MOLDY CITY

Since nobody else bothered to report it, I was beginning to wonder whether this WDSU report about Nagin and Meffert being sued by Southern Electronics was erroneous. Apparently, it wasn't. The Nagin administration is using litigation with Southern Electronics as an excuse to avoid answering questions from the city council:

Most of Monday's meeting was held in closed session because Southern Electronics' lawsuit against the city was on the agenda.

But Head said the private discussion held under the cloak of executive session had little if anything to do with the lawsuit and should have been in the open.

She also said that administrators at the meeting, including lawyers and purchasing agents, appeared shocked upon hearing of the payments to Ciber.

At least one of her colleagues was surprised as well.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, " said Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, after being told the gist of the letter. "Every time we ask questions, it's, 'you know, we're in litigation.' "

Gordon Russell's article about the crime camera contract covers much more than the lawsuit, but, as far as I can tell, that's the first time that the Times Picayune has mentioned the lawsuit.

Not that I expect anybody to care about my changing attitudes toward the local media, but I had decided to stop being so knee-jerk in my criticisms last July. I've been pretty ticked off since Gustav, but I've tried to show some restraint. That said, I don't think these June posts were angry enough. The mayor "takes responsibility" for problems with the crime cameras but says that it wasn't really his fault because the vendor walked off the job. The vendor reacts by suing the city, but, with one exception, the city's news outlets ignore the lawsuit. However, the city's editorial and op-ed writers do praise the mayor for "taking responsibility." Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Labels: crime cameras, Ray Nagin, secrecy, wise monkeys

Q: Why did Nagin move his twice-monthly morning interviews from WWL to WVUE?

Also in this morning's "New Orleans Politics" column, Frank Donze reverts to taking dictation:

The messages, in which high-ranking Nagin aides referred to Butler as "Kimbo" and other, more vulgar names, surfaced around the same time Nagin pressured her to resign in early 2003. (It later emerged that "Kimbo" was a misspelling of "KimBu," a contraction of her name.)

I've said it before, sometimes Donze does excellent reporting, sometimes he just types out the party line. I sincerely hope that I don't need to explain what was wrong with that last item.

I assume that I won't need to elaborate on this:

"I came into this job hoping to improve the city and diversify the economy and ride off into the sunset," Nagin said during a meeting with the newspaper's staff.

Labels: New Orleans Media, New Orleans Politics, Ray Nagin

Fox 8 just reported that a close friend of former mayor Marc Morial was indicted on some charge, I was tuned into whether there would be any mention of Rodney's association with Ray Nagin to pay attention to the charges. Of course, there was no mention of any such association.

Sure enough, the Picayune's website reports:

Morial associate charged with failure to file tax return

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Roy Rodney, a friend and close associate of former Mayor Marc Morial, was charged Monday with a misdemeanor count of failing to file income tax returns, federal officials said.

No mention of Nagin. That's an AP report, so I'll withhold judgment until I see what's in print tomorrow. But you can't blame the AP reporter for not knowing that Nagin and Rodney are good buddies, it never gets mentioned by the local media.

For the record, 2002 Louisiana Weekly column:

In fact, a rumor campaign to that effect circulated around the city. Even the entry of Rodney's business partner Ray Nagin into the race did little to quell the idea that the Morial insider planned to team up with Carter. Political insiders immediately took to the story because of its allure. It seemed to hearken to a move by Morial's political organization L.I.F.E. (Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors) to back Carter. With the news that fellow Morial alum Middleberg had jumped on board made the story even more believable.

There was just one problem. The rumor was not true. For the most part, the L.I.F.E. members have sat out of this contest. Some back Pennington. Most are waiting for the runoff before they publicly make their stand. However, their leaders are desperate not to show a division in the ranks.

When this newspaper contacted Mr. Rodney and asked the simple question: who he was supporting and was the candidate Troy Carter, as the rumors alleged, it was his secretary who returned the telephone call in Rodney's place and said definitively that the attorney did not support Carter. So, this reporter responded, "Who is he supporting?"

The secretary said, "I can't tell you that."

"You can't tell me that? Why not?"

"I just can't?" she concluded, and implied that comment would be the last that Rodney would release to the press.

As strong as a political position as L.I.F.E. continues to hold in the Crescent City, there is an attitude held by many of the candidates this season that a strong connection to the Mayor is the political kiss of death, considering the reform attitude that prevails in the city today. One can observe this displayed in the lengths that the Pennington camp goes to separate itself from Mayor Morial and show the Chief's independence.

One source says that Rodney does indeed support his friend and business partner Ray Nagin, but one can never tell in the somewhat Byzantine atmosphere that has descended upon this year's fractured election.

A glowing 2006 bio:

In 1997, the New Orleans Brass skated into the East Coast Hockey League. The four African Americans who owned the original majority stake in the brass were led by Ray Nagin and also included Roy Rodney, managing partner of New Orleans-based law firm Rodney, Bordenave, Boykin, Bennette & Boyle; David White, owner of several McDonald’s franchises; and Standford Barre, a local entrepreneur who owns a number of businesses in New Orleans.

Roy Rodney also played a prominent in an ad campaign that helped sink Paulette Irona 2002 mayoral campaign, as documented at Some Come Running and also, again, the Louisiana Weekly:

Reward From Peggy...

Waving negative flyers targeted to white and black audiences from a mystery group called New Alliance Business Political Action Committee, former Councilwoman Peggy Wilson has offered a $5,000 reward for information tying the flyers to a specific candidate.

The fliers attacked Senator Paulette Irons in recent days and an effort led by attorney Stewart Smith to find the identity of the individuals hit a snag the week prior to the election when Judge Joe DiRosa refused to order the identities of the individuals released stating that only the state ethics board had that power.

Information reveals however that Morial-friend and Ray Nagin-supporter Roy Rodney prepared, filed, and created five Limited Liability Corporations for the New Orleans Mayor's Race. One of these was an organization called Louisiana Teamwork, LLC headed by a lady named Gail Masters.

Louisiana Teamwork paid for a series of commercials attacking Sen. Irons, the first airing on January 14. The ads were placed by Ray Reggie's Media Firm, which is also did the buying for the Richard Pennington Campaign, and were produced by the same firm that did all of Nagin's advertisements.

Smith investigated Louisiana Teamwork and discovered that the organization had never filed with the Secretary of State's office. LA Teamwork did file then, but never registered as a political action committee.

To avoid releasing their contributor lists, Teamwork began to purchase commercials in the name of a new organization - New Alliance Business PAC. Under Louisiana Law, someone has to take responsibility for the purchase of political ads, but the disclosure forms for New Alliance state that their contributions only came from Louisiana Teamwork, a perfect cover.

Sorry, too busy to edit it all down, but it's not fucking rocket science.

Labels: Ray Nagin, Roy Rodney

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, the definition of sanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results. Unfortunately, the mayor's latest outburst produced a slightly different result than usual. If the op-ed page of today's T/P is any indication, Nagin didn't just distract attention from other matters, it seems to have had an intimidating effect on local journalists.

To be sure, James Gill did write about Nagin's most recent tantrum rather than more important matters in today's column, but he pulled the few punches he bothered to throw. Gill got in his usual witticism or two, but he also repeated the Picayune's apology for a recent photo of the mayor holding a gun.

However, the truly puzzling aspect of Gill's column was that it seemed to be an attempt to offer an explanation for the mayor's statements. A questionable explanation at that:

The security question came up after Nagin complained about blogs on a website affiliated with, but not controlled by, the Times-Picayune.

The Web site posts articles from the paper and invites reader comments. Among readers taking advantage of that opportunity, Nagin said, are "some of the most vile, angry people that I've ever seen in this community."

He is absolutely correct. Some of those bloggers can put a racist spin on a weather report, although it seems a bit of a stretch to blame the newspaper for that.

It's not at all clear whether Nagin was referring to commenters at nola.com or New Orleans bloggers, many of whom are frequently critical of the mayor. I suppose that Gill may have inferred that Nagin must have been referring to comments on nola.com because none of the New Orleans bloggers can be said to make racist criticisms* of the mayor, but that's a strange inference for a writer of Gill's well known cynicism to draw. Politicians frequently question the motivations of their critics, and accusations of prejudice are easy way to call motivations into question. Gill is assuming that Nagin made a perfectly reasonable statement in an interview that left people questioning his very sanity.

So, what should Gill have written about? Before I answer that, I'll quote something that I wrote last May:

To my way of thinking, those reasons fall into two broad general categories. Excessive secrecy leads to even more waste of money, which leads to more uncompleted projects and other fiscal problems. Also, whatever rebuilding decisions are made, some people are going to disagree. Excessive secrecy can only lead to more rancor and bitterness on the part of residents who are unhappy with those decisions and help justify charges of conspiracies or crooked insider deals.

I made a similar point the following August, BTW. Bear that in mind as you read today's article on the plans for the new VA hospital and LSU Medical Center. I don't know if there's corruption involved, although I automatically suspect corruption whenever there's secrecy surrounding a government project that does not involve national security but does involve millions of dollars; maybe I'm just too cynical. However, some things are entirely predictable:

"I understand the VA is needed for New Orleans," Rogers said. "My biggest issue has just been with the way it's all happened, and the absolute lack of respect the city has shown in dealing with people in this situation. . . . The only things we hear from the mayor are his grandiose announcements in the paper."

City leaders said they did not want to convene a neighborhood meeting until they had definitive word that the VA plans to build in the Tulane-Gravier area.
...
The city did not find it premature, however, to sign a memorandum in November in which it agreed to acquire 34 acres between Galvez and Rocheblave for the VA hospital...

I'll also point out that so much secrecy isn't just unacceptable from the administration of a mayor who like to be called a "champion of transparency," it's also unlawful.

So, James Gill, if you're reading this, stop paying so much attention to the things that the mayor does say, and start writing about how little anybody in his "transparent" administration actually does say. If you're worried about the mayor's the mayor's threat to coldcock somebody, relax -- I got your back. Or, I would, if you actually wrote about that, and I'd probably have coverage from at least a dozen other residents.

*Well, since Gill's colleague, Jarvis DeBerry, once explained that it was racist for a white man to call a black woman a "bitch," he might argue that high-maintenance size queen is also racist.

Labels: James Gill, Ray Nagin, transparency, VA hospital

It was tangential, at best, to the discussion at Oyster's, but I was serious when I asked who has the city contract for home demolitions. This piqued my curiosity:

DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP REGISTRATIONS:


36398233J 03/05/2007 NOLA DEMOLITION GROUP 9641 OLD GENTILLY ROAD NEW ORLEANS, LA 70127
Partner: METRO DISPOSAL, INC., Partner 9641 OLD GENTILLY ROAD NEW ORLEANS, LA 70127
Partner: DURR HEAVY CONSTRUCTION, L.L.C., Partner 817 HICKORY AVE. HARAHAN, LA 70123
Partner: STRATEGIC PLANNING ASSOCIATES, L.L.C, Partner 527 WEST ESPLANADE AVE. KENNER, LA 70065

It should go without saying that if Ray Nagin and Cynthia Willard-Lewis prevail in the debate over the meaning of the word "unlimited," Metro Disposal won't be required to pick up debris created by NOLA demolition.

Going back to an earlier question, I'd say outrageous. Jordan wasn't given a city job, but I can think of one non-profit that I won't be contributing to if I win the lottery this week. Maybe the foundation should update its website to say:

But thanks to the support of generous individuals and organizations nationwide, the NOPJF has raised over $1.3 million in funds that will go directly to help police, fire and EMS personnel (and Eddie Jordan) rebuild their lives.

Labels: Cynthia Willard-Lewis, Eddie Jordan, Metro Disposal, Ray Nagin

I had no idea that Michael at 2millionth weblog coined the term Fitzmas. Unfortunately, early indications are that Shepherd's bombshell will lead to more speculation about Letten's next move than questions about Nagin's actual conduct.

I can understand (understand, not condone) that fear of the "bias" charge or of hindering the recovery has caused the local press to be somewhat restrained in its reporting about the Nagin administration, but it's time to start asking some serious questions. Even if Shepherd is just firing a warning shot or blowing smoke, it wouldn't be "bias" for a local paper or television station to start asking whether there's any reason to believe Shepherd's allegations about the mayor. If the mayor's press secretary's response is that the charges must be false because the mayor is a "champion of transparency," one would expect the response to be "what transparency?" I expect the response to be that if Nagin's done anything wrong, the FBI will let us know.

Bernazzanimas? Thanksletten? Jack-o'-letten? Sinn Fein, y'all.

Labels: Derrick Shepherd, Fitzmas, Ray Nagin