‘Communicating Clearly’

The Mardi Gras costume market mess: a post-mortem and editorial

The best way to achieve it is for the city to communicate clearly with artists and vendors — and to make sure city fees don’t outstrip people’s ability to pay.

From the last line of the story, the “communicating clearly” part. It doesn’t happen.

I was up at City Hall the other day and they had all sorts of tables set up on the first floor, checking cholesterol and blood pressure and such. Sneaky. I wonder how many blood pressure readings were high simply from being at City Hall?

Every January, the 200 or so Jackson Square artists are required to renew their licenses. Sometimes they go in groups, some go alone, some do it early, others procrastinate. What they all do is dread it. What seems to be the general mood when going to the Bureau of Revenue is trepidation. “Pack a lunch” my friend told me once. You can see the aversion and anticipation of confusion on folks’ faces when they start to picture themselves in there.

Visits to the Bureau of Revenue are like snowflakes, no two are the same. And like Forrest Gump’s chocolates, you have no idea what’s going to happen. No two clerks are the same.

They don’t accept cash there and they have started not accepting checks either (which I think is bloody awful). Not sure why they don’t take either. Some artists speculate that they don’t trust the employees with cash and they don’t trust the vendors with checks. I’m not sure why actually.

So if you are unsure what your total for fees and maybe fines is, you have no idea how much you are supposed to bring for the money order. One artist on the Square tells of how he had to buy a money order for .25 to get his license. So you are going to make at least two trips to City Hall.

I was found on Jackson Square for not having proof of permits the same day the costume bust happened and issued a summons. I didn’t mind. Some artists actually want them to check more often to make sure everyone who is on the fence has gone through the process. I actually thanked them. Issue I had was, when I went in to the office to show that I did indeed have the permits. I was told by the clerk, “Yeah, you need to have these permits on you.” I know this. I’m not up at City Hall just to show them off. I mean, there was a reason I was out of my pajamas on a Monday right? I have the power of deductive reasoning. My mind told me, “If you don’t want to be made to put on clothes on a future Monday, you better bring those permits from now on.

But the amount of confusion people face in City Hall is a real issue. Nobody on the Square, and I am assuming this is a representation of every business that visits Bureau of Revenue, has any faith that what they are being told at one point will be the same thing they are going to hear the next time. It’s a crap shoot in there.

I know the departments at City Hall endured eight long years of Ray Nagin and I don’t expect the new administration to simply turn everything around in one year. But to “communicate clearly with artists and vendors” will hopefully be one of Landrieu’s goals for Bureau of Revenue.