Find Your Candidate with EngageNOLA!
The New Orleans Mayoral election is coming up on
Oct. 14, 2017
. Do you know who to vote for? This non-partisan quiz brought to you by EngageNOLA will help you find the candidate that most aligns with your beliefs on important issues in our city.
This quiz is made up on 15 questions covering mental health, immigration, housing, water management, civic engagement, criminal justice, and economic development. The quiz takes 10-15 minutes to complete. The questions we're asking you are the same questions we asked the candidates. See which Mayoral candidate you align with!
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LaToya Cantrell
You matched with LaToya Cantrell!
Cantrell is a former neighborhood association president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association and two-term District B council woman. She’s a graduate of Xavier University.
Cantrell plans to make our city safer by providing job skills and training programs for at-risk residents. She plans to pay for these with the money we save by keeping them out of prison. She wants to reform the Sewerage and Water Board by investing in people and infrastructure funded by private development projects. Cantrell’s approach to affordable housing is to offer incentives to landlords to control rent, build affordable housing on vacant lots, and reform the lien process. She also plans to focus on youth and families by creating a special office to coordinate efforts at NORD, the Public Library, and counselors to assist families in crisis.
Cantrell is originally from Los Angeles, CA.
See all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit the campaign website
here
.
Michael Bagneris
You matched with Michael Bagneris!
Bagneris ran for mayor in 2014, was elected judge of the Orleans Parish Civil District Court (Division H) in Orleans Parish in 1993 and retired in 2013. He earned two bachelor degrees from Yale University and a professional law degree from Tulane University. Bagneris was a partner at Fine, Waltzer & Bagneris and executive counsel to former New Orleans Mayor Ernest Morial.
Bagneris’ job plan includes maximizing investments and growth in the revitalized medical corridor, the new entertainment corridor between Poydras and St. Claude, and building green industries that utilize our native resources, and the arts. He supports re-instituting community policing programs, the continued development of bikeways that link our city and walk-able neighborhoods with sustainable retail corridors.
Bagneris has a plan to stop violent crime which is his number one budget priority. His plan includes reducing the attrition rate among NOPD Officers, increasing the pay of every police officer by $10,000 a year, hiring 300 new police officers,fast-track trained officers from another state or with a military police background, investing in technology such as license plate readers and crime cameras.
Bagneris is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit the campaign website
here
.
Edward Bruski
You matched with Edward Bruski!
Bruski is a registered nurse who first moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He’s an independent candidate. He plans to work with the state to fund a trade school to help connect students to jobs. He plans to make rental units more affordable by incentivizing private development. Bruski puts a special emphasis on the opioid epidemic, and says he will work with local hospitals to create trauma centers and recovery programs.
Bruski lives in Central City.
View all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit the campaign website
here
.
Manny "Chevrolet" Bruno
You matched with Manny “Chevrolet” Bruno!
Bruno is a comedian who is making his fifth run for mayor. He is not affiliated with any party.
His Facebook page suggests that he is from Las Vegas, Nevada
View all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit his Facebook page
here
.
Bryon Stephan Cole
You matched with Byron Cole!
Cole is a Grassroots Community Organizer and self-identifies as the only grassroots candidate willing to address racism and inequality with a comprehensive strategy for reform. He is fully committed to stopping urban gentrification. He believes increased policing does not curb crime and the focus should be on societal conditions. Cole supports banning the box and raising the minimum wage to a fair living wage of $15 per hour. His campaign focus is on economic growth, jail reform, drug rehabilitation, fair wages, free ferries, urban renewal and systemic relief.
Cole is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign Facebook page
here
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Brandon Dorrington
You matched with Brandon Dorrington!
Dorrington earned his B.A. in history from Dillard University. He later received his M.A. in juvenile justice from Southern University. Dorrington is a wellness center coordinator with Delta Corps. He is also an Army Veteran who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He first came to New Orleans while working with FEMA after Hurricane Katrina. His top issues are youth development, proactive economic development, affordable housing, and community empowerment.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign website
here
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Troy Henry
Henry is an engineer with degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and Stanford University. He has served as the president of United Water, the largest private water utility in the country. His plan for fixing the Sewerage and Water Board is to replace the aging infrastructure and improve the quality of testing of our drinking water. To keep our city safe, he will work with NOPD to retain officers working in homicide and drug units and the with the District Attorney to reform our bail and sentencing systems. Henry hopes to incentivize landlords who offer affordable rent.
Henry puts a special emphasis on New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward and will work to re-open Jazz Land, Lincoln Beach, and the Lake Forest Shopping Center as well as focus on cluster-building homes in the Lower 9th Ward.
Henry is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit the campaign website
here
.
Matthew Hill
You matched with Matthew Hill!
Hill earned his bachelor degree from George Mason University. He self-identifies as an entrepreneur, business leader, consultant, author, and executive coach who has a Change Management Specialist Certification. He believes the city’s most valuable resource is its workforce and will engage the entire civil workforce with training & development by implementing Lean Six Sigma to measure, assess, improve, and control every process the city undertakes. Hill believes the federal government's community policing model is not accurate nor effective and that the federal consent decree hinders the city's policing strategies. He will cultivate a true community policing model complete with walking beats throughout the entire city. As mayor, he will overhaul and remodel the city's educational system after the Nysmith School system. To address flood risk Hill will convert the entire street system into a driveable canal system with a new permeable street design. He is committed to lowering taxes across the board, reducing the property tax for occupied homes; not include short-term rental properties, and promoting mixed-use developments in New Orleans East.
Hill is originally from San Salvador, El Salvador.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign website
here
.
Frank Scurlock
You matched with Frank Surlock!
Scurlock was the owner of Space Walk Inc. and is the founder of Scurlock Entertainment Global, Positive Sky, and Air World Enterprises. He self-describes as a businessman and job creator. He will work to bring the Sewerage and Water Board under the direct responsibility of City Hall and be directly accountable for its restructuring and functionality. To become fully integrated with the Department of Public Works and the Streets Department. He denounces the decision to take down monuments and is committed to safeguarding these monuments. Scurlock is a self financed candidate and gladly dons a top hat to show the world how fun it is to be in New Orleans.
Scurlock is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign website
here
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Hashim Walters
You matched with Hashim Walters!
Walter's priorities include reviewing and restructuring the Sewerage & Water Board, supporting the current plan to have 7500 affordable housing units by 2020, supporting organizations that work to encourage legislation that increases the minimum wage, supporting efforts to return local control of public schools to OPSB, supporting organizations that work to encourage equal pay for women, recruit and retain more local officers, promote and support police pre-academy training for local 12th grade high school students, allowing the consent decree to run its course until the next review in 2-3 years and open dialogue about the possibility of creating 2 council seats in district C and E.
Walters is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign website
here
.
Desiree Charbonet
You matched with Desiree Charbonnet!
Charbonnet was most recently chief judge of the New Orleans Municipal Court and was for 10 years the former recorder of mortgages for Orleans Parish. She earned two bachelor degrees and a law degree from Loyola University in New Orleans.Charbonnet’s plan to address affordable housing includes many of the goals and principles developed by the housing coalition, HousingNOLA; such as preserving and protecting established residential neighborhoods, including additional restrictions on short-term rentals (STRs), maintaining the prohibition on STRs in the French Quarter and including increased funding for HousingNOLA initiatives. Her plan to address crime and public safety is a comprehensive five-year plan that includes conducting a nationwide search for the best Police Chief, increasing the size of NOPD by targeting recruits with U.S. military experience, revitalizing the Reserve Police Division, creating and maintaining a jobs program for youth, while expanding mentoring program while not raising taxes. Her key goal to address economic development is to raise the median wage in New Orleans to the national standard citywide.
Charbonnet is originally from New Orleans.
View all the candidates' responses
here
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Visit the campaign website
here
.
Tommie Vassel
You matched with Tommie Vassel!
Vassel earned his B.A. in accounting from Dillard University. He is a former Orleans Parish School Board member. Vassel is a certified public accountant.
He has worked as the Chief Financial Officer for the Judges of Criminal District Court and hopes to take a new approach to balancing the city budget. He’s also served on the Sewerage and Water Board as President Pro-Tem. He hopes to work with FEMA to fix our water system, streets, and the municipal auditorium.
His housing plan is to utilize empty NORA lots as low-income housing. To make our city safer, he plans to hire more officers and focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration. Vassel has worked as the CFO of the Chamber of Commerce and plans to work with local business to retain and expand existing companies in the area. He also plans to get rid of all traffic cameras not in school zones and remove the deputy mayor reporting structure at City Hall.
He’s a lifelong resident of Treme.
View all the candidates' responses
here
.
Visit the campaign website
here
.
I believe a private, third-party company should be hired to run the Sewerage & Water Board.
The federal consent decree dealing with the misconduct and civil rights abuses in the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) was recently extended to 2020 for what is anticipated to be its final extension, and if the consent decree ends during my term as mayor, a top priority of my administration will be to implement an ordinance that maintains an independent compliance bureau to monitor, investigate, and audit police conduct.
As mayor, I will support expansion of the jail and disregard the city’s recent cap at 1,438-beds in the Orleans Parish Prison.
The Louisiana State Legislature currently controls several issues of local importance, including our ability to raise specific taxes, such as the cigarette tax, and to set our local minimum wage. As mayor, my administration will convene quarterly meetings of state legislators that represent our area as well as city leaders from across the state to gain local control over these issues.
One of the top priorities for my administration will be to offer monetary or other incentives to businesses that hire formerly incarcerated persons as a crime prevention and workforce development strategy.
A top priority for my administration will be to implement new rules to strengthen existing requirements that all private developers take steps to slow or reduce stormwater runoff into the drainage system in any application for a building permit.
A top priority during my first two years in office will be to increase the minimum wage to $15/hour for all city employees and contractors, from its current rate of $10.55.
A top priority for my administration will be to implement a comprehensive community participation program for New Orleans, which includes establishing district planning councils and procedures for community review and input into decision making on development and other land use proposals.
If elected, by the end of my first term I will implement a participatory budget process to enable residents to have a more direct say over how a portion of the city's capital budget is allocated.
A top priority for my administration will be the implementation of new health and safety standards for all rental housing units, public and private, in the city and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that only homes that meet basic requirements will be available for rent.
One of the top priorities for my administration will be to create better financial incentives to develop market-rate housing because the most effective way to address our housing needs is by creating more supply, regardless of affordability.
A top priority during my term in office will be to allocate the resources necessary to incentivize the development of 6,000 new affordable housing opportunities throughout the city to meet the needs of the thousands of cost burdened households in the region.
As mayor, I am committed to holding the NOPD accountable to police practices under a bias-free immigration policy of treating all city residents equally regardless of race, ethnicity, language, and immigration status and not engaging in federal immigration enforcement.
As mayor, one of my top priorities will be to dedicate a portion of undedicated, existing property taxes to provide funds for behavioral health services in New Orleans, including school-based substance abuse prevention, detox, and addiction treatment.
Driven by public input, I support removing from public spaces any monuments and statues of the Confederacy that honor defenders of slavery and are seen by some as symbols of white supremacy.
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