NEW ORLEANS — Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson is hoping residents vote yes to an increase on their property tax to aid OPSO and the jail. The millage, which is on the April 29 ballot, would roughly double property taxes that would go to OPSO.
“Every day this jail is dangerous, it’s dangerous to our team and it’s dangerous to the residents who live there. There’s no waiting,” Huston said at a community input meeting Tuesday.
Hutson says the money is necessary and would go towards staffing, training and equipment.
Last week, Hutson was criticized by the city council for not communicating to the public about the ballot initiative.
Tuesday she held the first community input meeting.
“We’re trying to fix what’s broken,” she said.
The meeting wasn’t heavily attended, but some of the residents who did attend say they don’t disagree with the needs of the jail.
“it looks like the things they want are normal things there’s nothing out of the blue that they want anyone who’s had any interaction with the sheriff's office online over the last decade or so knows it looks like something from Myspace era and so that alone gives you an indication o where the technology is at,” resident Bruce Reilly, who was incarcerated for about a decade, said.
But, Reilly says he already voted no on the initiative.
“I voted no I just can’t in my good conscience give any money to the criminal industrial complex,” he said.
Early voting has already begun.
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