FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–November 16, 2020
Artists & Advocates Join Forces to Call for an Equitable and Just City Budget
As the New Orleans City Council winds down its hearings on the 2021 city budget, artists and advocates will join forces for an event at Ashè Cultural Center on Tuesday, November 17, from 2:00 – 6:00 p.m., to demand that Mayor Cantrell and the City Council prioritize people over profits and police.
NEW ORLEANS, LA | November 16, 2020—Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17, from 2:00 – 6:00 p.m., the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice (PCEJ) and our friends at the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance (GNOHA) and the Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition (OPPRC) are teaming up with the folks at Ashè Cultural Arts Center to host an arts advocacy event about the New Orleans city budget.
In particular, we intend to focus on the fact that our city is currently giving away tens of millions of dollars to corporations and the wealthy, in the form of commercial property tax breaks for giant corporations, industrial tax exemptions for Folgers, and the unfathomable decision to continue the 106-year-old Wisner Land Trust, which will redirect millions of dollars that should be going to the city to the Wisner family heirs and the heirs of their lawyers who structured the deal 100 years ago.
In the meantime, the City’s 2021 budget calls for furloughs and lay-offs, across-the-board cuts (although, with much smaller or no cuts for police and jails). The City is also reneging on its promises to raise the minimum wage for city workers to $15 an hour and create funding parity between the district attorney’s office and the public defender’s office.
In response to these many injustices, and to show our elected officials that people are watching them, painters, poets, musicians, and advocates will gather at Ashè Cultural Center, at 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., New Orleans, to tell the story of systemic injustice in our city through words, visual art, and sound.
The city budget touches everyone in New Orleans in one way or another, and our city government needs to put people over profits and police. We need to come together to make sure they understand that message.
The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice works to build voice and power in traditionally ignored communities. We are a coalition of groups from across Louisiana whose mission is to organize in impacted communities, educate and turn out voters, and fight for policies that create a more equitable and just system in Louisiana.
Who: Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition, Ashè Cultural Arts Center
What: Artists and advocates lead action to highlight systemic inequality in the New Orleans city budget
When: November 17, 2020, 2:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Where: Ashè Cultural Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70113
Contacts:
Ashley Shelton, Executive Director, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, (225) 802-2435, ashelton@powercoalition.org
Peter Robins-Brown, Communications Director, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, (504) 256-8196, prb@powercoalition.org