Our wishes on Twelfth Night
7th January 2020 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist
Dear Santa,
Hi, it’s your vaillant helper Mr Bingle here, back home in New Orleans after another successful Christmas.
I also hope you’re getting some well-earned rest, but if I know you, you’re already starting to think about next Christmas.
But with Twelfth Night upon us, I wanted to get in what I think, the Crescent City’s 12 requests for the Twelve Days of Christmas are:
On the 12th Day of Christmas, my Crescent City needs from thee…
• Twelve thousand pot holes fixed/
• Eleven buses crossing parish lines/
• Ten S&W Board pumps/
• Nine rebuilt sewer mains/
• Eight police cameras (at Claiborne & Louisiana)/
• Seven world class public high schools/
• Six more supermarkets/
• Five hundred million surplus again!/
• Four major corporate relocations/
• Three hundred miles wetlands saved/
• Two more years direct flights to London, and/
• One SuperBowl win!
You see, Santa, the streets of New Orleans remain an obstacle course, and people are so tired that they thought you might be able to help. The same is true with our Sewerage and Water Board, which is going to need almost $1 billion to put in new pumps and drainage lines. And, frankly, it’s still pretty impossible for people to take a bus to jobs between Orleans and Jefferson, or to St. Bernard and St. Charles. So, if you could leave some new pumps, sewer lines and buses under the tree, along with a bunch of those robots who can fill up potholes autonomously, we would really appreciate it.
It was also kind of tragic on New Year’s Day, with another shooting on the corner of Claiborne and Louisiana avenues. We need a whole lot of crime cameras, but I thought covering those streets from all angles would be a good start.
The city has managed to get two public high schools near the top of the national rankings. Is it too much to ask for the resources and teacher pay to lift that number up to seven? All I’m asking is that our best schools move up to be recognized nationally? We can do it with more technology, resources and teachers. (Any elves want to go on a one-year sabbatical and help tutor students? We can’t afford to lower our teacher-student ratio enough, so I thought you might be able to help?)
Large sections of New Orleans remain “food deserts.” I was wondering if you could drop in some grocery stores in those areas, prefabbed and fully outfitted. If one supermarket can serve as many as 20,000 people, this would make a lot of difference in our local diet.
Also Santa, for the first time in a decade the State of Louisiana enjoyed a fiscal surplus of a half of a billion dollars. Our “rainy day fund” has been empty for sometime, and we need a couple of years of extra cash to fill it up again. Plus, our governor wants to give teachers a pay raise up to this Southern average. He’s going to need that surplus too.
The problem is that we have a .45 cent sales tax that’s eventually going to expire, which creates the surplus, and our senators and reps want to spend the windfall on vanity projects. So, I was wondering if the elves in the North Pole Mint could print up some greenbacks so that we have a little bit of a cushion. You know, if the legislators decide to squander the money? (That’s pretty much a guarantee in our state.)
And Santa, we could use a few more high-paying jobs. We missed out on the Amazon headquarters expansion, and a few other corporate relocations, even though we actually have some of the nation’s most attractive tax credits for software, high-tech, digital and video production. We also have the U.S.’s only tax credits for live legitimate theater and music. Now, I know when they were little boys, there were A LOT of corporate CEOs who would’ve made “the naughty list.” You gave them presents anyway. So, I was wondering if you could have a word with at least four of them…
Santa, the Louisiana coast has lost the equivalent landmass of the State of Delaware in the last 50 years. However, Christmas trees can stop coastal erosion. They build up barriers for title action, and let land actually survive – and sometimes grow. To save Louisiana, all we need is a lot of Christmas trees along our coast! If you could just leave a note next Christmas to each boy and girl, “Now that you have your toys, can you send your tree to the Pelican State tomorrow?”
I know that our request for “The Second Day of Christmas” may seem odd, but you have to understand that the State of Louisiana has been subsidizing direct flights from Armstrong Airport to London on British Airways. The GREAT NEWS is that we are on the cusp of actually not needing that subsidy – as so many English holiday makers are coming from the United Kingdom now that they have a direct flight. (Every time a flight is full, we don’t have to put up any money.) But, there are several legislators who want to do away with that subsidy before enough travelers learn about the direct jaunts for the flights to pay for themselves.
The irony, Santa, is that these direct flights could be canceled just as Britons rated New Orleans as the best long-haul city in the world to visit, beating popular destinations such as Dubai, Miami and Tokyo in a new Which? poll.
The consumer champion surveyed over 2,000 tourists to rate recent trips to cities around the world across a range of categories – the quality of the cultural attractions, accommodation, shopping, food, value for money and, crucially, how crowded it was. Cape Town had been the top long-haul city for four of the past five years as voted for by Which? members, yet this year, New Orleans held the top of the ranking of 39 destinations for the first time ever with a city score of 90 percent.
Those queried responded that they loved “the Big Easy” for “its laid-back nature, friendly locals, fusion cuisine and the ease of getting around.” The city also got a five-star rating for the quality of its attractions from live music and around-the-clock nightlife to airboat rides to spot alligators. (Singapore and Sydney tied for a Joint-second place at 87 percent. Las Vegas was dead last.)
If you could just drop a check at British Airways next Christmas when you swing through London, we would appreciate it. We just need another two years, and the direct flights from London to NOLA will pay for themselves, so popular the Crescent City has become in the UK.
Lastly, it’s EVERY little boy and girl’s dream here to win at least one more SuperBowl. So, if you could help our Saints in some way? Maybe threaten a few of umps with the “naughty list” if they miss-call a game, or drop a few last-minute player/stars under Sean Payton’s tree?
You know, Santa, come to think of it, we can do all of the things on this list ourselves – with a little help from Drew Brees on the last one. Maybe, New Orleanians could just sing the 12 Days song as “Our New Year’s resolutions as a city.”
This article originally published in the January 6, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
