York State since 1999.

Nagin and HUD

Mayor C. Ray Nagin, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) have signed a cooperative endeavor agreement that will create an advisory committee to monitor progress and provide local input on the redevelopment of public housing facilities in New Orleans and to develop a plan to transition control of HANO back to local authorities.

The committee is one of the conditions Mayor Nagin and the City Council required of HUD and HANO in order to ensure that new housing will be constructed in an expedited manner. HUD and HANO plan a major redevelopment of four public housing developments that will replace blocks of dilapidated rental apartments with new, mixed-income neighborhoods of rental and owner-occupied properties.

"New Orleans is moving toward a critical next phase in our recovery," said Mayor Nagin. "HUD and HANO have proposed a rebuilding program that will radically change public housing in our community and will better ensure that all of our residents have access to quality housing. As they do so, it is important that the people most affected feel confident about what is taking place. This agreement will ensure that there is local input as we continue to move forward."

The new committee will be comprised of three members: one person appointed by Mayor Nagin; a current public housing resident appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council; and one person appointed by the Secretary of HUD. The committee will inform and advise HANO regarding the redevelopment but will not set policy. HANO's actions will not require the committee's approval.

Under the agreement, the newly-constituted committee will:

1.) Receive regular detailed status and progress reports from the developers of each major development project. The committee will receive a report from one developer each month, which will ensure that the committee is updated by each developer once every 120 days.

2.) Be notified any time a decision is contemplated or a discovery is made that will change the timelines for the project by more than one month in either direction, change the number of units, affect the project financing or cause a similarly significant change in plans.

3.) Create a plan to transition HANO back to local control. The plan will lay out the specific timelines, conditions and milestones for the transition. A written plan for the transition will be due to Mayor Nagin within six months.

Prior to releasing the demolition permits for the B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, St. Bernard and Lafitte public housing communities, Mayor Nagin and the City Council also required HUD and HANO to provide for review: Executed development contracts; documentation of project financing; redevelopment and repopulation timelines; memorandums of understanding with resident councils; and evidence that 4,534 units will be made available through either public housing units, affordable units consistent with the mixed-income model or home ownership vouchers. Local officials also required HUD and HANO to provide evidence of phased redevelopment for St. Bernard and Lafitte and verification of full funding for the Tenant Protection Program.

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