On the clock: New Orleans has given theme park operator Six Flags until Monday to resolve a dispute over the company’s defunct amusement park off Interstate 10. The city is demanding that Six Flags rebuild and reopen the park in New Orleans East, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Six Flags has said it offered city officials a settlement two years ago—and the city recently came back and asked for the deal. Six Flags says that because of its financial reorganization, it doesn’t have the money for the settlement now. The company says it has no intention of reopening the park. Six Flags hasn’t commented yet on the deadline. The city claims the company is in default of its lease.
E flat: Online retail spending was unchanged in the first quarter when compared with the same period in 2008, an improvement over the 3% drop that happened in the previous quarter. Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, which measures online retail spending, says this is a sign of improving consumer confidence and makes him optimistic that e-commerce will pick up at the end of the year. The biggest sales jump happened in the sports and fitness category, which saw a 22% increase in sales as people become more willing to purchase exercise equipment online. Online sales of books and magazines went up by 19%.
Down with meetings: A survey of senior executives with some of the 1,000 largest companies in the U.S. found that 28% think office meetings are a waste of time. And 45% of the participants in the OfficeTeam survey say their company would be more productive if meetings were banned one day a week.
