This designation will certainly not help the city recruit business or lure conventions. It will give people another reason to leave New Orleans. Since 1960, New Orleans has lost half of its population. In the early part of the century, New Orleans was the third largest city in the nation, while today it is ranked as the 60^th largest city. While Hurricane Katrina contributed to the population decline, other factors like a high crime rate have led people to leave New Orleans for the past four decades.

The leadership vacuum in New Orleans gives no one a reason to move to New Orleans. It is clear that the city is not properly governed. Mayor Nagin has become a laughingstock who is now using the issue of race to divide the city, possibly planning for a future on the civil rights speakers’ circuit. On Sunday, Nagin attended the speech of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, despite the minister’s hateful comments about whites, Jews and Catholics. Last week, Nagin inaccurately portrayed comments of council member Stacy Head as “crude race baiting.” Even though he knew Head did not make racist remarks, Nagin refused to apologize.

When former Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick called for the firing of Police Chief Riley, Nagin responded by claiming that that the NOPD leader had an “impeccable” record. Riley has presided over a department that has not effectively dealt with the crime problem. It is also a dysfunctional department that has been embarrassed by misconduct among officers. There is also the nagging problem of the property and evidence room. Recently, $19,000 was reported stolen, yet Chief Riley had the gall to blame the problems on Hurricane Katrina.

WDSU-TV Channel 6 did an expose on this problem and discovered evidence was being mishandled and not properly stored, yet Riley does not accept responsibility for this crisis. Without properly stored evidence, it is difficult or impossible to prosecute cases, so the new District Attorney may have to deal with even more problems than he realizes.

Like his boss Ray Nagin, Chief Riley never accepts responsibility for his failings.. When asked about the designation of New Orleans as the Crime Capital of the United States, Riley blamed the bad schools and the poverty in the city. Yet, other cities have poor school systems and poverty and are not seeing a massive increase in crime.

During the 1990’s, Richard Pennington was a very effective Police Chief of New Orleans. In that period, innovative strategies were implemented such as community policing, substations in public housing projects and the Compstat program that rigorously examined district crime statistics at regular meetings of police officials.

When Nagin was elected as Mayor and replaced Pennington as Police Chief, it was the first in a long line of mistakes. Sadly, today, Nagin refuses to take the corrective action at the NOPD that could improve the safety of each citizen of New Orleans.

So, New Orleans is not only stuck with Riley and Nagin for another 18 months, the city is stuck with incompetence, a poor image and a high crime rate as well. The election for Mayor of New Orleans cannot get here soon enough.  

Jeff Crouere is the Host of “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. He is the Political Analyst for WGNO-TV ABC26 and the Political Editor for NewOrleans.com. For more information, visit his web site at RingsidePolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com..

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