Broadmoor’s next battle

Neighborhood puts tanks in place after declaring its plan to secede from city

By David Smylin

The Levee senior staff writer

After more than a year of frustration over the progress of rebuilding New Orleans, the Broadmoor community has announced its intent to declare its independence from the city.

Amid cheering supporters during a well-organized news conference on the Napoleon Avenue neutral ground, Broadmoor Improvement Association President LaToya Cantrell, the proposed chief of the new, rogue city-state of Broadmoor, said that the recent surge in violence, severely failing public schools, a crippled public health care system, and no relief in sight is making succession an easy decision.

“Man, come on, it’s true,” Cantrell said as hundreds cheered her while carrying signs reading, “Broadmoor Lives!” “Even Brownie could do a heckuva job better than this.”

The constitution calls for Broadmoor to have its own police force, public school, library, sanitation services, hospital, park, community center, senior citizens activity center, dog park, street maintenance, street light repair, drainage maintenance, evacuation specialists, court system, and a democratically elected representative government.
“These are fundamental necessities that any city resident should have,” Cantrell said.

Broadmoor, a largely unknown city neighborhood prior to the storm, became galvanized in December 2005 after the release of the Nagin-appointed Bring New Orleans Back (BNOB) commission report.

That plan included bulldozing Broadmoor, home to more than 7,000 residents in a well-established, multi-racial, multi-ethnic community before Katrina, and turning it into a drainage park.

Broadmoor residents banded together and decided to fight BNOB and in July 2006 became the first New Orleans neighborhood to release its own plan, which is now its proposed constitution.

“I want to thank Mayor Nagin for providing the impetus for the Broadmoor plan,” Cantrell said. “Without his leadership none of this would have happened.”

The unfunded, $14 billion UNOP plan doesn’t turn any neighborhoods back into swamps, but Broadmoor again may take the lead – this time to secede.

Broadmoor expects to arm itself and close its borders on Louisiana Avenue, Toledano Street, Washington Avenue, Octavia Street and Claiborne Avenue. Cantrell said Broadmoor hopes to have diplomatic relations with New Orleans.

“Sure we’d like to help our neighbor to the north, south, east, and west of us, but we have to secure our borders. Already we’ve had numerous reports of illegal aliens crossing over from New Orleans to Broadmoor. Plus, Hollygrove already has sent representatives to us asking if we’d annex them.”

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