University of New Orleans transfer to LSU System expected to cost $23 million this year
Louisiana lawmakers are advancing legislation to transfer the University of New Orleans from the University of Louisiana System to the LSU System at a cost of about $23 million, Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said.
Senate Bill 202 by Sen. Jimmy Harris, D-New Orleans, unanimously passed the Senate Tuesday. It will next be discussed in a House committee and must also receive approval from the House of Representatives and Gov. Jeff Landry before it takes effect.
The bill would reverse the action legislators took 14 years ago to move UNO to the University of Louisiana System from the LSU System, which it had been a part of since the university was founded in 1958.
The implementation of Harris' legislation is subject to funding. LSU estimates the transfer will cost $41 million in the first year and another $40.4 million over the next four years.
'That's more of a pie-in-the-sky type thing,' Harris said of LSU's estimate.
Lawmakers don't plan to spend that much this year, Henry said in an interview after the vote. Instead, he expects to spend $20 million to wipe out debt to vendors and another $3 million for must-do deferred maintenance costs. Those deferred maintenance dollars will likely come from existing funds for campus construction projects, Henry said.
The university's possible return to LSU's control is in response to UNO's acute budget crisis. The school faces a $30 million shortfall and has implemented a spending freeze, layoffs and staff furloughs in an attempt to make ends meet.
UNO administrators have kept open the possibility of further layoffs and furloughs. Its budget crisis is largely tied to enrollment. The school had a student body of around 17,000 before Hurricane Katrina, with an immediate drop to around 6,000 after the storm. For the fall 2024 semester, its total enrollment was 6,488.
Unlike UNO, every school in the LSU System has reported enrollment increases over the past few years, in contrast to nationwide trends of declining student numbers on college campuses.
The Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversees all higher education in the state, has already approved the transfer.
At the time of the system switch in 2011, UNO alumni and boosters applauded the plan, as many felt the university was overshadowed in the LSU System.
UNO would be the only institution in the LSU System classified as an R2 university, meaning it has high levels of research activity, second only to LSU's main campus, which is a R1 school with the highest research activity rating.
In the University of Louisiana System, there are two other schools with research-level rankings: the University of Louisiana Lafayette, an R1, and Louisiana Tech, an R2.
UNO would also be the only other school in the LSU System with an NCAA Division I athletics program.
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CNN
9 hours ago
- CNN
The town wanted his farm for affordable housing. Then came the MAGA storm
Just steps off a busy road, tucked at the end of a gravel driveway within eyeshot of the New Jersey turnpike, a small herd of cows and goats grazes freely in a grassy, open field. It's an unexpected location for a farm, bordered by warehouses and the ever-present roar of cars and trucks, but this property has been in the hands of Andy Henry's family since before the Civil War — his grandfather and mother were born in the white wooden farmhouse next to the pasture. Now, Henry is locked in a fight to preserve the farm in Cranbury, central New Jersey. The township reached out to buy the site for affordable housing and says it's willing to invoke its eminent domain power to seize what it needs if Henry and his brother refuse to make a deal. It's a small property in a small town, but the issue has turned into a lightning rod for MAGA supporters around the country and even attracted the attention of the Trump administration. Fox News and the New York Post picked up the story. Strangers have raised $135,000 online for Henry's legal defense, left a barrage of comments on social media and flooded the town's administrator with calls. 'Our town clerk has forwarded all of us on the township committee dozens and dozens of hateful voicemails,' said Matt Scott, one of the town's five elected representatives. 'You f**king commie, libtards, you know, the f**k do you think you're doing? You're not American, you're just stealing from the taxpayer, you need to give that f**king farm back,' he recounted some of the messages. He said he understood why they are attracting so much attention. 'People are pissed, generally, in the country. They feel like the governing structures are not listening to what they're doing, and something like this comes up. All they hear is that this five Democrat member committee in this town is seizing this hard-working farmer's family legacy. … I think it's an easy target for people.' For Henry, the saga began in April, which he says was the first time he heard Cranbury was interested in the farm. He and his wife received a letter stating the town had identified the property as 'suitable for redevelopment' for affordable housing. 'Certainly, it is always the Township's preference to acquire property by mutual agreement with the property owner,' a lawyer for the town wrote at the time. 'However, when the Township is unable to reach a negotiated agreement with a property owner, the Township is authorized by law to initiate an action with the Court to formally acquire title,' it continued, noting the town would pay 'just compensation' for the land. 'It was a shock,' Henry said. 'Ever since then, we've been pushing back in whatever way we could.' Henry no longer lives on the farm — he hasn't since the '90s. He and his brother, Chris, inherited the property in 2017 when their father died, but both had settled in New Mexico. They now lease out the farmland — those animals out in the pasture, affectionately dubbed 'New Jersey cows' for their love of pizza and bagels, belong to a local farmer. After receiving the letter, Henry returned to Cranbury, where he went before a meeting of the Township Committee later in April — pleading with them to consider alternative sites. Scott, who has served on the committee since 2018, was moved. 'It was a complete mic drop moment,' he said. 'I felt terrible. I was like, wow, I didn't know we were doing this. There has to be another option.' The Henry farm had come to the attention of the township as a deadline approached for Cranbury to lay out its plans for fulfilling its constitutional obligation for affordable housing. It's something every community in the state has to do in accordance with what's called the Mount Laurel doctrine — a series of state supreme court decisions dating back to 1975 that mandates each municipality provide its 'fair share.' Cranbury, with its population of fewer than 4,000 living in about 1,400 households, had to say by June 30 where it would add 265 affordable housing units, to be built over the next 10 years. One plot of land, whose owner was willing to sell, was identified as a site to develop several dozen units. Finding space for the rest, however, proved near impossible. Scott said about 50 properties were evaluated against strict state-mandated criteria, such as sewer, water, proximity to mass transportation, and distance from warehouses. Aside from the Henry farm, one after the other was found unsuitable. Missing the deadline to file the plan would have opened up the community to what is known as 'builder's remedy' — effectively free rein for developers to bypass planning and zoning rules, which could lead to big developments, population increases, and higher taxes — straining town resources and costing residents. 'I feel like I was elected to do the greater good,' Scott said. 'I completely understand how this could be seen as the workings of a heartless, powerful government. But my primary responsibility is to the taxpayers of Cranbury, to the parents of the school kids in Cranbury, and I feel like the greater good is served by making sure that we get this affordable housing built, that we do it without a builder's remedy, and we do it without bankrupting the town.' Despite Henry's pleas, Scott said the committee — which had spent 13 months reviewing sites — had determined 'there was no other option.' In May, the township government voted unanimously to pass an ordinance authorizing the acquisition of the Henry farm 'through voluntary negotiations or through the power of eminent domain' — on the grounds that satisfying the affordable housing obligations is 'in the public interest.' Cranbury might feel like a small town caught up in the rules of the state, but Andy Henry feels he's David fighting the Goliath of government. Neighbors and friends helped him launch a campaign to save the farm, which attracted local and then national attention. Once the story reached a fever pitch, town meetings became tense. Public comment was filled with Henry supporters, who lambasted committee members for their decision. 'It appears jumping to conclusions and villainizing those serving in public offices has become a norm in the US,' Mayor Lisa Knierim said at a town meeting in May. 'Doesn't mean it has to in Cranbury.' The Trump administration also stepped in. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted about the farm on X, saying: '(T)he Biden-style government takeover of our family farms is over. While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we @usda are exploring every legal option to help.' Henry said he's spoken to her directly, and someone from her team now has a check-in with his lawyer weekly. When Henry, 72, and his brother grew up here in the 1950s, the land was used to farm wheat and soybeans. Back then, the property was surrounded by farmland as far as the eye could see. Now, Cranbury has two distinct parts: next to I-95, much of the area has been rezoned as 'light industrial,' attracting massive warehouse development. There's still local farmland, most of which is across another major road, spreading west from the center of the community founded in the 19th century. The Henry farm is in the more industrial area while most of the agricultural land on the other side is designated 'preserved farmland' that cannot be developed. An affordable housing consultant, speaking on background due to the sensitivity of the situation in Cranbury, told CNN the Henry farm would get a strong score on the state rubric grading how suitable a site is for development into homes. He said a property must come close to perfect to qualify for state funding. One question not being debated here is the need for affordable housing. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition found that New Jersey is over 200,000 units short on affordable housing, and Matthew Desmond, a sociology professor at Princeton University, has noted that when the nearby township of Cherry Hill unveiled 29 affordable apartments in 2021, 9,309 people applied. Mark Berkowsky of Cranbury Housing Associates, a local firm that has been involved in previous affordable housing projects but was not consulted on this plan, told CNN the need in Cranbury specifically is clear, though he disagrees with building on the farm. 'We have a waiting list that is usually about two years for people to get into affordable housing,' he said. Even Andy Henry understands and is sympathetic to the need for housing, though he doesn't think his property should be the location. 'They have to build affordable housing, and we're not opposed to that,' he said. 'It's how much and where.' The plans formally filed with the state show that Cranbury is seeking to buy a little over 11 acres of the 21-acre property. The farmhouse where generations of Henry's forebears grew up would be untouched. Even with that concession, Henry is not interested. 'It would just kind of take away the soul of the farm,' he said, adding no amount of money could get him to sell, though there have been 'countless' offers over the years from developers. 'They just keep going up and up and I'm not trying to negotiate with them, I just say no, there's no plans to sell in the foreseeable future,' Henry said. 'Right away they'll come back, 'So how about if we give you a few million more dollars?' And it's like, 'I'm not trying to negotiate with you, I mean what I said.'' The great hope for both sides seems to be that an as-yet unknown landowner will step up and be interested in having the township buy their property for development, sparing the farm. But for now, the next stages of the battle are taking shape, watched both locally and nationally. Last week, Henry got a letter from the town noting that it would like to schedule an appraisal — the first step in an eminent domain proceeding, to determine the fair market price to be paid if the town forces the sale. For his part, Henry is awaiting a judge's ruling on whether he can add his farm to a preservation order, protecting it from development. Asked why that's not something he'd done before, Henry said: 'We didn't see the threat coming from the town. We knew developers were interested in it; most of them will ask politely and we'll politely say no. We didn't see the town coming.' CNN's Linh Tran contributed to this story.
CNN
9 hours ago
- CNN
The town wanted his farm for affordable housing. Then came the MAGA storm
Just steps off a busy road, tucked at the end of a gravel driveway within eyeshot of the New Jersey turnpike, a small herd of cows and goats grazes freely in a grassy, open field. It's an unexpected location for a farm, bordered by warehouses and the ever-present roar of cars and trucks, but this property has been in the hands of Andy Henry's family since before the Civil War — his grandfather and mother were born in the white wooden farmhouse next to the pasture. Now, Henry is locked in a fight to preserve the farm in Cranbury, central New Jersey. The township reached out to buy the site for affordable housing and says it's willing to invoke its eminent domain power to seize what it needs if Henry and his brother refuse to make a deal. It's a small property in a small town, but the issue has turned into a lightning rod for MAGA supporters around the country and even attracted the attention of the Trump administration. Fox News and the New York Post picked up the story. Strangers have raised $135,000 online for Henry's legal defense, left a barrage of comments on social media and flooded the town's administrator with calls. 'Our town clerk has forwarded all of us on the township committee dozens and dozens of hateful voicemails,' said Matt Scott, one of the town's five elected representatives. 'You f**king commie, libtards, you know, the f**k do you think you're doing? You're not American, you're just stealing from the taxpayer, you need to give that f**king farm back,' he recounted some of the messages. He said he understood why they are attracting so much attention. 'People are pissed, generally, in the country. They feel like the governing structures are not listening to what they're doing, and something like this comes up. All they hear is that this five Democrat member committee in this town is seizing this hard-working farmer's family legacy. … I think it's an easy target for people.' For Henry, the saga began in April, which he says was the first time he heard Cranbury was interested in the farm. He and his wife received a letter stating the town had identified the property as 'suitable for redevelopment' for affordable housing. 'Certainly, it is always the Township's preference to acquire property by mutual agreement with the property owner,' a lawyer for the town wrote at the time. 'However, when the Township is unable to reach a negotiated agreement with a property owner, the Township is authorized by law to initiate an action with the Court to formally acquire title,' it continued, noting the town would pay 'just compensation' for the land. 'It was a shock,' Henry said. 'Ever since then, we've been pushing back in whatever way we could.' Henry no longer lives on the farm — he hasn't since the '90s. He and his brother, Chris, inherited the property in 2017 when their father died, but both had settled in New Mexico. They now lease out the farmland — those animals out in the pasture, affectionately dubbed 'New Jersey cows' for their love of pizza and bagels, belong to a local farmer. After receiving the letter, Henry returned to Cranbury, where he went before a meeting of the Township Committee later in April — pleading with them to consider alternative sites. Scott, who has served on the committee since 2018, was moved. 'It was a complete mic drop moment,' he said. 'I felt terrible. I was like, wow, I didn't know we were doing this. There has to be another option.' The Henry farm had come to the attention of the township as a deadline approached for Cranbury to lay out its plans for fulfilling its constitutional obligation for affordable housing. It's something every community in the state has to do in accordance with what's called the Mount Laurel doctrine — a series of state supreme court decisions dating back to 1975 that mandates each municipality provide its 'fair share.' Cranbury, with its population of fewer than 4,000 living in about 1,400 households, had to say by June 30 where it would add 265 affordable housing units, to be built over the next 10 years. One plot of land, whose owner was willing to sell, was identified as a site to develop several dozen units. Finding space for the rest, however, proved near impossible. Scott said about 50 properties were evaluated against strict state-mandated criteria, such as sewer, water, proximity to mass transportation, and distance from warehouses. Aside from the Henry farm, one after the other was found unsuitable. Missing the deadline to file the plan would have opened up the community to what is known as 'builder's remedy' — effectively free rein for developers to bypass planning and zoning rules, which could lead to big developments, population increases, and higher taxes — straining town resources and costing residents. 'I feel like I was elected to do the greater good,' Scott said. 'I completely understand how this could be seen as the workings of a heartless, powerful government. But my primary responsibility is to the taxpayers of Cranbury, to the parents of the school kids in Cranbury, and I feel like the greater good is served by making sure that we get this affordable housing built, that we do it without a builder's remedy, and we do it without bankrupting the town.' Despite Henry's pleas, Scott said the committee — which had spent 13 months reviewing sites — had determined 'there was no other option.' In May, the township government voted unanimously to pass an ordinance authorizing the acquisition of the Henry farm 'through voluntary negotiations or through the power of eminent domain' — on the grounds that satisfying the affordable housing obligations is 'in the public interest.' Cranbury might feel like a small town caught up in the rules of the state, but Andy Henry feels he's David fighting the Goliath of government. Neighbors and friends helped him launch a campaign to save the farm, which attracted local and then national attention. Once the story reached a fever pitch, town meetings became tense. Public comment was filled with Henry supporters, who lambasted committee members for their decision. 'It appears jumping to conclusions and villainizing those serving in public offices has become a norm in the US,' Mayor Lisa Knierim said at a town meeting in May. 'Doesn't mean it has to in Cranbury.' The Trump administration also stepped in. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted about the farm on X, saying: '(T)he Biden-style government takeover of our family farms is over. While this particular case is a city eminent domain issue, we @usda are exploring every legal option to help.' Henry said he's spoken to her directly, and someone from her team now has a check-in with his lawyer weekly. When Henry, 72, and his brother grew up here in the 1950s, the land was used to farm wheat and soybeans. Back then, the property was surrounded by farmland as far as the eye could see. Now, Cranbury has two distinct parts: next to I-95, much of the area has been rezoned as 'light industrial,' attracting massive warehouse development. There's still local farmland, most of which is across another major road, spreading west from the center of the community founded in the 19th century. The Henry farm is in the more industrial area while most of the agricultural land on the other side is designated 'preserved farmland' that cannot be developed. An affordable housing consultant, speaking on background due to the sensitivity of the situation in Cranbury, told CNN the Henry farm would get a strong score on the state rubric grading how suitable a site is for development into homes. He said a property must come close to perfect to qualify for state funding. One question not being debated here is the need for affordable housing. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition found that New Jersey is over 200,000 units short on affordable housing, and Matthew Desmond, a sociology professor at Princeton University, has noted that when the nearby township of Cherry Hill unveiled 29 affordable apartments in 2021, 9,309 people applied. Mark Berkowsky of Cranbury Housing Associates, a local firm that has been involved in previous affordable housing projects but was not consulted on this plan, told CNN the need in Cranbury specifically is clear, though he disagrees with building on the farm. 'We have a waiting list that is usually about two years for people to get into affordable housing,' he said. Even Andy Henry understands and is sympathetic to the need for housing, though he doesn't think his property should be the location. 'They have to build affordable housing, and we're not opposed to that,' he said. 'It's how much and where.' The plans formally filed with the state show that Cranbury is seeking to buy a little over 11 acres of the 21-acre property. The farmhouse where generations of Henry's forebears grew up would be untouched. Even with that concession, Henry is not interested. 'It would just kind of take away the soul of the farm,' he said, adding no amount of money could get him to sell, though there have been 'countless' offers over the years from developers. 'They just keep going up and up and I'm not trying to negotiate with them, I just say no, there's no plans to sell in the foreseeable future,' Henry said. 'Right away they'll come back, 'So how about if we give you a few million more dollars?' And it's like, 'I'm not trying to negotiate with you, I mean what I said.'' The great hope for both sides seems to be that an as-yet unknown landowner will step up and be interested in having the township buy their property for development, sparing the farm. But for now, the next stages of the battle are taking shape, watched both locally and nationally. Last week, Henry got a letter from the town noting that it would like to schedule an appraisal — the first step in an eminent domain proceeding, to determine the fair market price to be paid if the town forces the sale. For his part, Henry is awaiting a judge's ruling on whether he can add his farm to a preservation order, protecting it from development. Asked why that's not something he'd done before, Henry said: 'We didn't see the threat coming from the town. We knew developers were interested in it; most of them will ask politely and we'll politely say no. We didn't see the town coming.' CNN's Linh Tran contributed to this story.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
Hong Kong judge rules in favor of transgender bathroom access
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong judge on Wednesday ruled to strike down regulations criminalizing the use of bathrooms designated for the opposite sex, ruling in favor of transgender individuals' rights to access public toilets matching their identity. Judge Russell Coleman approved the judicial review of K, who was born a woman and identifies as a man, saying the regulations contravene an article of the city's mini-constitution that stipulates all residents should be equal before the law. But he suspended the declaration to strike down the regulations for a year to allow the government 'to consider whether it wishes to implement a way to deal with the contravention.' He said in the judgment that the regulations and 'drawing the line of a person's biological sex at birth create a disproportionate and unnecessary intrusion into the privacy and equality rights.' The ruling marks another step forward in recognizing the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Chinese financial hub. In recent years, the government has revised policies following activists' wins in legal challenges. Currently, only children under 5 years old accompanied by an opposite sex adult can enter a public washroom designated for the opposite sex. Those violating the rule face a fine of up to 2,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $255). K launched a legal challenge in 2022, seeking to expand the exemption to pre-operative transgender people who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have a medical need to undergo the process of living in their identified gender. He argued that his constitutional rights were infringed by the prohibition against him using public toilets allocated for men, the court heard. The Environment and Ecology Bureau said in an emailed statement that the government will carefully study the judgment and consult the Department of Justice on the appropriate follow-up action. Quarks, a group serving transgender youth in Hong Kong, welcomed the ruling, urging officials to take immediate action to rectify what it called long-standing discrimination in the system. 'The ruling is not just an affirmation of transgender rights legally but also a big step forward for Hong Kong's overall human rights development,' it said on Instagram. In 2023, Hong Kong's top court ruled that full sex reassignment surgery should not be a prerequisite for transgender people to have their gender changed on their official identity cards. The next year, the government revised its policy to allow people who have not completed full gender-affirmation surgery to change their genders on ID cards as long as they fulfill certain conditions. The conditions include the removal of breasts for transgender men, the removal of the penis and testes for transgender women, and having undergone continuous hormonal treatment for at least two years before applying. Applicants also have to continue their hormonal treatment and submit blood test reports for random checks upon the government's request. In April, activist Henry Tse, who won the legal battle in 2023 and received his new ID card reflecting his gender change last year, lodged a fresh legal challenge over the new requirements. Leung writes for the Associated Press.
