NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – The city’s most famous neighborhood is known for its cultural aspects — and its crime statistics. City leaders are hoping a new plan will knock the statistics out of the spotlight.
“This French Quarter, this piece of ground that we are on, is one of the most important economic engines for the city, for the region, and for the state of Louisiana,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
Along with several business owners and community leaders, the Mayor announced a comprehensive, multi-phased French Quarter safety strategy on Wednesday.
“I daresay that not another gathering of so many distinguished residents from this particular neighborhood have come together for a common purpose in a very, very long time, and that is why today is such an important day,” the Mayor said.
City tourism officials are hoping that the city is on track to welcome 13 million visitors by 2018.
“There’s no way we’re ever going to get there and we’ll be lucky to hold onto the tourists that we have if we don’t take care of the crime issue,” said Robert Bray, President of the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association. Bray is also the general manager of the New Orleans Marriott.
Bray is optimistic that this new safety strategy will work, because of the overall team effort. He gave one example of how the hotel industry opened its doors: He says every hotel brand in the city raised money and is housing the state police free of charge.
Supplementing the New Orleans Police Department permanently, not just during Mardi Gras, is a big part of this plan.
Entrepreneur Sidney Torres, IV is pitching in with funding for three Polaris patrol vehicles, some increased officer hours, and the French Quarter Task Force app: a piece of crime-fighting technology he designed himself. At Wednesday’s press conference Torres said the app is meant to be an easy way to report suspicious activity. “We built this app so that my 98-year-old grandmother can operate it,” he joked.
Also in the works: a quarter-cent sales tax.
“It’s miniscule. No one will ever even notice it but when you have 9, 10, 11 million tourists coming to town every year, which is certainly the trajectory we want to stay on, it’s gonna raise a lot of money,” said Bray.
If approved by French Quarter voters in October, the tax could begin in January 2016 and generate an estimated $2 million to be used toward boosting the state police presence in the Quarter.
That $2 million would be matched by several hospitality organizations, such as the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, adding up to approximately $4.5 million dollars. According to city officials, it’s estimated that the annual cost of a state trooper is $100,000, meaning that money would translate into 45 full-time state police troopers.
Leaders of the Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement after the new plan was unveiled, calling the proposed sales tax “another insult to the New Orleans Police Department.”
They argue that the manpower issue in the French Quarter should be tackled by the city’s budget, and not a new sales tax.