Like a business...

T-P reported that, as part of a no-bid deal with a local advertising company that enjoys close ties to the Nagin administration, the city of New Orleans paid $450,000 for garbage cans similar to those that competing businesses routinely provide for free. Let's add "close ties to the administration" to "politically connected" from an earlier report as indicators that we taxpayers have been had.

"Representatives of at least three companies that sell advertising on trash cans like those now dotting the streets of New Orleans say they would have been eager to provide the cans at no cost in exchange for the right to sell the ads that go in panels on the four-sided bins. To boot, two of the three said they also would have given the city a bigger piece of the ad revenue than the 15 percent the city is getting from the company that got the deal, Niche Marketing USA."

The N.O. Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, on their member page, lists Niche as the contact for member information. That page seems more like an ad for Niche than for anything related to a CVB site. Unanswered questions on the page also give it a very amateurish look. Niche, at one time had a site called "JazzyCans" but it came up "cannot be found" for me today.

Nagin ran for Mayor on a "run the city like a business" campaign. The no-bid deal with Niche certainly doesn't pass that test. Let us know of other situations where this measure can be applied.

jbv's Competitive Edge