This was the first Town Hall that the Mayor has hosted
despite conducting months of meetings with his Economic Development Committee
whose leader, Henry Shane, paid for a study of proposed projects. In addition,
Mayor Yenni also hired a Bond Counsel, which will receive $600,000 in fees from
the debt package, despite the voters in Kenner approving a Charter Change which
mandates that any contracts valued at over $100,000 are reviewed by the City
Council and have a public hearing. Mayor Yenni maintains that this rule does
not apply yet since the actual debt package has not been approved.
Striping away the comments from members of the Mayor’s
Economic Development Committee, who did not disclose their membership when they
made their comments, the majority of the comments from the public were
negative.
Even the Times-Picayune, which supports Yenni’s plan, wrote
that there were “mixed reviews” from attendees.
“Kenner Mayor Mike Yenni's $47 million initiative to refinance
municipal debt and beautify 10 streets and intersections met with mixed reviews,”
the Times-Picayune wrote.
“Mixed reviews” is putting it kindly.
The Mayor and the speakers glossed over questions, said they
would come back and address other questions later (and, conveniently forgot
about them), and did their best sales job rather than engaging the people of
Kenner in a real dialogue about the merits of these projects.
One of the biggest revelations was the fact that, in Mayor
Yenni’s package and on his video presentation for the projects, Mayor Yenni
used “doctored photographs” that are not realistic portrayals of what the
actual intersections will look like.
In the Mayor’s video presentation, Williams Blvd. is shown
to have 8 driving lanes (4 lanes North and South), a median, a turning lane and
bike paths along both sides of the street. It is portrayed to have underground
power lines and other amenities that the City of Kenner has no funding for.“I want to be for this project, I really do,” Kenner resident Stacey Allesandro said, “But it is not right to show ‘Photoshoped’ pictures and say ‘This is how it will look’ when it won’t look like that at all.”
Mayor Yenni replied that these are “conceptual drawings”.
The City’s Landscape Architect Greg Cantrell added that “Some of these things we
might not have money for and we may need to move money from one project to
another.”
So, instead of letting the Public decide on the projects
that they want and getting their input from the beginning, the Mayor is asking
the people to pay a bill for the next 20 years based upon “concepts” and, it is
conceivable that, this money can be moved to other projects that the people of
Kenner don’t want and aren’t even aware of.
At the last Kenner City Council meeting, District 4
Councilwoman Maria DeFranchesch said, “The projects that were mentioned (in the Mayor’s plan) are not written in stone.”
Well, why not?
Why can’t the people of Kenner know, before they are handed
a bill for the next 20 years, what they are getting and being asked to pay for?
You don’t go to a restaurant, order Filet, pay your bill and then get served
Hamburger.
It’s an old sales trick: bait and switch. Car dealerships used
to advertise that you could buy a car for $99 a month but, when they come to
the dealership, you just missed out on that $99 a month car because it was just
sold. But, you can buy this $299 a month a car and it’s even better.
The fact is NONE of this $47 Million is dedicated to any
project, and it doesn’t need to be dedicated. It just needs to be SPENT. How
Mayor Yenni chooses to spend that $47 Million is up to him. Of course, the
money must be spent on “Capital Projects” – beautification, buildings, streets,
infrastructure and Mayor Yenni will need the approval of the Kenner City
Council.
But, considering that only 4 members of the Council need to
agree with the Mayor spending anything, and 5 of them already agreeing to “fast-tracking”
this debt issue without any real input from the public, it’s a safe bet that
Yenni can get 4 votes regardless of what the people of Kenner want.
If Mayor Yenni was unwilling to agree to hold off on a vote
and slow this process down until he and the Council had time to consider YOUR
input, what makes you think Yenni actually cares about what you want.
Henry Shane said that this plan will help stem the 30-year
tide of outmigration from Kenner, citing that Kenner’s population peak occurred
in 1982 and has declined with every census.
When asked to support this “theory”, Mr. Shane said, “We’ll
get back to that later.”
Of course, he never did. Nor did Mayor Yenni.
Yenni again played a video from the Mayor of Ocean Springs,
MS, seeking support for his plan.
In the video, the Ocean Springs Mayor describes how the city
used beautification projects after they were devastated by Hurricane Katrina to
attract new residents.
And, it worked for
Ocean Springs. But, the city was leveled and needed to rebuild. Kenner is an older,
established city.
The Ocean Springs Mayor also stated that the city received
Grants to pay for these projects. She didn’t ask her residents to take on a
massive amount of debt. The same cannot be said for Mayor Yenni.
Shouldn’t that have been the first step: line up as many
state and Federal grants as possible and then fill in the gaps with debt? No,
that would take too long.
Despite Mayor Yenni’s claim at the last Council meeting that
this plan will create new jobs and new businesses, there is no documented
evidence that it will do either, or that an established city like Kenner can be
remade to attract new residents.
In fact, Mr. Shane doesn’t care if this plan doesn’t create
new businesses or jobs.
"We could add another big business, but why would those
workers want to live in Kenner?” Shane said. “This is not a job problem."
So, if it won’t
create jobs, it won’t add new businesses or retain existing businesses, there’s
no proof that this plan will bring flocks of new residents to Kenner, and the
projects are subject to change, why is Mayor Yenni seeking to tie-up sales tax
revenue for the next 20 years so he can get money now?
We know the answer to that question: Politics.
Yenni is up for re-election next year. After that, maybe the
Jefferson Parish Council. Then, Jefferson Parish President.
You see, that is Yenni’s “Real” Plan and the goal of his
campaign contributors on the Economic Development Committee. This beautification
plan is just a means to an end.
Sticking Kenner residents with a Hamburger instead of a
Filet, and making Kenner pay for that Hamburger for the next 20 years is just a
page in the Yenni playbook.
Unfortunately for the people of Kenner, this page costs $47
Million over the next 20 years.
