MOLDY CITY

Update:Oyster has more on the subject.

Two year old quote:

Responding to an e-mail from Gray about the bill, Nagin noted that he just completed his difficult re-election bid and had not had enough time to review the proposal.

"My initial take is that we not move anything forward right now as I learned a lot about who my true friends (sic) and who are real supporters of the city of new orleans," Nagin wrote, according to the e-mail obtained by The Times-Picayune. "This bill unfortunately is one that I think should be tabled this session until I have a few heart to heart meetings with its sponsors. We will oppose it and not fund this if it passes."

New quote:

"I'm a little bit concerned that we're overtaxing a couple of firms," the mayor said during Wednesday's board meeting. "One other selection, I'm just not comfortable that we have done enough due diligence yet for the firm to step up to the plate."

The mayor added: "You've gotten me into this a little bit further than I wanted to go, but let's just delay it a meeting."
...
"At City Hall right now, we are pushing forward probably close to $1 billion worth of projects, and I'm seeing some strains as it relates to that, and I would not want to see that happen here," he said.

It may well be that the mayor's concerns were prompted by something that he noticed while driving his mack truck through the numbers, but this a mayor who learned a lot about his true friends. Unfortunately, a direct link to CHANGE's Inc.'s latest report doesn't work. You need to look up "Citizens for Hope Action" and the latest report seems to be a year old. Also, you can only tell so much from campaign reports, but it's worth remembering.

I don't see one of the companies mentioned on any of Nagin's friends lists, but Veolia, which owned US Filter from 1999 to 2004, does have a history with the S&WB and the city:

Another potential bidder, USFilter, has managed two of the city's wastewater treatment facilities for several years. However, a myriad of problems at the East Bank Sewage Treatment Plant in the Lower 9th Ward -- such as sewage discharging into the Mississippi River 50 times during 2001 and 2002 -- has inflamed tensions between USFilter and the S&WB.

Labels: Nagin, Sewerage and Water Board

In this morning's paper, you wrote:

Pollster and Xavier University political scientist Silas Lee said Nagin, like any mayor of a large American city, often gets judged for successes and failures in areas outside his direct control, such as the pace of work on federal levee projects. Some of the criticism leveled at the mayor is misplaced, he said.

Shouldn't that have read,"Pollster, highly paid Nagin consultant and Xavier University political scientist Silas Lee..."?

Silas, if the mayor paid me $60,000 $73,500, I'd probably defend him too. But, you also said,

"People want to hear more from (Nagin), see more of him, to reassure them. But he operates from a corporate leadership perspective: He delegates."

He delegates? Maybe so, but he doesn't delegate like an effective corporate executive.

I'll have more detailed comments on the articles after I attend to Mother's Day obligations. I will cite the article's opening paragraph:

When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration quietly shut down the Good Neighbor anti-blight program last fall without reviewing thousands of complaints, howls of protest arose from citizens fed up with moldering, rat-infested houses.

The accompanying scorecard on p. A16 (couldn't find it online) implicitly praises the mayor for the 2005 city layoffs. I'll say it again, I didn't blame the mayor for my pink slip, but I certainly expected the city's remaining payroll to go to productive employees. But instead of retaining building inspectors, the mayor kept highly paid aides, department heads, assistant department heads and upper level bureaucrats on the payroll. It's certainly fair, though possibly naive, to suggest that blighted houses don't get cited and sound houses get condemned because of the mayor's failure to set budget priorities.

On a related note, I've been complaining for months that NOBC gets the funding, NORA gets the publicity. Not that I'd want Rob Couhig and company the money to bulldoze every thing that doesn't fit into their ideas for a post-Katrina New Orleans.

Labels: city budget, Nagin

Even if no corruption is involved, the city's grandiose plans for the public library system are a world class example of the path to a bigger and better bankruptcy. It's not being a nay-sayer to say, "Just fix things. Fix what was broken by the federal flood. To the degree that it's possible, fix the things that were broken before." To attempt to do more, is to risk accomplishing nothing. I'll expand on this in an upcoming post, but this letter writer makes a valid point.

I've tried to avoid getting into full-fledged Tucker Carlson mode when discussing the mayor's library board appointments because I could understand why more people didn't express outrage. To be sure, the mayor's stated reason for replacing Tania Tetlow as head of the library board:

Addressing the reason for change, Hatfield wrote that Nagin is tying to "refresh" all the boards he controls in an attempt to avoid "entrenchment" by appointees.

doesn't pass any kind of smell test. During the same month that the mayor expressed the need to "refresh" all the boards he controls, he reappointed his friend, campaign manager, and business partner, David White, to the aviation board. Of course, Billboard Ben remains on the Sewerage & Water Board. The croniest of cronies remained on boards that traditionally oversee vast amounts of patronage, while the mayor felt the sudden need to refresh a board just it became responsible for overseeing costly rebuilding projects. But only a fool would expect outrage over an obvious lie involving millions of dollars of public money; it takes racial conspiracy theories and threats of violence from the mayor to elicit that response.

That last sentence was joke. The obvious reason for the reluctance to question the mayor's obvious lie is that nobody wants to imply anything about Irvin Mayfield's character. I'll state it one more time, I'm not implying anything about Mayfield's character. You wouldn't need a crony heading up a board that you intend to rip-off, but you certainly wouldn't want an honest law professor who could easily spot a questionable contract.

Still, my concerns would seem a little more valid if I could point to an apparent crony on the board. Well, suppose I told you that the mayor didn't just name Irvin Mayfield to the board when Tetlow was forced out; suppose I told you that he also appointed Mose Jefferson's lawyer, would you begin to wonder what was really going on? Suppose I told you that the brother of a convicted bribe-taker, who didn't have time for an indigent defense board in crisis but did have time for a library board that would suddenly be in the position of awarding huge contracts was appointed, would your curiosity be at least slightly piqued?

Unfortunately, I can't say with total certainty when Ike Spears was named to the library board; I couldn't find the exact date of library board appointments online. I worked for the New Orleans Public Library before Katrina and I don't recall Spears being a board member. I can't remember all the names of board members, but I believe that I'd remember his. At any rate, I do know that this crusader against assessment reform* is a board member now. I also know that the appointment is recent enough that neither his law firm bio nor his zoominfo page mention it. Don't make me wave my hands around like the dork I am.

*Ike Spears, a lawyer working to turn back the I.Q. effort, said Ms. Jefferson — the sister of the local Democratic congressman, Representative William J. Jefferson — had nothing whatsoever to do with these legal challenges to the I.Q. movement, which he tried to dismiss by invoking an image from a past nightmare.

"When people were being airlifted off their homes, when people were in the Superdome, nobody was crying out for a single assessor," Mr. Spears said angrily.

Still, though Betty Jefferson is not named in the actual lawsuit, her name does appear as the complainant on the cover page of a fax from Mr. Spears's office.

Labels: cronies, Ike Spears, library rebuilding, Nagin

That should be, "the ($148,857) city attorney is Nagin's personal attorney," but I have no idea how to write that in French; and it wouldn't sound like Louis XIV, anyway.

I will remind readers that, last April, I expressed the opinion that people were missing the truly offensive passage in a Nagin speech:

We have
programs where you can buy adjudicated
and blighted properties for
half their appraised value and you
hire your own appraiser.
I’ve asked the city attorney if I can
participate in this program and
she’s keeps saying no Mr. Mayor.

What was he getting at with the part about hiring your own appraiser? And why the F*** did he run for re-election if he's mainly interested in the business opportunities that reconstruction offers? The second question was intended to be rhetorical, but the first question is entirely serious

I thought that I had said something about him using the city attorney as his personal attorney, but, apparently, I didn't.

No matter; from a Gordon Russell article about a deal between Home Depot and Stone Age LLC. in today's Picayune:

In April 2007, when Stone Age registered as a home-improvement business with the state Licensing Board for Contractors, Jeremy Nagin was listed as president of the firm. Jarin Nagin and the mayor were listed as vice presidents.

Seletha Nagin signed as a witness, and the document was notarized by City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields.

Moses-Fields probably notarized the document on her own time, just as she probably answered Nagin's questions on her own time.

Read the whole article and form your own opinion on the ethical implications of the deal. On the one hand. Russell points out that Stacy Head recommended that Home Depot be allowed to purchase city property for a price lower than its appraised value. However,

Head said Nagin also played a role in scrapping a "community benefits agreement" that Head initially supported but that Home Depot opposed. The document would have required the retailer to make specific commitments to hire members of the surrounding community and pay them at a certain scale, among other pledges.

Head said "the administration pressured me to forgo negotiations" on that deal because Home Depot had pronounced it a "deal killer."

Apparently, the mayor doesn't care whether businesses hire local workers, he just doesn't want them to hire Mexicans.

On the question of ownership, I'll point out that Seletha Nagin does not appear anywhere on the company's corporate filing with the state.

I'll close with a suggestion for the morning news anchors at WVUE, ask the mayor about something that he said last year:

Stone Age LLC was incorporated in January 2005, but the degree to which the mayor and his sons are involved in the enterprise is a mystery.

Asked for comment on the venture, Nagin replied by e-mail Friday that the questions were "out of bounds."

He said he would have no comment "on my personal investments that are totally outside of any city responsibilities."

But try not to get cold cocked.

Labels: Nagin, Stone Age LLC., transparency

Which brings us to the second reason why hiring an experienced construction manager is a good idea: capacity. The city doesn't have it, and a big firm such as MWH does. The company also has a lot more expertise than the city, and it has all-important experience in dealing with FEMA.

Good thinking there Clancy. Real good thinking:

The fiscal report also claims that city officials used "illegal contracting methodology" in inking agreements worth more than $92 million with two national firms, the Shaw Group and Montgomery Watson Harza. It says the deal with Montgomery Watson tied profits to costs, an arrangement that violates federal rules because it provides no incentive to keep costs low.

The report also claims both contracts were awarded without competition, which boosted the risk of "unreasonable prices," and that the city failed to monitor contractor performance. The Shaw contract, for home inspections and environmental mitigation, was written after the storm. Montgomery Watson already had a contract with the city that was amended to include storm-drain cleaning and construction management.

MWH's qualifications aside, it seems somewhat trusting to hire the biggest contractor on the biggest repair job facing the city to oversee all of the city's repair jobs, as a matter of general principle. I think the Picayune also wrote an editorial praising the move, but I couldn't find it online. The S&WB is a separate entity from the City of New Orleans, so its contracts might be handled separately, but it's still a lot of faith in one company.

Thanks Jeffrey, for reminding me of that DuBos column.

Labels: MWH, Nagin

A front page article of the latest City Business begins:

N.O. erects info barrier for citizens, City Council
Mayor’s public records request policy violates state open records law

City officials are violating state public records law with a policy requiring citizens to make all public records request in writing.

City Council members, residents and the media are regularly barred from public information on city activities or the turnaround time takes far longer than the prescribed three days.

The Public Records Act of Louisiana mandates city officials must turn over public documents, with few exceptions, within 72 hours. If city officials can’t comply in 72 hours, they need to respond in writing and explain why they can’t furnish the documents within the same time frame.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s office referred all questions to the New Orleans city attorney, who defends the protective public records policy.

“This has been an existing policy that can be verified as far back as 1994, when Avis Russell was appointed city attorney,” said City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields in an e-mailed statement.

I seem to recall something about a return to the politics of the past if we elected Nagin's opponent in the last election.

At any rate, New Orleans City Business says on its front page what the Picayune occasionally says in Saturday editorials, quoting Matt Mcbride:

McBride, through his work with the PRC, often reviews demolition contracts. The public records issue is one example of the city’s frequent withholding of public information, he said.

“What we’ve also found is they don’t follow requests for Housing Conservation District Review Committee agendas,” McBride said. “They routinely don’t send it. And a contract should not be hard to find, particularly if it’s for multimillion dollars.”

In a related note, I misstated my case in an earlier post. Editor b's friend (see the first comment) is correct that the Times Picayune has run editorial criticizing the mayor on weekdays. The hardest hitting ones that I could locate can be found here, here and here. Amazingly, the Picayune was able to editorialize about garbage collection contracts without mentioning secrecy or campaign contributions.

However, I should have written that the T/P's editorials about secrecy bordering on dishonesty have all been hidden on Saturday. Criticism of the mayor on individual issues is all well and good, but the mayor's utter contempt for the very transparency that he claims to "champion" is the background issue behind all the other issues. It's understandable that the editors of the Picayune are reluctant to question Nagin's integrity, but they only need to ask what he's hiding and let readers draw their conclusions.

Labels: bullshit, FOIA, Nagin, transparency

Spent too much time on blog-related matters last weekend, so I really can't put the time and effort into this that I'd like.

Since the Mayor's Communication Director complains about a lack of context in a recent Times Picayune item, I thought it would be appropriate to add some context to some other recent reporting. As you read, or hear, reports about the mayor's recent fund raising, try to remember the mayor's campaign commercials in which he insinuated that businesses that contributed to his opponent must have been motivated by a desire for city contracts.

I've already discussed Lee Zurik's report on the mayor's fund raising activities, Frank Donze followed with a report in today's Picayune. Individually, each made a stronger connection between the mayor's fund raising and city contracts than anything we'd seen before. Together, they make an unmistakable impression.

I don't want to be overly critical of either report (I was impressed with both), but even taken together, the two reports understate the case. For example, Donze informs us that "more than 10 percent of the money Nagin raised last year came from the city's three major trash haulers," and Zurik informed us that Jimmie Woods, of Metro Disposal, is part owner of other businesses with city contracts. However, neither mentioned that SDT's major sub-contractor and its parent company (link) are both Nagin donors.

As hard-hitting as this is:

More than a third of Nagin's contributions last year came from architects and engineers who do business with the city. All told, 33 such firms and individuals donated $74,500 to Nagin's war chest, with most giving $2,500.

In addition, Nagin raked in $8,750 from insurance brokers who share in commissions from city insurance contracts. The group includes the firms Fulton Johnson Newman & Pittman and Swanson & Associates, as well as brokers Felton Walter and Charles Kennedy.

Meanwhile, individuals and companies sharing in a city contract to collect delinquent property taxes and hold annual tax sales contributed a total of $6,000.

I still believe that Donze understates the case, but it would have been impossible for Donze to describe each donor individually*.

Still, take away firms and individuals who do business with the city, and you won't find many donors left that aren't from the Kansas City area (I'm assuming that the Kansas and Missouri towns that I'm unfamiliar with are in the KC area). This brings me to my one objection to Donze's report:

The campaign finance report also cleared up lingering questions about a fund raiser Nagin held last summer in Kansas City, Mo. Nagin has dodged questions about the out-of-town event, which brought in about $9,900, according to the filing.

It might have cleared up some questions, but it raised more. Even if none of the KC donors gave much, the number is intriguing. I assume that most attended the mayor's KC fund raiser, but there's still the question of why Nagin had a fund raiser in Kansas City in the first place.

Offhand, I can only think of three connections between New Orleans and Kansas City. Hank Stram died a few years ago and I doubt that Anthony Amato hosted the fundraiser. That leaves me wondering how many of the KC fundraiser attendees were MWH subcontractors.

Before you dismiss the MWH connection out of hand, note that Donze reports:

The report by CHANGE Inc. showed that two Kansas City companies helped stage the fundraiser. Black & Veatch Corp., which has done work for the Sewerage & Water Board, supplied food and beverage services worth about $2,600, while Walton Construction Co. provided entertainment worth $800, according to the report.

The filing also showed that CHANGE Inc. gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Kansas City mayoral candidate Alvin Brooks.

CHANGE Inc. listed a $2,500 contribution in 2007 from Montgomery Watson Harza, the engineering management firm that received a $6 million contract last month from the Nagin administration to coordinate the work of architects, engineers and building contractors hired by the city to fix flood-damaged public buildings and parks.

I would add that Nagin's report contains a contribution from "Friends of Terry Riley for City Council." Did you click that last link?

Update: Of course, Donze mentioned the more obvious connection between N.O. and K.C., Black & Veatch is headquartered in K.C. and does do work for the S.&W.B. MWH does much more, however.

*interesting connection.

Labels: Cronyism, MWH, Nagin, Terry Riley

Updated

The Picayune stopped short of calling the mayor a lying sack of sh** yesterday, but Saturday's editorial was a welcome step in the right direction:

To add to the insult, the Nagin administration shut down the program months ago without telling residents it was doing so.

This is outrageous behavior. Unfortunately, the poor communication is typical for this administration.

It is especially galling that Mayor Ray Nagin continued to tout the Good Neighbor effort publicly after it had been quietly shut down.

...

But that doesn't excuse the fact that New Orleanians were misled. Mayor Nagin ought to apologize, and he ought to make sure that residents get the truth from City Hall.

I found the concluding sentence (quoted above) somewhat timid, but that's not my main point. A pattern has become undeniable. When the editorial writers at the Picayune decide to criticize the mayor, the editorial is invariably printed on Saturday. Since the Sunday paper has the highest readership, we can safely assume that Sunday editorials command the most attention. I have no idea how Saturday readership compares to weekday readership, but I do know that weekday editorials get discussed on weekday talk radio shows; so there is at least one way in which Saturday editorials get less attention than weekday editorials. So once again, I'm left wondering why the editorials that criticize the mayor are always published on Saturday. In the past I've compared it to the mumblings under the breath of the coward who feels the need to say something but is afraid to say it very loudly. I suppose that it could be a different person making the editorial decisions on Saturdays or just a coincidence. Any thoughts?

Update: Editor B's comment prompted me to look through recent Picayune editorials. There have indeed been some editorials that criticized the mayor on weekdays, two or three were even fairly hard-hitting. FWIW, I didn't find any on Sunday. However, those editorials were about specific spending decisions and they centered on wasted money rather than on what led to bad spending decisions. For example, I came across two editorials about the sanitation contracts that failed to mention either secrecy or campaign contributions. The "champion of transparency" had clearly begun negotiating the new contracts by May 2006, but the price of "Disneyland-like" service wasn't revealed until late September 2006, by which time Waste Management had decided to pull out. The editorials that have discussed the mayor's very credibility have all appeared on Saturdays, which effectively means that they won't get discussed on weekday talk radio or, I would guess, in workplace lunchrooms. I'll add to this with quotes from editorials as soon as time permits.

Labels: Nagin, Times Picayune

Bush II administration lies are often so laughably obvious that you wonder why they bother.
Michael Kinsley

The title doesn't have much to with this post, but I liked that description of the mayor when I used it before.

I'm glad to see the Times Picayune ask the question:

How much shorter were the old cans than the ones the city is replacing them with?

But that leads to new set of questions. Some general:

Does Nagin consider the Sanitation Department a professional agency performing a vital city service or a cash cow for cronies and campaign contributors?

Do the mayor and high-ranking members of his administration feel any need to tell the truth? If not, do they feel the need to at least tell halfway believable lies?

Some more specific:

Why did a sanitation department that is in no hurry to implement a recycling program feel such a sense of urgency about recycling the metal in the old cans?

Is Veronica White really indifferent to recycling? Or is another money-making scheme planned? Did an important crony get left out of the last sanitation scam?

Why did the Sanitation Department first stonewall, and then say that the old cans were being "cleaned and serviced" if they were, in fact, being replaced?

Though nobody else seems to consider the last question anything more than a "gotcha" question, I'll make one more effort to show that it's anything but a gotcha question.

The possible answers are that the cans never were "cleaned and serviced" -- the cans were removed because the city could no longer afford to empty them and overflowing garbage cans are a health hazard; or the cans were "cleaned and serviced" and then they were replaced.

The first answer would seem reasonable enough, but why the dishonest answer to a reporter's inquiry? At best, the mayor didn't want to to answer questions about his budget priorities. At worst, there were reasons why Nagin and/or Veronica White wanted to avoid questions about the operations of the sanitation department. Either way, it would be fair to conclude that the mayor heads a dishonest administration and White heads a dishonest department.

If the cans really were "cleaned and serviced" before they were replaced, it would certainly be humorous, but it would also be reason to restart a recall effort. It would simply be unforgivable for a city government that was so broke that it had recently laid off 2500 employees to be that careless with funds. If the city had already decided to replace the cans, but paid to have them "cleaned and serviced" anyway...Robert Cerasoli has a big job ahead of him. I have to wonder how tough it could be, at least the investigative part.

*If the $670,000 cost of the new garbage cans ($335,000 already spent, $335,000 more requested) seems trifling, remember it was an argument over $600,000 that led the mayor to call the NORA board "high-maintenance".

Labels: "bombproof" garbage cans, Nagin, Veronica White

Money set aside to honor Katrina remains
Some on N.O. panel irked by fast action

Despite several members' unhappiness with the way the issue was presented, the New Orleans City Council voted 6-0 Thursday to provide $1 million in city money for a memorial honoring unclaimed victims of Hurricane Katrina.

...

Midura said she resented the way Nagin promised city money for the project without consulting the council, and Hedge-Morrell and President Arnie Fielkow agreed with her that the council should have been given more information and that the request should not have been presented on an emergency basis, leaving no time for review through the council's normal channels.
August 24, 2007

Council appoints board members
...
The yacht harbor is in Midura's district, and she has been critical of the way the board has run it. As chairwoman of the council's Governmental Affairs Committee, which reviews mayoral appointments of private citizens to boards and commissions, she tried for months to change Nagin's mind about some of his appointments.

Nagin refused to yield, and the dispute broke into the open at the council's Aug. 9 meeting, when Kenya Smith, one of Nagin's top aides, accused Midura of blocking action for months on a long list of nominations.

She denied the charge, saying she was ready to approve about half the nominees then and had received most of the other names only a few days earlier, leaving little time to review their qualifications before the committee met.

After a lengthy executive session, the council deferred action on all the nominations and Midura said the committee would consider the remaining names at a meeting Aug. 13.

The committee voted to approve all the names, including the Municipal Yacht Harbor nominations, which Midura decided to stop fighting after concluding that Nagin had the votes to get them confirmed and there was no sense prolonging the fight.
August 20, 2007

No clue? Council votes anyway
...

But rarely has the ignorance been quite as blatant as when the council this week considered an ordinance to "establish the NOBC Paragon Economy Fund." Although council members admitted they didn't have a clue what that fund would be or do, they passed the measure 7-0.


When the ordinance came up for a vote late in Thursday's long and exhausting meeting, Councilwoman Shelley Midura said she didn't know what the fund was and asked for an explanation.

Council President Oliver Thomas offered to explain to Midura the purpose of the NOBC, or New Orleans Building Corp., a public-benefit corporation created to find ways to enhance revenue from little-used city properties.

Midura replied that the explanation didn't tell her what the Paragon Economy Fund was.

Thomas, one of three council members who serve on the board of the Building Corp., admitted he wasn't familiar with the fund, but he noted that the ordinance was supported by Mayor Ray Nagin's administration.
November 4, 2006

*I was thinking of Yogi Berra, but if you're so inclined.

Labels: City council, Nagin, spineless jellyfish

Updated 8/07/07 Something was bothering me the whole time I wrote the update -- Bienville is on the opposite side of Canal from the proposed site of the new VA hospital. Still, eminent domain could be applied to the actual hospital site, not to neighboring areas.

No posting until the week after next, I'm off to see if it's true that developers really are evil, give 'em an inch, they take a mile types. Actually, I decided on the Cove Mountain hike for non-political reasons and came across the news items later. Don't know if I'll make it to the Asheville-Hendersonville area; Bear Wallow Mountain is the next mountain over from Chimney Rock, where Last of the Mohicans was filmed. With the growth in that the area, I don't think it will be long until Chimney Rock is the site of a gated community.

I'll leave you with quotes from two local bloggers that I considered using as the start of an angry rant a few weeks ago, when my computer was broken.

Dangerblond:

I don’t care what Jim Letten does, some day Sugar Ray Nagin is going down.

Jeffrey:

I'll buy just about all of that. My only question is then does this mean we have to wait until 2010 or 2012 to see indictments of Nagin's cronies comparable to what we're seeing now with the Morial people?

In a comment at Some Come Running.

Update

Moldy City:

Excessive secrecy can only lead to more rancor and bitterness on the part who are unhappy with those decisions and help justify charges of conspiracies or crooked insider deals.

Some recent posts by other local bloggers.

I'll have to finish the update later, can't get Squandered Heritage (now available) and a Suspect Device (now available) comic on the subject isn't available yet online.

However, if you're going to go the "conspiracy" route, it's not just Bienville. As I said, I can't get Squandered Heritage for some reason, but when I looked at Karen's postings on the subject, I wondered who had designs on Central City. I know that plans for a Jazz Park are officially on hold, but there seems to be heavy concentration of demolitions spreading out in two directions from the CBD. The area bordering the proposed park is one, the other is also interesting:

LSU and the VA have been negotiating for months to build adjoining hospitals that would share laundry and laboratory services. The sister hospitals were supposed to be built on 37 acres bounded by Tulane, Canal, Claiborne Avenue and Galvez Street
...
The state and the city are now trying to hold on to the VA hospital by offering 34 acres next to the original 37-acre parcel where the federal government can proceed while the state debates how large and how expensive the LSU hospital should be. The new site is bounded by Tulane, Canal, Galvez and South Rocheblave Street.
...
In all, the city and the state would have to acquire 188 private properties north of Galvez Street to present an unbroken piece of land where the VA could build its hospital. Nine of those properties are blighted, and several more have overdue property taxes, according to a map produced by the city's office of technology.
...
The city's secretiveness about its plans for the area north of Galvez Street irked the leader of the neighborhood association. Paul Ikemire said leaders from LSU, Tulane University and the VA had talked to the neighborhood about the proposed expansion, but he had heard nothing from the mayor.

"Ray Nagin is our mayor, and when the city makes an agreement with the state regarding a community, I would have thought he would be the first to contact the neighborhood association," he said.

Ikemire, a medical student, said he understands the need to retain the veterans hospital downtown. But if he had the opportunity to talk to the mayor, he said, he would have suggested that the city look at area between Tulane Avenue and Poydras Street north of the interstate as an alternative. He said that area has far more blighted and empty space than the area beyond Galvez does.

To my knowledge, the administration still hasn't offered an explanation for the move -- a proposed move that increases the likelihood of the city losing the hospital altogether.

As far as I'm concerned, needless secrecy can justify any "conspiracy" theory, but I think that most people are too afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. If federal prosecutors shared that fear, there'd be no RICO prosecutions. Well, that would possibly be a good thing.

Labels: "futility of subtlety", conspiracies, demoliltions, Nagin

Jarvis DeBerry only writes three columns per week, some weeks only two. With that in mind, I thought it entirely appropriate to question either his work ethic or his integrity when he wrote a column last year that implied that Douglas Brinkley condemned Nagin for crying. That column is no longer available on the Picayune's website, but I've reprinted it here (below the Stephanie Grace column). I challenge anybody to read it and call it an honest piece of writing. Had DeBerry taken the time to read the book, he'd know that Brinkley criticized Nagin for much, much more than crying. After the election, DeBerry wrote a column in which he pointed to GNOR attacks ads as an example of how cleverly the under financed Br'er Nagin used his limited resources against Landrieu. That column is also unavailable online; I'll reprint at the end of this post. The role of the GNOR in the election had already been all over the local blogosphere when DeBerry wrote the column; once again, he was either lazy or dishonest.

Until today, I thought that DeBerry's apparent dishonesty only came into play where Nagin was involved. Now it seems that he's incapable of writing an honest column about anything related to New Orleans racial politics. He's certainly correct to criticize Shelley Midura for mentioning Mike Nifong when she called for Eddie Jordan's resignation, but he should be ashamed of the rest of the column:

It's clear, isn't it, why Shelley Midura didn't last that long at the State Department.

The New Orleans councilwoman, whose only memorable act this term has been her call for the district attorney's resignation, reportedly arrived at the City Council chambers Wednesday with something like a consensus intact.

He begins with a gratuitous insult based on a questionable judgement -- Midura's biography indicates that she spent ten years at the State Department -- and proceeds to a dishonest insult that shows an utter disregard for the facts. Maybe it's not dishonest, maybe DeBerry just has a bad memory or doesn't feel the need to follow the news that he's paid to comment on. I guess facts are for beat reporters, not op-ed columnists.

But DeBerry isn't through with the insults:

You see, Midura, a white woman, cares more about black folks than black folks. She knows that Jordan's chief problem is that he doesn't love black people as much as she does and, actually, is afflicted with that disease that makes him love white people too much.

Well, isn't he clever? If DeBerry were honest enough to think back to the inspector general controversy, he might remember that Midura was brought to tears by charges of racism when she proposed the creation of the office. Isn't it just possible that Midura was being defensive rather than condescending or paternalistic? I would certainly expect DeBerry, of all people, to consider the possibility:

But if it's true in physics that "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction," the corresponding law of politics might read "for every action there's bound to be an opposite overreaction." Imagine Nagin not having been constantly hectored to show his racial bonafides. Imagine a certain clergyman with 20,000 parishioners not calling Nagin "a white man in black skin." Imagine the mayor not overreacting to that comment and countless others with the George Clinton "chocolate city" allusion

In the same column in which DeBerry argued that "Chocolate City" was an understanable reaction on Nagin's part (to charges of being an "oreo'), he also wrote:

The novelist Toni Morrison argues in a 1997 essay that, as a rule, Americans don't require black people to make sense.

Well, I don't know about most Americans, but I'd expect anybody, of any color, in DeBerry's position to make sense. I also expect any opinion columnist to show some bias, but anybody who only writes two or three columns a week has the time to do enough fact checking to at least give the impression of integrity and consistency.

I suppose it would be just plain silly to point out that there's a stereotype of white, female bumblingness that was depicted most memorably by Lucille Ball.. But does DeBerry really believe that nobody in the audience would have shouted "racism" if Midura hadn't been crass enough to bring up Mike Nifong? The title of his column implies that.

What follows is the "Br'er Nagin" column in its entirety. Remember, Schroeder and other bloggers, who all have other jobs, had already traced the atacks ads that DeBerry praises to the Greater New Orleans Republicans:

May 26, 2006 Friday
SECTION: METRO - EDITORIAL; Jarvis DeBerry; Pg. 7

LENGTH: 611 words

HEADLINE: Br'er Nagin's enemies outfox themselves

BYLINE: Jarvis DeBerry

BODY:


"But I don't understand," the young boy said. "Seems like Br'er Nagin had gotten himself in a real sticky predicament. Why couldn't Br'er Landrieu finish him off?"

"He amassed too big an army."

"Too big? But don't the bigger armies always win?"

"Not necessarily, son. Especially not when some soldiers put passion ahead of discipline."

"You're confusing me," he said.

Of course, I was confusing him. By the time I was telling my young neighbor the story of Ray Nagin's re-election, decades had passed. Parts of the story were surprising to those who'd seen it happen. How much more difficult to comprehend it must be for a boy whose parents weren't even born at the time.

"You have to understand, son, that there can come a point when so many people are lined up on your side that folks on the outside can't tell what your side is about."

"Is that what happened to Br'er Landrieu?"

"That's part of it."

"What's the other part?"

"Some folks gave him some help he didn't really need."

"Like that B.B. King song?"

I smiled. I'd taught the boy well. "Boy, you too little to know about B.B. the King. But yes. How did B.B. put it? 'I believe to my soul that you're giving me some outside help that I don't think I really need.' "

"Was somebody cheating on Br'er Landrieu?"

I laughed. "No, son. Not to my knowledge. I don't mean it in the sarcastic sense like B.B. did. I mean it in the literal sense: He had some eager beavers in his camp, and in their zeal to bring down Br'er Nagin, they helped him wiggle free.

"Hmm, maybe foxes is the better word." I winked.

The boy shouted out. "Like Br'er Fox?!" I tell you, this boy's teacher needed a gold star.

"Yes," I said. "What did we agree was the biggest mistake Br'er Fox made in his attempt to vanquish that wily Br'er Rabbit?"

"That he let his desire to humiliate the rabbit overtake his desire to eat him." I nodded.

"But you said Br'er Landrieu was a nice guy," the boy said. "Did he want to humiliate Br'er Nagin?"

"No, I don't think he did. But remember that big army I said he amassed? Some of them did. There was Br'er Doug Brinkley, who thought he'd throw Br'er Nagin into a briar patch by ridiculing the tears he says the mayor shed after Hurricane Katrina. If that man wasn't eaten up with rage! But as you've probably already figured out, Br'er Brinkley's attempt to bring about Br'er Nagin's bloody demise won the mayor that little bit of extra sympathy he needed to win the election.

"Then, too, some white folks must have bolted when Br'er Paul Morton lined up behind the challenger and once again questioned the incumbent's black cred."

"But that's the same thing he was saying in some of the first stories you told me. So what did Br'er Nagin do?"

"Flipped it on him. Embraced the criticism. Had his army send out fliers praising their man as Ray Reagan."

"But you told me that Reagan was an eppretech."

"Epithet, son, epithet. And, what I told you was that Reagan was pretty much abhorred by black folks. There were some white folks who loved him like the Lord loves the truth."

"So how come black folks didn't bolt when Nagin embraced Reagan?"

"They didn't necessarily see those fliers. Br'er Nagin's army, small to the point of seeming nonexistent at times, had but a few bullets and they fired each one with precision. No scattershot attacks from them. In fact, when it was all over, Br'er Nagin compared himself to David, who brought down Goliath with a sling.

"But it wasn't so much Br'er Nagin's military genius that accounted for his victory as it was the haplessness of the folks who took out after him."

Labels: DeBerry, dishonesty, Nagin