Tax Dollars Hard at Work

For about the last month now, there's been an NOPD squad car parked in front of a vacant lot at the corner of Marshall Foch St. and Hidalgo St.


Back in November, there was a proposition on my ballot asking if the city should continue what it calls the Lakeview Crime Prevention district. It's a special levy on improved parcels that, according to the proposal, would generate over $900,000.00 per year for crime prevention.

The district's (ugly, rarely updated and barely functional) website does offer crime statistics from 1998 through the present, which isn't too helpful in determining any level of success because the program started in 1997.

Regardless, here sits about $35,000.00 worth of tax payer money doing absolutely nothing for the last four weeks, if not longer. Just wasting away on the corner of Hidalgo and Marshal Foch.

Meanwhile, one block over and one block up at General Diaz and Pontalba...

And just a little further down the road...

And further down still...

And at the corner of Hidalgo and General Diaz...

And down the rest of General Diaz to Navarre...

So, for you fellow New Orleanians who must contend with poorly maintained roads such as these, just remember that while your street remains in disrepair us residents of Lakeview sleep soundly under the watchful eye of a vigilant, silent and lonely defender.