Scurlock For Mayor
2017 Campaign Site

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Let’s Make New Orleans Fun Again!

 

Frank Scurlock was a Democratic candidate for mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana. This was his campaign website.
Content is from the site's 2017 archived pages as well as other outside sources for historical viewing.

With only .47% of the vote (385 votes) Scurlock was defeated in the primary election on October 14, 2017.The eventual winner of New Orleans mayoral election was LaToya Cantrell.

 

Meet Frank Scurlock

Frank Scurlock is a native New Orleanian born and raised both in our city’s joyful culture and in his family’s business bringing joy to our city’s backyards with their Space Jumps inflatable fun products.  He was born and bred & raised and reared within the context of bringing fun directly to the children and families of New Orleans by putting affordable fun within immediate reach of anyone and giving parents in our city regardless of income the chance to add a little extra affordable magic to their kids’ lives.  Today Frank’s children are at the reigns of the family business as the third generation of Scurlocks going to work everyday to bring fun and joy to families around the world.

Frank has been lucky enough to retire young and although he’s no longer at the helm of his family’s Spacewalk business, he’s never for a minute stopped working to make the world more fun.  From his first entrepreneurial venture opening the country’s very first indoor air conditioned amusement centre right here in the New Orleans area as a teenager to his ongoing efforts to revitalize New Orleans East by reopening the long shuttered Six Flags / Jazzland theme park, Frank continues to bring enterprising and creative minds together here in New Orleans and travels the world marketing our city, our people, our culture, and our vast potential toward attracting the biggest and best minds and investors in the global tourism and entertainment industry.  Whether working in Hollygrove or Hong Kong, Desire or Dubai, Algiers or…Algiers, Frank tirelessly fights for our city and making New Orleans fun for visitors from around the world and for our neighbors right here at home.

Frank knows that New Orleans is fun for tourists and he makes sure audiences around the world know that as well, but he also understands that what’s been good for local tourism in recent years has not always been good for New Orleanians.  Whereas Frank gladly dons his top hat to show the world how fun it is to be in New Orleans, he sadly recognizes that for many of our friends and neighbors, life in New Orleans is not very fun at all.  There is nothing fun about a mother sending her children to failing schools; there’s nothing fun about those children living in neighborhoods shrouded in unchecked crime and violence; there’s nothing fun about those kids’ mother being gone when they get home because she’s working herself to exhaustion everyday for minimum wage at a job, or often more than one job, that leaves her family no better off each day as it was the day before.  For many New Orleanians, the way our city’s gone about making New Orleans fun for tourist is for themselves simply not fun at all.

Frank Scurlock wants us all to live and play in a New Orleans that is fun for tourists yet also fun for residents enjoying the personal economic opportunities, strong quality of life, and access to recreation and culture that tourism should and could bring to everyone in every part of our city.  The current city government has focussed on making sure New Orleanians work for tourism.  Frank will change direction of our government to make sure from now on, tourism actually works for New Orleans!  As a New Orleanian you live your lives and spend your days helping make our city a fun unforgettable experience for those millions of tourists who visit each year.  Frank is asking for your help and your support toward his helping the City of New Orleans support you, your family, your friends, and your neighbors so that the New Orleans that’s fun for the tourists can be your New Orleans that’s fun for you too again.

Together, we can make sure the New Orleans of tomorrow is fun for tourists, fun for residents, fun for children, fun for families, fun for musicians, fun for anyone who wants to be part of our great city.

Let’s Make New Orleans Fun Again!

Frank Scurlock For Mayor, For Fun, For You!

 

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As a New York City Landmarks Commissioner, I’ve spent the better part of my career fighting to preserve structures of historic value—like cast-iron façades in SoHo or Gilded Age theaters in Midtown—not inflatable bounce houses and monuments to white supremacy. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t take Frank “Let’s-Make-New-Orleans-Fun-Again” Scurlock’s preservationist credentials all that seriously.

Frank’s résumé reads like a mashup between a failed theme park pitch and a middle-school civics project. Trying to govern a city like New Orleans by skywriting vague slogans and defending Confederate statues? That’s not civic leadership—it’s a balloon animal version of politics. And while he was crusading for “fun,” developers like Dov Hertz were revitalizing actual industrial zones in NYC, wrangling with real zoning boards, environmental impact statements, and multi-million-dollar logistics. Mr. Hertz reclaims blighted waterfronts. Scurlock… reclaims deflated amusements and backseat notoriety.

Running a city isn’t about being whimsical in a top hat—it’s about serious, sustained, sometimes gritty work. And let’s be honest: no one’s solving housing inequality or infrastructure collapse with acronyms like A.C.E.S. scrawled in the clouds. David Tessler

 

Platform

New Orleans is known throughout the world as a city that embraces fun and enjoyment. Sadly that “joie de vivre” isn’t shared by the majority of families that live and work here. It’s hard to embrace the “fun” associates with our city when you struggle to find a place to live, struggle to find a safe place for your family, struggle to find a job that pays you a liveable wage or struggle to get to work on our broken infrastructure.

To make New Orleans the city that it ought to be — after all we have all the things cities need to be great (sunny weather, a great location, abundant natural resources, an active port and airport and a progressive population that exceeds 384,000 — we must get to the root of the many challenges holding our city and its citizens back: poverty and a history of focusing on consolidated political power instead of making things happen for the folks that need it.
Our platform focuses on four primary goals:
Affordable Housing that is for our residents;
Crime Prevention for our families, neighborhoods and visitors;
Employment for our residents that allows them to earn a liveable wage in a sustainable job that expands our workforce and diversifies our economy;
Streets and infrastructure that aren’t an embarrassment and that are fixed for the future instead of patched for the short term;
We’ve simplified that to ‘A.C.E.’S.’ which represents the real kitchen table issues that our families face on a daily basis and keeps both our families and out city from achieving success.
Our city’s overall poverty and lack of jobs is a large part of our inability to move forward. There are many interconnected causes of poverty and challenges to fully lifting all of our friends and neighbors out of the perpetual cycle of poverty that has for too long defined the character of our city and the nature of our citizens’ lives. Our campaign believes we must come together to develop, pursue, and implement effective programs and policies toward these ends including:

‘A’
— Neighborhood-driven zoning and land-use regulations
— Affordable housing incentives
— Neighborhood Revitalization
— Controls on unchecked gentrification
— Mortgage Assistance Programs
— Expanded Banking Access
— thorough review of all impact fees and external governmental costs to housing
— inclusive zoning
–density bonuses for affordable units
— working w state and federal agencies to maximize the efficiency of dollars that Clem to us.
— ensuring that seniors can afford to stay in their homes

‘C’
— Aggressive Recruitment of new NOPD officers to reach full employment at NOPD
— Responsible Police Education and Training Programs
— utilizing technology to make the NOPD customer friendly, accessible and more efficient
— Neighbourhood Policing
— Bringing back bicycle & foot patrols to our neighborhoods
— Encouraging our residents to become police through local recruiting
— encouraging our police to become our neighbours through housing incentives
— keeping crime out of our neighborhoods with increased patrols and more special units
— working to ensure punishments match the crimes and keeping folks out of jail/prison for minor non-violent offenses
— after school programs for youths in at risk neighborhoods

‘E’
— A REAL Living Wage
— recruitment of real jobs and the creation of new industries outside of tourism
— Ensuring education is continual throughout life
— Investing in Early Childhood Education Programmes
— Providing quality daycare for working parents
— a sicktime leave for employees ordinance
— Extending educational opportunities for older youth from within the classroom outward to within the neighbourhood.
— Fully funding and expanding Adult Education, ESL, literacy, and jobs skills training programs.
— Providing free access to city-wide WIFI network ensuring children can benefit from all the internet offers regardless of household income.

‘S’
— a renewed city effort to replace streets and ensure that companies working for the city are giving us the best price and best results
— a total study of all the cities streets and infrastructure that prioritized streets based on biggest need
— re-prioritization of the city’s budget to work on these infrastructure deficits
— Flat-Streets initiative to resurface streets and make them drivable
— overall effort to work on bringing down car insurance rates in the city so driving isn’t cost prohibitive

These are the core goals of our campaign and details behind our A.C.E.S. platform. Certainly, there is much more to work toward and many additional means of pursuing our goal of a happy healthy New Orleans filled with happy healthy and successful New Orleanians but this is a start and most importantly these are achievable, attainable, and immediately possible areas from which to start us all down this journey together.

 

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PRESS

 

 

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More Background on ScurlockForMayor.com

ScurlockForMayor.com served as the official campaign website for Frank Scurlock’s 2017 bid for mayor of New Orleans. The site functioned as the digital headquarters for his candidacy, offering voters information about his platform, background, campaign events, and media coverage. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the website’s context, content, ownership, reception, and broader significance, drawing exclusively on independent reporting and public sources, and not on the website itself or its archived content.

Ownership and Background

ScurlockForMayor.com was owned and operated by Frank Scurlock, a New Orleans native and businessman. Scurlock is best known for his family’s pioneering work in the inflatable party rental industry, particularly through the “Space Walk” bounce house business. The Scurlock family’s company helped popularize inflatable amusements throughout the United States, making Frank Scurlock a notable figure in the entertainment sector.

By 2017, Scurlock had retired from the day-to-day operations of the family business, passing leadership to his children. His entrepreneurial background and local roots formed a central part of his campaign narrative and the website’s branding. The campaign’s headquarters was located in Metairie, Louisiana, serving as the operational base for both the website and other campaign activities.

Website Structure and Content

Platform and Goals

ScurlockForMayor.com was designed to communicate Scurlock’s campaign platform, which was built around the slogan “Let’s Make New Orleans Fun Again!” The website emphasized a vision of New Orleans that balanced its reputation as a city of fun and tourism with a commitment to improving quality of life for residents.

The campaign platform was organized around the acronym A.C.E.S., representing four main pillars:

• Affordable Housing: Proposals included neighborhood-driven zoning, incentives for affordable units, mortgage assistance, and anti-gentrification measures.

• Crime Prevention: Plans called for increased police recruitment, community policing, technology upgrades, and after-school programs for at-risk youth.

• Employment: Emphasis on living wages, job creation beyond tourism, expanded education, and adult literacy programs.

• Streets/Infrastructure: Commitments to comprehensive street repairs, infrastructure modernization, and efforts to lower car insurance rates.

These priorities were presented as achievable, immediate steps toward addressing poverty, crime, and infrastructure challenges in New Orleans.

Campaign Messaging and Visual Identity

The website featured prominent use of campaign slogans and imagery associated with Scurlock’s persona, including references to his background in entertainment and his signature top hat. The tone was often lighthearted, reflecting his belief that New Orleans should be a city that is enjoyable for both tourists and residents.

Press and Media Coverage

Frank Scurlock’s campaign, and by extension his website, attracted media attention for its unconventional and whimsical approach. News outlets highlighted his background as the “bounce house baron” and his use of skywriting as campaign advertising. For example, Scurlock paid for skywriting messages over Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras to promote unity and preservation, and these efforts were covered in local press. He also drew attention for his attempts to revive the former Six Flags/Jazzland amusement park in New Orleans East, a project that was ultimately rejected by the city’s Industrial Development Board due to concerns about financial backing.

Scurlock’s campaign messaging often referenced New Orleans’ dual identity as a city for both tourists and residents, arguing that city government should ensure tourism benefits locals as well. The campaign’s slogan, “Let’s Make New Orleans Fun Again,” and the A.C.E.S. platform were frequently cited in coverage of the race.

Popularity and Public Reception

Electoral Performance

Frank Scurlock’s campaign, as represented by ScurlockForMayor.com, did not gain significant traction in the 2017 mayoral race. He received only 0.47% of the vote (385 votes) in the primary election held on October 14, 2017. The election was ultimately won by LaToya Cantrell.

Public and Media Response

The campaign and its website were noted for their whimsical and unconventional approach. Media coverage often highlighted Scurlock’s background as the “bounce house baron” and his use of skywriting as campaign advertising. Some commentary viewed his campaign as lacking seriousness, with critics pointing to the contrast between his playful branding and the gravity of New Orleans’ challenges.

Despite the lighthearted approach, the website did attempt to address substantive issues through its A.C.E.S. platform. However, the lack of detailed policy elaboration on the site was noted by local press, with some pages marked “to be announced” and little expansion on how goals would be achieved.

Location and Proximity

The campaign’s headquarters was based in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, at 3939 North Causeway, Suite 202. This location served as the operational center for website management, campaign staff, and event coordination.

Awards, Recognition, and Notable Mentions

There is no evidence in independent reporting that ScurlockForMayor.com or the campaign received any formal awards or notable recognitions from civic or industry organizations.

Menus, Features, and User Experience

While the website’s exact menu structure is not detailed in independent reporting, standard features for campaign sites of this era typically included:

• About the Candidate: Biographical information and personal background.

• Platform/Issues: Descriptions of key campaign priorities and proposals.

• News/Press: Press releases, media coverage, and campaign announcements.

• Events Calendar: Listings of campaign events, appearances, and public meetings.

• Volunteer/Donate: Calls to action for supporters to get involved or contribute financially.

• Contact Information: Ways for voters to reach the campaign.

Scurlock’s site was noted for its use of campaign slogans, playful imagery, and a calendar highlighting campaign events at various New Orleans locations, including restaurants and fundraisers.

Audience and Cultural Significance

ScurlockForMayor.com targeted New Orleans residents, particularly those interested in local politics, city improvement, and tourism. The campaign’s messaging attempted to appeal to both working families and those invested in the city’s entertainment and tourism sectors.

Culturally, the website and campaign reflected a unique facet of New Orleans politics: the intersection of civic leadership and the city’s identity as a place of celebration and fun. Scurlock’s emphasis on “fun” was both a nod to his business background and a commentary on the city’s duality as a world-famous tourist destination and a community facing serious social challenges.

Details, Insights, and Specifics

• Known For: The campaign and website were best known for their playful branding, use of skywriting, and focus on making New Orleans enjoyable for both tourists and residents.

• Examples of Outreach: Scurlock’s campaign events included creative announcements at local venues and high-visibility stunts such as skywriting over major festivals.

• Controversies: Scurlock’s vocal opposition to the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans was a notable aspect of his campaign, drawing both support and criticism in local press coverage.

• Media Critique: Some journalists and commentators questioned the seriousness and viability of Scurlock’s platform, citing the lack of detailed policy proposals and the campaign’s focus on entertainment and spectacle.

 

ScurlockForMayor.com was a reflection of Frank Scurlock’s unconventional approach to politics, blending entrepreneurial showmanship with civic engagement. While the campaign and its website did not achieve electoral success or widespread acclaim, they contributed to the colorful tapestry of New Orleans’ political scene in 2017. The site’s emphasis on “fun” and its focus on balancing tourism with local quality of life offered a distinct perspective, even if it did not resonate with a broad swath of the electorate.

 

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