A millage rate created under the very corrupt former New Orleans sheriff Marlin Gusman in 2015 was set to expire yesterday. Most people literally knew nothing about it, and the message being spread online was definitely that it was just going to waste more money and lead to more corruption.

Sheriff Hutson was a former police monitor and while she hasn’t been as successful as most people would have hoped in implementing change, she has certainly been an improvement. Current sheriff Hutson vs. Former Sheriff Gusman

Hutson also went to federal court last Wednesday because the LA AG with the help of our corrupt Governor sued to try and force New Orleans to drop their sanctuary city policy. Very odd (convenient?) timing, last Monday night, the president released EOs that seemed to directly relate to Hutson’s case before a federal judge

Between pressure from the Governor and the Presidential EOs, I was sure that the judge would cave out of fear and force Hutson to just adopt Louisiana state (which lets be real, this is just federal policy being given a different name) policy. Surprisingly, the judge said the argument for AG intervention was insufficient and ruled for mediation between Hutson and the state’s lawyer that the state AG would not attend. I haven’t found any reporting about how that went, but I truly do appreciate the fact that Hutson didn’t back down and just cave to authoritarian overreach.

Anyway, that’s over, breathe a slight sigh of relief, flashforward to Friday and people are talking about a vote in New Orleans that I knew nothing about.

Here is an IG video somebody posted to New Orleans Reddit last night after the results were in that does a good job of explaining how this went down.

Basically, Hutson was asking people to vote yes to continue the current millage rate that is expiring. It was originally set in 2015. She says she needs the money to avoid layoffs and pay for things like mental health care, medical care, and reentry into society programs for incarcerated individuals.

Without the millage she would need to rely on the city for the budget. The few people who knew about the vote, were all saying to vote No. Even the local left/progressive magazine that keeps people informed about voter issues, was saying that they recommended a vote of No/vote against continuing the millage.

I read up on their reasoning, which was that they felt increasing taxes was not a good long term solution to improving prison conditions. Maybe having fewer prisoners would solve the problem.

I mean, yeah… but that seems very unlikely to happen anytime soon. It just seems like not having this money would hurt the people that are incarcerated. Not to mention, given all the interference by state government into the city, (and some very clear reminders of the limits of city authority once it has already been allowed to happen,) it seemed that this would be creating the perfect opportunity for the state to take over or even another excuse to end up with more government privatization.

Further, a vote for yes would NOT increase taxes. The way they framed their takeaway reason to vote No was kind of confusing, and did not make that super clear. If I hadn’t read beyond that one paragraph, I wouldn’t have been aware of that fact.

I sent the information to my husband bc he’s usually the guy everybody goes to when voter issues are intentionally confusing or hard to understand, but he was having a really rough day and dealing with his own “flood the zone” BS. He also had no idea about the vote and just said he would vote however I thought would be best.

I kept asking around on Reddit, and while nobody could really address the concerns/questions I was asking, I did keep receiving the same response. Just vote no, I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t be worried about those things, but trust me it’s not a big deal. A long history of New Orleans corruption is why you shouldn’t vote yes.

I did some more research, and found a well supported argument to vote Yes backed up by some very convincing evidence.

I also learned, that while most people in the city were unaware of the vote on Saturday, there was actually a bizarre disinformation campaign to make people who were aware, believe it would raise taxes. Signs were posted around the city falsely claiming that voting yes would increase taxes, but this is not true, and nobody knows who was behind the signs.

It definitely seemed to go against popular opinion, but I decided to vote yes to continue the current rate bc the risk of losing those services and positions didn’t seem to be outweighed by a relatively small reduction in the current property tax.

Told my husband what I knew, and he agreed. I assumed that there was no chance a vote of yes would actually pass, but I felt that morally it would be wrong to sit this one out. We went to vote and the poll worker informed me that turnout was abysmal (not surprisingly).

So, even though we all know it doesn’t help anything to just post on the internet, I gave it one more chance and tried to convince people in my city to go vote.

Someone else in another district of the city did the same, and it seems like at least a few people who wouldn’t have otherwise known to vote yesterday went out and did their civic duty because of it.

When the vote was called, I literally thought it was a joke at first, but it’s true. Despite the disinformation campaign, lack of voter information, and the zone being flooded nonstop by waves and waves of crazy information all coming down on New Orleans/Louisiana/The U.S./The world all at once, Yes won by literally 2 votes.

TLDR: Always know what you’re voting for, vote for what you believe is right, and never let anyone convince you that your vote or your voice don’t matter

  • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zipEnglish
    20·
    3 hours ago

    you can say what you want about the mainstream elections, but one should always vote for the local measures and bills that DIRECTLY affect you.

  • SteveCC@lemmy.worldEnglish
    202·
    4 hours ago

    I really enjoyed reading about your process. Admiration for digging in, listening to others voices and coming to your own decision!

    • Basic Glitch@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      I honestly don’t know much about property tax, mostly bc I can’t afford to own a home.

      One of the arguments about why voting yes was a bad idea is bc it would keep home ownership less affordable, which I definitely feel on a deep level, especially after trying several times unsuccessfully to find a home in New Orleans, I could actually *afford. (Affordability also considering not taking on a fixerupper project I know I couldn’t realistically handle while working full time and raising a child.)

      I really did put a lot of thought into my decision. Realistically, I didn’t feel like the reduction of ~2.03% of the total current overall rate would have made much of a difference in the chances of me actually being able to afford a home.

      Given that there is already a housing crisis in this city, and resources for mental health care, which were already not great, have recently and very suddenly been made way worse thanks to Federal DOGE cuts which unexplainably removed money that had already been granted and planned into the Louisiana Department of Health fiscal year budget, I believe that the number of vulnerable and at risk people in this city ending up in police custody will only be increasing in the near future. There literally seemed to be no benefit to me voting no, but potentially a big risk of harm to others if I did. Whereas continuing with the current rate could potentially decrease that risk.

      I’m not sure why the disinformation campaign was trying to convince people that this would raise taxes, but I do have to wonder if people involved in the disinformation were hoping that a slight reduction in property tax would at least distract from or lessen the blow so many small business owners and homeowners are facing because of Trump’s tariff’s.

      Even as a renter, I did consider that I very well might see my rent go up because of this, and maybe it wouldn’t happen if slightly lower property taxes eased the burden of tariffs on my landlord.

      But who is really at fault for the tariffs that are screwing over small businesses and homeowners? Definitely not the people that will be relying on those services if they end up in police custody.

      When I say I morally couldn’t justify voting No or sitting out the election, I’m not trying to virtue signal. I mean I gave a lot of thought to the evidence available, and combined that with my own existing knowledge, then voted for what I believed was best for the city.