I recently interviewed Holly Friedman – Candidate for City Council District A on October 11. I will preface my questions with MR, and Holly’s replies with HF. It goes without saying that this should not be seen as a political endorsement. I am simply sharing a discussion that is of interest to the readers. I would welcome the opportunity to sit down with other candidates for this race or any other. Each of you should consider the issues and vote your conscience. I truly enjoyed my conversation with Holly Friedman. Even though we hadn’t met in person, I felt like it was a conversation with someone I have known for a long time. We share a yearslong residency in district A, and a strong desire for a better New Orleans. She offers a unique combination of years of experience in public service along with a plethora of fresh ideas oriented towards a bright future.
MR: Tell us about yourself and why you are getting into this race?
HF: I have lived in District A for 30 years. My husband and I raised our daughters, 21 and 20, in this area. I have always been involved in community life. When my girls were in school, I was PA president. I have 14 years of public service, ten years in criminal justice, and four years as Director of Constituent Services under Councilman Joe Giarrusso in Council District A.
I worked in the DA’s office at the end of Harry Connick’s time. I stepped back from public life when my girls were younger. I returned as a minute clerk for Judge Keva Landrum. Watching trials allowed me to see the criminal justice system from both sides.
Joe Giarrusso and I were friends for years. He asked me to join his team when he was elected. Joe is a great mentor and hard worker, setting an example for his team on what it means to be helping people. He believes that government should make people’s lives easier. His ethic set a high bar for work in government, elevating people around him. Working in his office taught me about listening to residents and writing policy based on the needs of the citizens.
I now work in the DA’s office on stemming violent crime in NOLA. We receive the cases and analyze the data, giving our ADAs a chance to win cases. We developed a mindset change on partnering with NOPD to assist rather than serve as an obstacle to their investigative efforts. Two particular programs that I am involved with are:
OSINT – Takes data like phone logs and social media to help analyze. Working with NOPD on this has allowed a strong partnership to evolve.
NODICE – We use data – creating heat maps of crime. By talking to community to get input we give a voice to those that felt that their voices weren’t heard. We partnered with law enforcement to address the issue.
Some of the areas we look at are:
Criminal Blight – especially in the Carrollton, Hollygrove, and Leonidas areas. We look at abandoned homes whose owners often live out of state with no accountability. They have become a haven for crime. The residents of those neighborhoods are loving this effort. It is community driven. We go to them and say, “Tell us what will make life better for you? How can we improve your lives? The goal is to clean up the properties and put them to good use. This is not about homeowners who act in good faith, but rather bad owners, bad landlords, etc.
MR: In addition to what you have mentioned, what other areas would you like to tackle as a member of the council?
HF: I want to get NOLA to become a transparent and smart city. It shouldn’t take years to fix a small problem. Government services should operate like a commercial endeavor. The “wall of secrecy” between residents and city departments needs to end. We cannot keep proclaiming, “Tradition” – that’s the way we do things here. We need to stop thinking in that vein. We must expect better quality of life, set a higher bar, and aim for a transparent and smart city. We deserve better. We can get it. Working for Judge Landrum allowed me to see the full spectrum of the justice system. This will help me advise council where to best invest our dollars in criminal justice reform.
MR: How important is it for the new council and the new mayor to cooperate with each other?
HF: It is so important for mayor and council to be cooperative. Similar to what is happening between the DA and NOPD, the end goal should be to help citizens, to thrive as a community, and foster real economic growth. To improve the quality of life, public safety, and economic growth, the council working in collaboration with the mayor is essential. We must aim to help small business owners, and we must streamline safety and permits.
MR: What is your relationship with other members of the council and the candidates for mayor and council?
HF: I have good working relationships with current members of council. I know the incumbents as well as many of the other candidates. I think it is important to be professional and to be good with everyone. Be kind, be professional. I made a point to get to know everyone in my race and the other races for council. I have good connections with many of the mayoral candidates. I am willing to work with whomever is mayor.
MR: You have mentioned Transparent and Smart several times as your goals for the city. What do these terms mean to you.
HF: Transparency equals accountability. This is true with public works, SWB, safety and permits, and any other city service. When it comes to calling 311 or to a permit application, I want to create a dashboard where everything is visible to the citizens. Where timeframes for solutions are available to the public. This will also help the city track the mechanism for solutions, and alleviate the need to communicate, because it’s all public record. This streamlines the system. It will also enable us to use data to fix the areas that most need it.
Smart – Use data to address problems, analyze to work smarter not harder. I have studied other cities; implementing this system is not costly. In fact, in the long run, we save money by streamlining. Seatle has done this and increased quality of life by 40% in four months. We should study other successes and failures to know what will work. NODICE came from Baltimore. Take the good that we observe in other places and run with them, and tailor them to our city.
MR: What would be the particular issues you want to tackle most and first?
HF: My first 100 days plan would include tackling street projects. I will walk the neighborhoods. When I worked for Councilman Giarrusso, I created early morning meetings between the residents and construction workers to increase communication about the projects. I would look to revitalize that. It would include working on transparency. In fact, I have a policy paper on that. Also, public safety and economic development.
MR: What is the relationship between education and public safety?
HF: We need education for all our children. We need to address mental health and nutrition, so that children can thrive in a safe happy place,
MR: What about early childhood?
HF: I definitely believe that the sooner we start learning good life skills the better off we are. We need to support children and families so that they have tools to be good adults. When I worked for Judge Landrum, we saw defendants who were only 20 years old, who already thought their lives were over, with jail the only hope of survival. We need to give children hope and reasons to believe that they can have a good life.
MR: What can city council do about this?
HF: We must support school board with the funding that we committed to them. Simply pay our bills to the kids. Additionally, we should explore programs that we can fund to support schools, such as mental health, lunches, recreational activities, and teaching trades, recognizing that not everyone thrives in a four-year college program. We need to take a look at everything.
MR: What is the relationship between faith-based community and government?
HF: Faith-based institutions can tell us what is going on in the community. They are a safe space that can provide a stronger voice to their members. NOLA is great because faith-based groups work together. The community is stronger, and we are better off. My family are members of Sinai and Touro. I love the collaboration between the congregations. I was involved in Federation, bringing many diverse organizations together. I’m from Houma and my husband is from DC. We both have brought extended family members to live in New Orleans. I would love my children to come back after college, but for that we need an economic base for jobs.
MR: What can we do to make NOLA more attractive?
HF: Fixing quality of life, introducing some of the new programs we discussed, addressing violent crime, being more business friendly. Our economic climate is putting business out of business before they even start. We have to address the housing crisis, working with state legislation on insurance. Property taxes are pricing people out. We need to work on this at the local level.
MR: Funding for security – Jewish faith-based institutions have been significantly burdened with security costs over the last 7 years. I know that budgets for these things are at the federal and state levels, however, a candidate for a different office that I spoke to mentioned that there might be a creative solution by allowing reserve Sheriff deputies to allot their required service time to provide security at vulnerable houses of worship and faith-based agencies. What do you think of that idea?
HF: My husband was president of the JCC so I am well aware of this issue. This idea might see some light if the type of partnering with law enforcement agencies that I mentioned took place. When you sit around a table and communicate with other agencies, these solutions can actually be discussed and implemented.
MR: Thank you for your time. Any final message for our readers?
HF: Stay involved! Vote! Hope! Your voice matters.