By Joe Gyan JR.
The Advocate
Copyright 2007 Capital City Press
All Rights Reserved

NEW ORLEANS — Acknowledging that New Orleans' first responders make Mardi Gras a priority every year, famed float builder Blaine Kern Sr. said Tuesday it is time to make the city's police, firefighters and paramedics a priority.

Kern announced he is doing just that by setting up a fund to aid in the post-hurricane recruitment and retention of first responders and to provide housing for them.

Kern, commonly referred to as "Mr. Mardi Gras,'' said two events have been created to benefit the Greater New Orleans First Responders Fund: the Krewe of BOO and the Cultural Experience.

The Krewe of BOO, which Kern described as "New Orleans' official Halloween parade,'' will make its inaugural run through uptown New Orleans on Oct. 31, 2008, but a haunted house and Halloween extravaganza at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World in Algiers will be held this year. The haunted house will run from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31.

Proceeds from membership in the Krewe of BOO and ticket sales to the haunted house and extravaganza will benefit the first responders fund.

The fund also will receive money from the Cultural Experience, an interactive production celebrating the history of New Orleans, in June 2008.

"We're borrowing a little bit of our culture and turning that into cash,'' Cesar Burgos, chairman of the fund and also a member of Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, said.

The New Orleans Police Department, which has seen its ranks fall from a pre-Katrina total of 1,741 to 1,406 today, welcomed the fund's creation.

Deputy Superintendent John Bryson said the fund will "greatly enhance'' the department's recruitment and retention efforts.

"This is a win-win for our city and our first responders,'' he said at a news conference outside Gallier Hall on St. Charles Avenue.

Bryson said the 3rd and 5th District stations still are operating out of trailers more than 22 months after Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city. The 7th District station is using a donated office building, he said.

Jullette Saussy, director of New Orleans' Emergency Medical Service, said EMS had 135 paramedics in the city pre-Katrina but only about 100 today. Housing in the city is "very expensive,'' she noted.

"Recruitment and retention is so very important,'' Saussy said, adding that the establishment of the first responders fund is a sign that "public safety in New Orleans matters.''

New Orleans' EMS, which also is operating out of trailers, is responding to about 80 percent of its pre-Katrina calls in a city with half its pre-storm population, she said.

"We certainly aren't bored,'' Saussy said

Lindsay Brigham, executive director of the first responders fund, said $1.2 million of the fund's projected $1.5 million budget will go toward housing assistance for first responders.

The fund's housing program will offer financial assistance in the form of a loan to first responders to be used as a down payment toward the purchase of a home in Orleans Parish, with a percentage of the principal forgiven at incremental periods of active tenure with their department. The loan, which addresses retention concerns, is totally forgiven at year 15.

The program also will provide apartment units to newly recruited first responders in the parish for one year and is intended to complement their recruitment package. The fund is asking that large apartment owners donate 1 percent of their total units for the occupancy of newly recruited first responders.