Notes from New Orleans

Notes from New Orleans: Land Acquisition for LSU Hospital Halted
Governor Bobby Jindal’s commissioner of administration, Angele Davis, announced last week that land acquisition on the LSU portion of the proposed hospital site in Lower Mid-City New Orleans would be halted. The announcement appears to be an attempt to pressure LSU to adopt a compromise regarding the governance of the state hospital. The compromise was [...]

LSU Hospital Plan Oversight Bill Stumbles in Louisiana Senate
The Senate Education Committee of the Louisiana Legislature likely killed House Bill 780 yesterday by deferring it, after a vote to report it favorably out of the committee failed. It’s doubtful that the bill can be resuscitated. This bill would prohibit the LSU Board of Supervisors from purchasing or expropriating land for the development of their [...]

Notes from New Orleans: Bill Requiring LSU Funding Approval Wins 94-2
By a vote of 94 to 2, the Louisiana House on Wednesday passed House Bill 780, which would require LSU to have the financing plan for its proposed new hospital approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget before it could purchase or seize property on the proposed Lower Mid-City site. We spent two days [...]

NOLA City Planning Commission Hears from Scores of Citizens about LSU/VA Hospital Plans
This past Thursday evening, seven members of the New Orleans City Planning Commission–for the first time before this body in a public setting–heard about the plans for the state and VA hospitals in New Orleans. The commission also got an earful of opposition from the public about those plans, and heard–again, for the first time [...]

Team Effort Leads to a Victory in the Fight to Save Mid-City New Orleans
A solid team effort on our part before the Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee resulted in House Bill 780 passing unanimously out of committee yesterday. The bill would require Louisiana State University to produce a financing plan for its proposed replacement medical center in New Orleans, and that the plan be approved by the [...]