Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Does Maya Rodriguez watch Channel 4 News?
If you heard the mayor's press conference last Friday, and you followed the NOAH story at all, you probably thought the same thing that I did when the mayor mentioned emergency demolitions. I don't want to be too snarky about this, but I saw a WWL tonight that belonged on WDSU. My first impulse was to blast Maya Rodriguez for reading a Nagin administration press release as if it were a news report, however, I've no idea what kind of time pressure she was under and I didn't interview a New Orleans resident whose house was destroyed by the collapse of a neighboring residence. I suppose that it's even possible that WWL management felt the need to give a positive report about the city's demolition program, so I'll hold off the usual media blasting. Still, I got the impression that Rodriguez went to the houses that somebody from Safety and Permits sent her to instead of randomly picking houses off of the list that she was given. As I said, that was an impression. WWL and Maya Rodriguez can redeem themselves by doing a follow-up story that inspects more of the houses on the list that Rodriguez was given and cross-references that list against other lists. I'm also curious about the list of 300 properties that Rodriguez reported the city discovered were are in imminent danger of collapsing. By my count, the city website has 67 properties on its list of Properties scheduled for immediate demolition because of Hurricane Gustav damage. There appears* to be over a thousand on the imminent health threat list from July.
Just in case you don't think it's worth worrying about, I'll quote the closing line of Rodriguez' report:
Karen Gadbois also alerts us to the fact that the next NCDC meeting has been cancelled.
*I counted 50 on one page, the list was 23 pages.
Just in case you don't think it's worth worrying about, I'll quote the closing line of Rodriguez' report:
The city is now in the process of inspecting properties in the historic districts of the city, like Treme, Bywater and the Faubourg Marigny.
Karen Gadbois also alerts us to the fact that the next NCDC meeting has been cancelled.
*I counted 50 on one page, the list was 23 pages.
