People United for Armstrong Park - Meeting Notes and Agenda 6.16.11

Updates

Meeting Recap from Last Thursday

Opening of Jazz National Park

Fiscal Agent

Volunteer Facilitators

Review of proposed Logos

Meetings from past week: New City, Lafitte Corridor, Choice Neighborhood Initiative

Pressing Business

1.      Armstrong Park connection to Lafitte Corridor

2.      Committee Assignments

3.      Vision Plan Drafting Process 

General Business

4.      Possible City Council Armstrong Steering Advisory Committee

5.      Membership/Outreach Drive

6.      Coalition Building - Parks and Parkways, New City, HFTA, Rampart Main Street, RTA Street Car Extension, Lafitte/Jazz National Park, FOLC, New City, African American Museum, Backstreet Cultural Museum, others?

7.      Communications & Infrastructure - website, blog, phone number, office space, video, marketing material

8.      Fund Raising, Grants, and Development

9.      Event Planning and Advocacy (Second Lines, Open Houses, Celebrations, etc)

10.    Summer Meeting Schedule and upcoming meetings 

Meeting Notes:

Attendees:

Shani Armbrusler

Matthew Plummer

Fernando Polo

Al Jackson

Luther Gray

Shane Lief

Pat Evans

Jeff Schwartz

Michi Hagler

Francie Guevara

Alonzo Know

Ben Harwood

Introductions

General

Reflection on success of last week’s celebration. Treme 200 anniversary next year

Pat Evans update from Councilmember Palmer: Mayor still intends for a hard opening of all the park by December. There should be a formal ceremonial opening. Electrical work to be done first, last thing will be the installation of the statues. Last Friday the councilwoman asked the administration for up-to-date drawings for the park and weekly status reports.

Logos

Logos are presented to group, Ben to email out for comment, to discuss next meeting.

Discussion of the creation of a board and incorporation as a 501c3

Pat Evans: prefers our working group to be composed of “Tissue paper taskforces”

Would be ideal to keep having fun at our meetings, consideration that having a formal board might hinder our fun by imposing too much structure on our operations, better to stay a loose collective focused on achieving specific results around particular issues.

Al, Luther and Alonzo more in favor of creating a formal structure, 501c3 Corp and want the group to exist for a long time rather than just a short period. Emanuel also thinks we should be here for a long time.

Discussion of Mission Statement. Members to draft something for consideration at next week’s meeting. Luther suggests our group is a coalition of support, where we provide resources and support other people’s efforts. “We don’t speak for people, we lift people up.” General agreement of this direction for the mission statement. Alternate Mission statement – We support organizations that are working to fix and restore the park. Emanuel to craft something and email out to the group this week.  

Discussion of Lafitte Corridor Project  501c3 FOLC, steering advisory committee. Ben brings up the possibility of emulating FOLC and steering advisory committee, established by the city council to provide official recommendations.

Discussion of membership drive.  We need one, and an effort to create more partnerships with related organizations. Idea of having a second line event to drum up more support and membership.

Discussion of HRI involvement – Emanuel says that HRI is a force that we have to reckon with, Iberville redevelopment is going forward and they are our neighbors. HRI presence at New City standing meetings about Treme/Lafitte/Gravier - 70 organizations, notice to be in Basin street working group. Meetings are open for all to attend.

Committee Assignments

We need to create working committees and formalize committee heads. Volunteer facilitators to work with committee members to draft plan text and other visual plan content as needed.

Committees to meet weekly

Shane –interested in working on Congo Square but will support and help out with other things

Sculpture Garden - Luther

Lafitte Connection – Fernando, Frances, Sheryl Austen, Frances,

Auditorium - Ben and Emanuel, Frances, Fernando

Congo Square – luther, shane

Jazz National Park – Get Carol Clark – park superintendent – involved.

Community Center – Luther, Al, Alonzo (will assign volunteer facilitator)

Community Center Discussion

Luther and Al will talk to Jerome, Alonzo suggests we need to research into current state things, review plan sets, talk to Jerome and see what he needs, if things are missing from the bids, suggestion that the center is being “nickel and dimed” by the city

Trouble getting the city to respond to our requests for information. Luther suggests we send Certified letter – to Vincent Smith and Miriam Lemann– Project/grant managers at the city. If they don’t respond we need to get the mayor and media’s attention that the community is being stonewalled out of public information regarding our neighborhood.

Next Meeting: Thursday 6.23.11 at 6:30, 740 N Rampart Street - Golden Feather Restaurant - email harwoodb@gmail.com to get on the meeting announce list.

From the Archives: Times Pic 2009 Story on the MA

Municipal Auditorium still festers, despite renovation next door

Published: Wednesday, January 07, 2009, 9:55 PM     Updated: Monday, October 12, 2009, 11:16 PM

 By Michelle Krupa, The Times-Picayune 

As throngs of music lovers pour into the refurbished Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts tonight for the playhouse's first show since Hurricane Katrina, another once-grand, city-owned gathering space at Louis Armstrong Park will remain dark.

More than three years after the flood, the Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Municipal Auditorium remains a ruined shell of the Italian Renaissance Revival structure that for decades played host to some of New Orleans' most important events, from operas and dance recitals to graduation ceremonies and Carnival balls. City officials shy away from suggesting when it might reopen.

Though the 6,000-seat auditorium sits on high ground in Treme, its basement, like the ground floor of the Mahalia Jackson Theater, flooded in Katrina, causing major damage to electrical and mechanical equipment, said Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, the city's deputy chief administrative officer. A retaining wall also buckled in the storm, allowing rain to pour in through the roof, she said.

"There was water from below and water from above, " Sylvain-Lear said.

Though city officials quickly tapped $200,000 in federal money to stop further deterioration of the crippled building, efforts toward its full restoration have lagged as other recovery projects took precedence, Sylvain-Lear said.

"We prioritized public safety first, " including police stations and firehouses, she said, adding that community buildings like libraries came next. "The theater had specific priority because the performing arts groups just didn't have other options, and for them to survive, they really needed the expanded ticket sales."

Architects and engineers hired to plan the restoration of public facilities across the city have continued working on plans for the Municipal Auditorium, Sylvain-Lear said, but the project remains far from the top of the list. She declined to speculate on how soon the curtain may rise again.

As the auditorium has festered, the Mahalia Jackson Theater has seen $22 million in renovations, including installation of a cutting-edge sound system, a digital cinema screen, enhanced lighting, a new orchestra shell and a state-of-the-art ballet floor.

Tonight's New Orleans all-star revue, featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Kermit Ruffins, Ingrid Lucia and others, kicks off a week of performances by artists including songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and gospel singer Yolanda Adams with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, violinist Itzhak Perlman and Spanish tenor Placido Domingo.

In addition to the revival of the Mahalia Jackson Theater, about $5 million has been pumped into replacing lighting and restoring the grounds of Louis Armstrong Park, the 32-acre sanctuary of lawns and lagoons off North Rampart Street at the edge of the French Quarter.

Though the festivities mark the culmination of the restoration effort, quarreling continues over who will foot the bill. Local tax dollars have paid for the bulk of the work, and Mayor Ray Nagin has said the Federal Emergency Management Agency owes the city about $20 million in reimbursements.

But so far, FEMA has committed to pay only about $9.5 million. Under federal law, the agency must repay local governments for the cost of returning facilities damaged in disasters to their prestorm function, though not for upgrades.

Very early estimates for repairing the Municipal Auditorium set the cost at $7.9 million, Sylvain-Lear said. But she cautioned that structural and electrical damage to the building far exceeded that at the Mahalia Jackson Theater. As architects and engineers dig deeper into its problems, the sum is likely to grow and probably will eclipse the theater's price tag, she said.

FEMA has earmarked just more than $4 million to repair the auditorium, including the initial mitigation money, spokesman Andrew Thomas said. FEMA will consider all requests by City Hall for reimbursements, he said.

Built in 1929 for $2.5 million, the Municipal Auditorium was intended as a memorial to World War I veterans. Its elegant gathering spaces soon became a center of civic life. Rex and Comus hosted concurrent balls there, and their courts held the traditional Mardi Gras night meeting there.

Through the years, the building also welcomed auto shows, hockey games and conventions. Along with nearby Congo Square, it hosted the music festival that grew into the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and in 1996, it served as the temporary predecessor to Harrah's New Orleans Casino.

Known originally as the Municipal Auditorium and Exhibition Hall, the building was renamed in 1994 for Morris F.X. Jeff, a teacher and coach who established recreational and educational programs for black children before integration of the city's public buildings and programs.

. . . . . . .

Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3312.

Original article published here...