By Sophie Kasakove
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — On Wednesday morning, residents seeking to file a police report or complete required check-ins trekked through the heat to the New Orleans Police Department headquarters only to find that it was hotter inside the building.
The officer manning the front desk responded to walk-ins over the whirr of the only relief available: three box fans, all angled towards his seat.
“They should send an instant message to everybody, reschedule appointments,” said New Orleans resident Robert Lowe as he wiped his face with a bandana. As an officer processed his paperwork inside, he waited outside, attempting to take cover from the sun in the dwindling late-morning shade cast by a cement column.
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City officials wouldn’t say how long the imposing Broad Street building has been without functioning AC, but it appeared to be an extended problem, made worse by long-running inefficiencies with the city’s procurement and contracting processes.
And now, a heat wave that has New Orleans sweating through feels-like temperatures of 120 degrees has made the conditions inside the building even more untenable.
Problems across the city
A law enforcement source normally stationed at headquarters said they’d been forced to work out of a different building since June 14. Natesh Mohan, director of the city’s department of Property Management, told City Council members at a hearing Tuesday that the issues with the HVAC system started around three weeks ago. He said paperwork problems were partly to blame. Meanwhile, stations in the 5th and 6th districts have been impacted by outages too, according to Mohan.
Over a dozen major HVAC issues are currently impacting city properties, Mohan said. On Wednesday, Orleans Parish Civil District Court was forced to close because of water-pressure issues that knocked out the AC. And according to a spokesperson for the New Orleans Public Library, Milton H. Latter Memorial Library on St. Charles Avenue has been closed since June 17 after two of the building’s three air conditioning units broke.
During a news conference Tuesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell confirmed that officers usually stationed at NOPD headquarters are working from other facilities because of “extreme heat levels in that building.” A Cantrell administration spokesperson said that “portable cooling units” had been installed for the employees who need to be on site, and others were working remotely.
“We’re on the ground making sure that we make those repairs, but our people are living it just like our residents are,” Cantrell said.
New Orleans residents will be living it for a lot longer.
The National Weather Service has said that the extended stretch of high temperatures, which began Tuesday and is expected to run through the weekend and beyond, is unprecedented in New Orleans. Feels-like temperatures of 115-120 degrees are set to last through July 4, with highs approaching or exceeding 100 degrees in coming days.
City officials are encouraging residents to take precautions, especially if they or loved ones are particularly vulnerable to excessive heat. Cooling centers are open throughout the city at public buildings and recreation centers.
‘It’s paperwork’
The AC outages at city buildings were a particularly acute display of the challenges facing the city in maintaining operations of its aging buildings during extreme weather.
Mohan assured councilmembers Tuesday that the air conditioning at NOPD headquarters would be back on within a day or two, after technicians replaced the gaskets on one unit and the motor on the other. His department is working on repairs to HVAC systems across a number of city buildings, thanks to a $4 million budget adjustment in the first quarter of 2023.
But Mohan and several council members agreed that the challenges that led to the prolonged outage were far from resolved.
One major obstacle, Mohan said, is the city’s cumbersome procurement process, which he said requires receiving approval from several city officials even for an emergency procurement.
“Why is it six people need to sign?” said Mohan. “We should be able to procure the services we need — we’ll come back to the signatures later.”
City Council President JP Morrell suggested that the city should complete procurement and contracting processes in advance for services like HVAC repairs, which are hardly a surprise need during a hot New Orleans summer.
“The fact that as a city we did not have a triage solution — that’s on us collectively,” said Morrell. “Every summer is basically an ongoing emergency event.”
District B City Council member Lesli Harris said she’d heard reports that the 6th District police station has had intermittent AC issues for the past three years.
“I’m about to go and use my own credit card to go to Home Depot to get some window units for these guys,” said Harris. “It’s paperwork that is impacting public safety.”
No one can fix
The city’s deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure, Joe Threat, said Tuesday that the Department of Property Management has struggled to develop new contracts after an Inspector General report in 2021 found that the Department of Property Management had improperly utilized an expedited contractor approval process for non-emergency situations.
Mohan said that attempts at emergency measures were also hamstrung by city payment issues. He had deployed 45 temporary AC units within the last month, he said.
When he tried to order another 45, he said that the supplier put a credit hold on the city because of outstanding invoices from other city departments.
Councilmembers expressed dismay, but not surprise.
The council has “constantly” discussed the problem of unpaid or late city invoices said City Council Vice President Helena Moreno, and the impact that has on small businesses contracted with the city. “But obviously now it’s also impacting the city,” she said.
“From what we understand with the administration, they may have identified some problems, but no one seems to figure out how to fix it to get invoices paid more timely,” said Moreno.
Councilmember Joe Giarrusso suggested that council should file a motion to assemble a working group to address procurement issues.
“We just cannot continue to allow failure to pay and bureaucratic process to impede having air conditioning,” said Giarrusso.
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