What Does the Government Owe Us?

Local Firms Losing Contracting Bids

2005-12-13T15:31:00.000-06:00

Speaking of New Orleans companies losing money, there was another article in The Times-Picayune today concerning local companies losing bids to out-of-state companies who will do it for less.

Raymond Pizzitolo was banking on a nearly $1 million contract with the New Orleans Police Department to jump-start his uniform business after Hurricane
Katrina.
But last month, a Kentucky company beat out Pizzitolo on the deal, bidding a full $160,000 less for the business of providing replacement police uniforms…

Pizzitolo's situation illustrates a debate playing out as the local economy struggles to regain its footing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: Should a less-expensive bid from a national company always trump one from a small local firm fighting for survival?...

"This is like an age-old dilemma," said Bruce Freeman, who writes a weekly syndicated column called "The Small Business Professor" and is president of ProLine Communications in New Jersey. "Competitive business dictates that you go with the lowest bidder; I don't think anyone would argue with that point. But at some point business has to take on a social conscience. My opinion is that, given the special set of circumstances, the local small businesses should be given a break…"

State law requires that contracts awarded through an open bid process go to the lowest bidder. The process is complicated when the funds to pay for the work come from the federal government, as is the case with the police uniforms.

You can only do so much. If the state only allows for the acceptance from the lowest bidder, there is not much that can be done. I'm no economist, but if huge chunks of money are going out-of-state, the odds that that money is coming back to the South is slim to none.

Phala Mire, director of the Louisiana Minority Business Council, which helps minority-owned firms get supplier contracts, said more needs to be done.

GNO Inc., a regional economic development group, is drafting state legislation that would help businesses by offering better access to immediate cash grants and bridge loans, similar to those issued to businesses in Lower Manhattan following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In the next 30 to 90 days and without the guarantee of new work, businesses that have survived will have decide whether they can continue to do so, Mire said.

"These businesses are going to die before our eyes. It's just a sad fact." Mire said.

In other cases, firms will leave the city. That's what Pizzitolo is considering.

Brown's Uniforms is a $1.5 million company that has produced uniforms for the police department and other local agencies for decades. But Pizzitolo, who bought the firm in 1999, is thinking about relocating.

If we don’t keep the businesses in New Orleans, what do people have to come back to? If there are not going to be businesses then there are not going to be jobs, and there will be no source of money. This all comes down to keeping the money in New Orleans. At the very least keep the money in Louisiana.

I honestly believe that New Orleans is going to become strictly a tourist city. If the city is not going to be up and running for another year, businesses are going to have to relocate to stay afloat.

Put up by FEMA and wanting more

2006-06-13T14:17:00.000-05:00

There was an article in New York magazine highlighting a New Orleans evacuee who was one of the last remaining Katrina victims still in New York.

He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city. The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for places to live. But thanks to the city’s squatters-rights law, evacuees here were safe. Their rooms weren’t paid for, but since they’d been in them for more than 30 days, the hotels couldn’t just kick them out. Only a judge’s order could evict them.
FEMA sent him $9,000 in housing aid, but he spent it all on booze, cigarettes, some clothes, and food—partying, mostly. “I spent my money just the way I wanted, and I think [fema] should send me some more,” he says.

This is really sad and typical. I do enjoy the fact that New York magazine highlighted an evacuee that has squandering their FEMA money on booze and cigarettes. Why should FEMA send him more money? Why didn’t NY magazine ask him that? They don’t care why they just care that he said it.

Another player in this game called Corruption

2005-12-22T16:15:00.000-06:00

As I talked about earlier, the FBI are cracking down on corruption especially concerning hurricane-related transactions. The Times-Picayune reported in today’s paper that the mayor of Mandeville, Eddy Price, was subpoenaed for public documents and was also questioned about his relationship with St. Tammany city councilman Joe Impastato and Mandeville’s former director of public works, Joe Mistich.
Mistich is the contractor identified by the initials "J.M." in a federal indictment of Impastato, hired by the councilman to clear land in Lacombe for a debris disposal project, according to sources close to the investigation.

The agents requested all of the city's records with regard to public works contracts valued at $25,000 or higher, particularly during the period Mistich served as head of that department, Price said Wednesday.

They also asked Price about Mistich's activities outside of the office and whether he thought it was OK for Mistich to run a private construction firm while working for the city.

Lo’ and behold, Mandeville is full of good, ol’ boy politics. I would have never guessed. Everyone knows everyone, and no one better squeal. I really want to know the difference between organized crime and Louisiana politics. There is no difference – they steal from the people they are supposed to be protecting, and they are all “friends” until somebody does something to offend someone else then their out. I think everyone who is confused about what the similarities are should watch Goodfellas.

Bush signs business tax incentives for Gulf Coast

2005-12-22T15:50:00.000-06:00

Apparently the federal government is taking steps to help businesses in the Gulf Coast stay in the Gulf Coast.

The tax legislation, which will cost the federal treasury an estimated $8.6 billion in revenue over 10 years, is aimed at encouraging existing companies in the Gulf hurricane zone to remain, while trying to induce new businesses to relocate there with the lure of tax breaks not available elsewhere in the United States.

Some of the provisions are designed to encourage businesses to open up their purse strings by giving tax breaks for purchases within the hurricane disaster regions of Louisiana and Mississippi for everything from real estate to computer software. Others reward companies that continued to pay employees despite being shut down or forced to curtail operations because of Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita.

Well this is good news for businesses willing to stay in the Gulf Coast areas. I’m also happy to see that there will be provisions for employees.

A Brief Absent

2005-11-29T16:25:00.000-06:00

I would like to apologize to my fellow readers for not posting any thing recent. As you know last week was the holidays, and I hope everyone had a good, safe holiday. Along with much holiday festivities, my brother got married over the weekend, and I stood in the wedding. And the present I took home with me from wedding was a nice case of tonsillitis. I'm finally feeling well enough to get to a computer. I will have a new post by tomorrow. I’m hoping there is some juicy stuff floating around since I haven’t posted in a while.

Businesses are coming back slowly

2005-12-14T07:56:00.000-06:00

When I stated that I thought New Orleans is going to become a purely tourist town, I didn’t mean completely, which is proven by an article today in The Times-Picayune.

Shell Exploration & Production will move its 1,000 employees back into New Orleans to its Poydras Street headquarters next year in a two-phase move, the company announced this week…

Still other companies -- including Energy Partners Ltd. and Tidewater Inc. -- say they're waiting on news about levee protection or tax incentives before committing to a return.

Richard Bachmann, Energy Partners chairman and chief executive, heads a coalition of energy businesses, banks and law firms that seek some assurance about levee protection and financial incentives from government officials before they commit to a return.

Tidewater will move administrative personnel back to New Orleans after the first of the year but has not made a decision on transferring its executive team back, said Dean Taylor, chairman and chief executive. Taylor said the playing field is not level between Houston, where the company is temporarily located, and New Orleans. "Our customers are all in Houston," he said. "The fiscal environment is much cleaner and it is much more economical for the company."

From reading this article, I think the main issues that businesses have with moving back to New Orleans is the reliability of the levees and tax incentives. Both of which have no guarantees as of right now. The state plans on giving tax incentives to get businesses to come back, but nothing has been decided yet.

Harrah’s is planning on reopening this spring.

Harrah's New Orleans Casino plans to reopen in February just before Mardi Gras
with about half of the employees it had before Hurricane Katrina under a plan
unanimously approved by the Louisiana Gaming Control Board Tuesday.

The Canal Street casino hopes to open the entire property "on or
about Feb. 17" with 1,250 employees and a minimum biweekly payroll of $1
million, and will continue ramping up with increasing requirements for pay and
workers as its revenues increase.

Louisiana depends on a lot of tax money from Harrah’s in New Orleans and Lake Charles. As of right now, Harrah’s in Lake Charles, which the whole gaming boat top-sided, has no date for reopening. Apparently the House voted last week to have tax breaks as incentives for businesses to come back to New Orleans except gaming casinos. As you can imagine, the casinos were not happy.

I’m sure having to pay fewer taxes is something every business wants, but the casinos are staying on their feet without the incentives. According to an article a month before the tax incentive article:

Louisiana casinos, ransacked by Gulf Coast hurricanes in August and September, came back slowly in October, figures released Tuesday by the state Gaming Control Board show.

With several properties still closed -- most notably Harrah's New Orleans, the state's largest gaming hall -- Louisiana's overall gaming revenue for the month was $171.8 million, down 4 percent from $178.9 million from October 2004. During September, Louisiana casinos suffered a 19.8 percent year-over-year drop.

Two riverboat-style casinos in New Orleans operated by Las Vegas-based gaming companies -- Boomtown, owned by Pinnacle Entertainment; and Treasure Chest,
owned by Boyd Gaming -- reported gaming revenue far above pre-hurricane igures.

Officials at both properties said the lack of entertainment options in flood-damaged New Orleans has made the casinos popular with the city's remaining residents and with hurricane relief workers…

Two of the Lake Charles casinos, operated by Harrah's Entertainment, remained
closed. But the addition of L'Auberge du Lac to the market in May, a $365 million hotel-casino opened by Pinnacle, helped the community grow its gaming revenue despite the hurricane.

Led by the $17.6 million in revenue from L'Auberge du Lac, which was open 24 days during October, Lake Charles riverboat casinos reported $30.5 million in gaming revenue, an increase of 32.7 percent from $24.1 million in October 2004.

The casinos are evidently not hurting too much from the hurricanes. To me the casinos always come across as big babies. “Wah! We want the special breaks like everyone else even though we are still making all the money!”

It’s great that Harrah’s is coming back to New Orleans especially to bring tourist back to the French Quarter, but give me a break. Louisiana has casinos so they can tax the hell out of them, and you know during this time when Louisiana needs all the revenue it can get, the casinos are going to be the first ones to pay out.

Well apparently the Government does not owe Entergy

2005-12-13T12:06:00.000-06:00

Who knew that lobbying well for the same thing could either mean receiving money after a disaster or not receiving it? There was an article in The Times-Picayune today about the fed not giving any assistance to Entergy following Hurricane Katrina.
Entergy Corp. investors, not taxpayers, should pay for the $350 million that the company's bankrupt New Orleans utility needs to rebound from Hurricane Katrina, a senior White House official wrote in a letter to an Entergy executive…

"The risk of a financial loss from a natural disaster is one that any investor in a private firm must face, and it would be wrong for the taxpayer to bail out those investors after the fact," wrote Allan Hubbard, chairman of the White House's Gulf Coast Recovery and Rebuilding Council.

"We believe that transferring federal tax dollars to the bondholders and shareholders of a private firm is inappropriate," Hubbard wrote.

Entergy executives and city officials who regulate the local power supplier have pushed hard in Washington for federal aid, warning that electricity rates in New Orleans could jump more than 140 percent if utility customers are forced to foot the hurricane recovery bill. They said such a rate increase would significantly raise the cost of living in the city and stifle its recovery.

This is the unbelievable part.

What's more, they've said, Entergy New Orleans should receive the same financial support given to New York's power utility, ConEdison Co. of New York, which received $250 million in federal aid after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers. Like Entergy New Orleans, the New York utility is a subsidiary of a much larger utility holding company, Consolidated Edison Inc., which was not required to foot the recovery bill for its subsidiary.

But the letter from the White House makes it clear that Entergy's lobbying efforts have fallen short.

I cannot believe that they would help New York but not New Orleans, and the reasoning is because “Entergy’s lobbying efforts have fallen short”?

The local utility sustained massive damage to its electrical and gas networks and filed to reorganize under bankruptcy protection shortly after the storm. With a greatly reduced customer base in the city, the utility has few sources of revenue. For the time being, most of the company's cash is coming from loans from its parent, Entergy Corp., through a bankruptcy mechanism…

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, said Monday that Bush's reluctance to finance Entergy New Orleans' storm recovery is rooted in feelings within the administration that taxpayer money was squandered on corporate bailouts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, particularly those that went to airlines that later filed for bankruptcy.

But the congressman said Entergy New Orleans is facing much more dire conditions than any of the companies that received federal help after the terrorist
attacks.

After 9/11, there was a brief economic aftermath. The stock market was closed for six days. Nothing like the economic aftermath that is affecting New Orleans.

I went to the New Orleans Entergy website, and no where do they mention the recent rejection of aid from the federal government. They do mention the work they have accomplished since Katrina.
The vast majority of residents and businesses in the New Orleans area will have electric and gas service available to them within six weeks following the approval by the New Orleans City Council on Thursday to reallocate funds to assist storm restoration efforts.

Entergy New Orleans has worked with New Orleans City Council members and the council’s utility committee advisors to identify ways to assist the company in accelerating restoration of electric and gas service. Together, the company and the council have developed a plan to make it possible for the utility company to secure additional storm restoration resources that will expedite restoration in New Orleans neighborhoods - except for the decimated areas. Those areas are expected to have power by February 2006.
The press release following this one talks about an assistance fund Entergy has set up to help displaced victims.
The Entergy Corporation has announced $1.8 million in grants from the Power of Hope Fund to approximately 2,200 individuals and families who suffered losses in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Entergy seeded the Power of Hope fund with an initial $1 million contribution. Through donations from employees, individuals, businesses and organizations, the fund has grown to $3.5 million. However, the fund has been flooded with requests for assistance. More than 10,000 requests totaling over $500 million have been received.
There was a press release over a month ago concerning Entergy New Orleans bankruptcy.
To protect its customers and ensure continued progress in restoring power and gas service to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Entergy Corporation announced today that its New Orleans subsidiary – Entergy New Orleans, Inc.– has filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Simultaneous with this filing, Entergy New Orleans filed a motion with the Court for “debtor-in-possession” financing that contemplates Entergy Corporation making loans up to $200 million to Entergy New Orleans to address Entergy New Orleans’ current liquidity crisis. The petition also requests that up to $150 million of these loans be approved on an interim basis. These funds will enable Entergy New Orleans to meet its near-term obligations, including employee wages and
benefits, payments under power purchase and gas supply agreements, and its
current efforts to repair and restore the facilities needed to serve its electric and gas customers.

I find this extremely interesting that Entergy New Orleans is filing bankruptcy, and still the company is giving away money. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t bankruptcy mean they don’t have enough money? Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. “To pay their creditors” – I think that involves money.

Am I the only one confused?

Amid all this confusion I decided to go to someone who might shed a little light on my bankruptcy questions. Gerald Casey is a bankruptcy attorney in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The first thing you would have to look at is Entergy’s assets and liabilities to establish how they are able to have the Hope Fund.

The company they filed under is Entergy New Orleans Inc., case number 05-17697, filed Sept. 23, 2005, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

According to the total amount of debt $3.5 million is nothing. This is going to be a really complicated case.

The contribution to the charity could be recovered through the bankruptcy and may be. It’s either a "fraudulent conveyance" or a "preferential payment.” I expect the employees will be looking at all transactions pre-bankruptcy in order to recover money to fully fund employee benefits.

Mr. Casey sent me Entergy New Orleans’ summary of schedules. Entergy New Orleans owes to the 20 largest unsecure creditors a total of $82,851,410.18. The top to unsecure creditors are Atmos Energy Marketing, LLC, who they owe almost $20 million, and Bridgeline Gas Markeeting, LLC, who they owe almost $13 million.

More information then I originally intended, but it does give us a feel of what he was talking about the $3.5 million really being nothing. It appears that Entergy is going to have to start doing some serious money management.

I want to know what happens if Entergy cannot afford to be in New Orleans. I guess another bigger energy company will buy them out. That will be real interesting with New Orleans like it is right now.

The Dutch in New Orleans

2005-12-12T15:08:00.000-06:00

I read a very interesting article in The Times-Picayune a few weeks ago about New Orleans being compared to the Netherlands. According to the article:

The North Sea's furious winters can kick up storm surges more than 13 feet high -- a lethal threat to a country where millions live below sea level, some as much as 22 feet down. And the Dutch have devised a peerless system of flood defenses -- one of the world's engineering marvels -- to keep that water out.

Giant barriers straddle ocean inlets, their gates poised to slam shut to repel the invading sea. Massive earthen dams run for miles, blocking off vast areas once open to the North Sea, now converted to freshwater lakes and new living space.

Those are among the master strokes. But the Dutch system is also noted for its subtlety. The only thing lying between the tiny red-roofed village of Ter Heijde and the sea, a scant 200 yards away, is a big pile of sand.

It's no ordinary dune, however. Monitored and maintained with obsessive care, it's built to absorb pounding blows from ocean waves. It may erode, requiring repair, but it won't fall down. It's engineered to fail less than once every 10,000 years, making it 50 times safer than the New Orleans levees were supposed to be before Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed them.

The article goes on to say that:

The Netherlands' flood defenses -- a sculpted landscape of dunes, dikes, dams, barriers, sluices and pumps designed to repel the twin threats of ocean storm surges and river flooding -- are light years ahead of the New Orleans area's busted-up levee system…

There was a time when New Orleans led the world in flood control and the Netherlands looked west for guidance, importing the huge screw pumps designed by Albert Baldwin Wood that had drained low-lying areas and greatly expanded New Orleans' habitable turf. Today, the Dutch system offers a trove of examples, from policy ideas to engineering fixes, that could be useful to New Orleans. Indeed, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu next month will lead a delegation of Louisiana officials and congressional colleagues to the Netherlands to study them.

The Dutch system works better now because of the Dutch’s diligence and care of their system.

Their philosophy, shaped by centuries of combating floods, is to fight water -- but also to accommodate it rather than just containing it, preserving natural flows where possible. "There's one important lesson we've learned as Dutch -- we're fighting a heroic fight against nature, the sea and the rivers," said Ted Sluijter, a spokesman for the giant Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier. "But if you fight nature, nature is going to strike back. Water needs space…"

The Dutch Ministry of Water, Public Works and Transportation spends $1.5 billion a year on flood defense and water management. If the United States spent that much on a per-citizen basis, it would cost upward of $30 billion annually, seven or eight times the Corps of Engineers' annual budget of $4 billion…

For centuries, the Dutch protected themselves by ringing settled areas and farmland with dikes, essentially the same approach used in south Louisiana. But the 1953 flood revealed a big weakness in that strategy: Storm surge water could move far inland through the estuaries, which were open to the sea.

This was also a key failing of the New Orleans system, Battjes and other Dutch engineers say: The region's levee-lined canals were conduits for Katrina's storm surge to pour into the heart of the city. From the east, water flowed into the Intracoastal Waterway and Industrial Canal, where floodwalls were topped and then collapsed, flooding the Lower 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish and eastern New Orleans. From Lake Pontchartrain, it flowed into the 17th Street and London Avenue drainage canals, which were breached, flooding central New Orleans.

In the wake of the 1953 flood, engineers and policy-makers presented the Netherlands with a choice: They could build dikes higher and stronger as they had always done in the past. Or they could take a different, more ambitious approach, building large barriers across estuaries and other open waterways.

The biggest flaw of New Orleans' pre-Katrina levee system was that it provided a low level of safety: It was built only to withstand storm surges from some, but not all, Category 3 hurricanes and was virtually guaranteed to fail in a stronger storm. In retrospect, engineers say it didn't even live up to its Category 3 billing. In fact, no one knew precisely what level of safety it provided because of its many weak points, changes in the landscape over time and the corps' outdated assessments.

Such problems are inconceivable in the Netherlands. Urbanized areas of the country -- such as the region surrounding Ter Heijde, which includes The Hague and Rotterdam -- are engineered to withstand the kind of storm surge that comes only once in 10,000 years. More sparsely populated areas, such as those protected by the Delta Works, are safe against a 1-in-4,000-year flood. The lowest level of protection, found in rural areas, is for a 1-in-1,250-year flood. All are many times safer than New Orleans ever was.

So all this talk of the Dutch could only mean one thing that the Dutch ambassador is coming to Louisiana to view the devastation in New Orleans. On Nov. 28, the Dutch ambassador to the United States toured New Orleans on a greyhound bus.

The gesture was partly symbolic and sharply political: a signal to congressional naysayers that smart engineering can overcome even the most difficult water-management challenges, said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who escorted Boudewijn J. van Eenennaam on a bus tour that included St. Bernard Parish, eastern New Orleans and Lakeview…

The conceptual design is an early step in a two-year, $8 million study that follows the corps' commitment to rebuild the levee system to pre-Katrina strength -- able to withstand the equivalent of a slow-moving Category 3 storm -- in time for the June 1, 2006, start of the next hurricane season. The study will explore the feasibility of strengthening flood defenses to resist a Category 5 storm.

Landrieu said she is not waiting for the study to be completed. She is pressing ahead in a campaign to persuade Congress to dedicate the money necessary for state-of-the-art protection, including restoration of wetlands between population centers and the Louisiana coast…

Two-thirds of the Netherlands is below sea level, Landrieu said, citing the country's experience as evidence of what can be done if the political will is there and money is provided.

"The Netherlands have done it," (Landrieu) said.

Making residents safe should be the first step, said van Eenennaam, who described the billions spent on flood protection as a sound investment based on what the protected areas contribute to the national economy. The New Orleans region is a major producer of seafood as well as oil and gas.

The ambassador said Dutch experts will continue to work closely with the United States as it seeks a solution…

Van Eenennaam said he will report back to his country about "what is needed here and what we can offer in the Netherlands."

The Netherlands invested in a world-class flood-protection system, he said, because it decided after the 1950s disaster that "this will never happen again."

Personally I think we should hire a team of Dutch to run the whole operation. I have been to the Netherlands a few times, and the whole country is very clean and well organized – or so it appeared to me. I think the main problem we are going to run into is, just like mentioned in earlier posts, corruption. Greedy politicians wanting to get their cut of the pie. Where does everyone think the original funding to keep the levees updated went?

On another note should preserving the wetlands be one of our main priorities in rebuilding New Orleans? I’m not trying to be callous. I truly am curious. I think that the Louisiana wetlands are often forgotten and preserving the coastland is important, but do we want the coastland to start past New Orleans? Because if we don't get some kind of levee/dike system in place the coast is going to be in a different area entirely.

I got the photo off the Royal Netherlands Embassy website. Is Landrieu purposefully trying to look real dejected? Or did they just catch her at a bad moment? Because if she is trying to appear devastated, it completely looks posed. Or maybe she’s sleeping? I will say Mary Landrieu does work hard for her money.

There was a press release on The Royal Netherlands Embassy website following the ambassador’s visit.

The visit by the Ambassador is the latest step in the cooperation between the Netherlands and the United States since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water have a memorandum of agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to share information on water issues. Soon after Katrina hit, the Dutch government sent water management experts and mobile water pumps to New Orleans to de-water the city. Ambassador Van Eenennaam will host Senator Landrieu and a bipartisan delegation of federal, state and local US officials to the Netherlands. The delegation will meet with Dutch officials in the government, non-profit and private sectors, as well as water management and environmental experts.
The press release goes on to publish the speech by Ambassador Boudewijn van Eenennaam to the America’s Wetland Reception, Nov 27, 2005 at the Wyndham New Orleans Hotel.

Let me come to the core right away: We’re here to talk about reconstruction, about restoration, about renaissance, about renewal. And renewal has several different dimensions, which I would like to – quickly – point out at the outset. So we know what we are talking about. The point of departure is that this city, this Gulf Coast, will have to be rebuilt. And it will be rebuilt. So, first there is the technical dimension -- physical construction and engineering. That is about building strong levees, a recovery of the Port of New Orleans, a rehabilitation of Mississippi River navigation, and a renovation of the Gulf Coast’s energy infrastructure.

Secondly, there is the economic dimension. Rebuilding this region will cost money, a lot of money. But it will be an investment that will yield good returns. I admire Senator Landrieu for passionately making the point that the Gulf Coast contributes substantially to the overall economy of the United States. And that reconstruction of this region is key to the local economy and also to the economic health of the rest of this mighty country.

Then there is a third dimension to the reconstruction of Louisiana and Mississippi, the human dimension. It may be the most important dimension of all. Rebuilding also means restoring dignity and power to the lives of the devastated people -- the human, the social, the cultural and the political vibrancy of this proud society. Not just restoration, like one does with historical relics. But about rebuilding to create a better, a stronger, society. It’s about lifting your spirits, restoring your hope. Proving that, for Americans, a problem is nothing more than a challenge to be met. An opportunity to demonstrate that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Like you did after 9/11.

I think the Dutch ambassador makes many good points, and the rebuilding process is going to take time and money. I think anyone that doesn’t think that is not looking at the big picture. Like many people know, when the state says highway construction is going to be completed in the spring that probably means December.

I like how the ambassador used the phrase, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." The ambassador comes across as a very down-to-earth guy.

Now, let me talk about cost. The Dutch give nothing away to the Scots when it comes to being frugal. None of this comes cheap, but the costs are not as high as you might imagine. The total cost of the Delta Works was about $15 billion, in today’s dollars. The Maeslant barrier was $700 million and Room for Rivers will cost us $200 million a year for 10 years. These fixed costs amount to $18 billion
over 40 years. Not cheap, but certainly affordable.

On an annual basis, water protection costs the Dutch Government $500 million per year. We consider this a good investment, as insurance for $350 billion of Gross Domestic Product (out of a total $500 billion GDP). We get safety and
security behind the dikes at a cost of less than a penny on a dollar of GDP.

Your officials are discussing how to rebuild the Gulf Coast, what level of protection to provide. We have learned that underinvestment in infrastructure may be penny-wise, but also pound foolish. If people or businesses don’t feel secure, they won’t return. They won’t build anew. They won’t take entrepreneurial risks. That would be devastating to everyone here tonight and those you represent. It would also prevent the US from maximizing the return on investment already found in this amazing area.

I agree with the ambassador now is not the time to be pinching pennies. Now is the time to rebuild the levees correctly. New Orleans will be saving billions by building a strong defense against future hurricanes.

Update: Nagin's trip to Jamaica (Nov. 30, 2005)

2005-12-06T13:06:00.000-06:00

At the behest of one of my commenters, I thought I would look into what the Jamaican newspapers were saying about Nagin. I found a few article in the Jamaican Observer, one of Jamaica's major newspapers. What I found interesting about this article is at the end they talk about Nagin giving advice to the Jamaican government about disaster prevention.

"Do a critical assessment of your disaster plans, from the standpoint of your evacuation techniques, make sure that you have them updated and that they are modern enough for the worst-case scenario," he said.

"I would also advise that in the event that a hurricane hits you, that you plan to take care of your citizens over the long haul and you make sure that you have multiple resources of getting food and supplies into the country," he
said.

Additionally, he said, it is necessary to have someone at the "top" who is willing to make tough calls in the event of an emergency.

"You need someone at the top who can make the tough calls so you don't have a dance going on which we experienced in New Orleans, where the federal government was trying not to step on the toes of the state government and the state government was trying not to look like they were so weak that they needed help from the federal government," said Nagin.

He added: "You need somebody at the top making the calls and getting things done during that critical first week after the storm happens."
Does Nagin really have the right to be giving other countries advice about disasters?

In an interview with Dateline’s Stone Phillips days after Hurricane Katrina, Nagin was asked if state and local government is to blame for the delayed evacuation. Nagin replied,

I think the spinmeisters are in full effect. I think the nation has realized that this was a big problem, and I think people are spinning. And I don't know who said what. I don't care if it was a secretary, I don't care if it was whomever, state officials, you know, that are running for cover. I will tell you, we as a nation failed a group of people that needed it the most.

This transcript can be seen via Newsmax. I guess he hadn’t exactly formulated a good answer yet to this question. Instead of taking responsibility for not evacuating early enough, he blames the media? I think he’s blaming the media or perhaps everyone who’s talking about it. I don’t know who the “spinmeisters” are, but apparently they are to blame.

A few days after the Datelin interview, Nagin was on the Meet the Press with Tim Russert. I think he had time to work on some of his answers a little bit. At least he wasn’t blaming the “spinmeisters” anymore.

MR. RUSSERT:
Many people point, Mr. Mayor, that on Friday before the hurricane, President Bush declared an impending disaster. And The Houston Chronicle wrote it this way. "[Mayor Nagin's] mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out. City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan." And we've all see this photograph of these submerged school buses. Why did you not declare, order, a mandatory evacuation on Friday, when the president declared an emergency, and have utilized those buses to get people out?

MAYOR NAGIN:
You know, Tim, that's one of the things that will be debated. There has never been a catastrophe in the history of New Orleans like this. There has never been any Category 5 storm of this magnitude that has hit New Orleans directly. We did the things that we thought were best based upon the information that we had. Sure, here was lots of buses out there. But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available.

MR. RUSSERT:
But, Mr. Mayor, if you read the city of New Orleans' comprehensive emergency plan-- and I've read it and I'll show it to you and our viewers--it says very clearly, "Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the mayor of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life-saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedure as needed. Approximately 100,000 citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation."

It was your responsibility. Where was the planning? Where was the preparation? Where was the execution?

MAYOR NAGIN:
The planning was always in getting people to higher ground, getting them to safety. That's what we meant by evacuation. Get them out of their homes, which--most people are under sea level. Get them to a higher ground and then depending upon our state and federal officials to move them out of harm's way after the storm has hit.
Russert goes on to say that Amtrak offered to help evacuate people from New Orleans the day before Katrina hit, but the city declined. Nagin said he had not heard anything about that.

Russert goes on to ask about the federal money that was allotted to better evacuate people if this kind of catastrophe happened.

MR. RUSSERT:
Since 2002, the federal government has given New Orleans $18 million to plan and prepare for events like this. How was that money spent?

MAYOR NAGIN:
It's my understanding that most of the money--I've only been in office about three years. So we've mainly used most of the money that we get from the federal government to try and deal with levee protection and the coordination of getting people to safety. That's primarily what we use the money for.
My point in bringing all this up is just to say that Nagin should not be giving anyone advice about disaster relief. The fact that he said that there needs to be someone at the top making decisions is hypocritical. Nagin said in the Jamaican Observer, "You need someone at the top who can make the tough calls so you don't have a dance going on which we experienced in New Orleans, where the federal government was trying not to step on the toes of the state government and the state government was trying not to look like they were so weak that they needed help from the federal government."

If he was the man at the top making the decisions, why didn’t he evacuate New Orleans earlier? The state government still looked weak regardless of if they used the aid of the federal government or not.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Though I looked into it, and there were plans in the works to have a New Orleans festival in Jamaica. So Nagin wasn’t just making stuff up.

Be that as it may, I still believe that Nagin shouldn’t be giving advice about evacuation and having a supplies ready for everyone when he himself didn’t make sure of that.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2005-12-02T14:44:00.000-06:00

Last week, I went and saw Good Night, and Good Luck. I realize that some of you might think this doesn’t have much to do with the general topic of my blog, but I think it does. It gives meaning to what we as bloggers are doing.

I went into this movie thinking it was going to be another L.A. Confidential – a crime film based in the 50s, but instead of focusing on cops, this movie was going to focus on reporters. I was wrong in a few aspects. The movie did revolve around reporters in the 1950s, but more importantly a CBS reporter named Edward Murrow and his coverage the McCarthy trials. Another mistake I made was thinking this movie was fiction.

What struck me about this film and why I mention it today is the impact Murrow had on journalism, and the media’s responsibility to be a political watchdog.

The film begins with Morrow being honored at the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation Convention on Oct. 15, 1958. He begins his speech:

This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.

There is a flashback, and the audience is in the newsroom years ago with reporters bustling around and secretaries delivering coffee. The movie goes on to tell of Murrow’s convictions that what McCarthy accusation was doing was wrong and unconstitutional. The problem during the time was reporters and journalists were afraid to do stories disagreeing with McCarthy because then they to would be black listed.

In Murrow’s awards speech, he mentions many things that are so relevant now.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future. If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.

These are excerpts from the speech he gave in 1958. I believe that blogs and the Internet have become to voice of the people. It is the place where people are saying things that others don’t want to hear but need to.

George Clooney is the director of this movie and a staunch liberal. I’m positive the Clooney’s main purpose in making this film is to illustrate the parallels between the Red Scare and current Iraq war. During the McCarthy era, if you disagreed with what the government was doing or how McCarthy was singling out people without evidence, you were considered a communist. Currently, the situation is very similar. If you oppose the Iraq War and disagree with Bush, you might be called unpatriotic or disloyal.

The final part of Murrow’s speech had a definite ring of truth and timelessness.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

I strongly suggest reading Morrow’s entire speech.

The reason I mentioned this movie and Murrow is because it brought to my attention the importance of what we as bloggers are doing – especially the bloggers who are doing investigative reporting and discovering important things that aren’t being reported on the news. It is not always popular to believe the truth, but it is still the truth, and someone needs to say it. I believe Murrow was one of those people for radio and television, and unfortunately I cannot name one journalist now that I feel has done the same thing.

Where is Nagin?

2005-11-30T14:10:00.000-06:00

According to an article in the Times Picayune on Saturday, Nov. 26, Nagin has not only been absent, but he was also being allusive as to where he was going.

He wasn't on hand Nov. 18 when a panel of more than 50 specialists in urban and post-disaster planning from the Urban Land Institute released the most comprehensive recovery plan yet proposed for his hurricane-ravaged city.

Nagin's office said last week that he was in Washington meeting with federal officials about help for the city. But it turned out that starting Nov. 18, he was on vacation in Jamaica, taking what spokeswoman Sally Forman said this week was some "much-needed" time with his family after weeks of separation and intense stress. He was due to return Friday.

I’m sure Nagin needed some time with his family, and you can’t ask some to work for 3 months nonstop. But you would think that some time at home would do the job. I’m sure the people of New Orleans don’t appreciate their mayor going to a tropical island to get some much needed r-n-r. But never fear Nagin gives another reason for being in Jamaica. Economic reasons.

The paper said that after his arrival, Nagin told reporters in Montego Bay that New Orleans hopes to strengthen its economic ties with Jamaica. The mayor was quoted as saying that the city and the Caribbean island "both have unique characters, unique styles, wonderful food." At the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Nagin said, planning was under way for a November festival in Jamaica designed to strengthen its ties with New Orleans.

There’s a reason for every thing Nagin does or offers.
Nagin: The Jamaican newspaper is asking me why I’m in Jamaica…? Uhhh…I want to have Jamaica be part of the new New Orleans so I think we shall have a festival. Yes. That’s it. That was my plan all along…even before Katrina.

Every time I read something new about Nagin I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I really hope that he doesn’t have a huge role in the rebuilding process.

Update St. Tammany Corruption: Impastato denies doing anything wrong (Previous Post 11/17/05)

2005-11-21T12:39:00.000-06:00

As the title suggests, the St. Tammany councilman, who the feds arrested last week for receiving two checks amounting in $85,000 in kickbacks from a post-Katrina debris contractor, is denying that the money was for kickbacks.

"I am innocent of all charges," Impastato said. "At no time did I misuse my public position or do anything to bring dishonor on the parish or my family."

Impastato defended his decision to accept the two cashiers checks worth $85,000, saying he characterized the exchange as "no different than any other business deal." He also said he initially sought legal counsel before proceeding with the deal and believed that his negotiations were legal.

According to the affidavit, Impastato allegedly attempted to broker a deal between OMNI and an unidentified St. Tammany businessman to dump storm debris at an undeveloped tract of land the businessman owns in the parish.

Impastato agreed to facilitate the agreement in exchange for a bribe equal to half of the contract's value, according to the affidavit.
However, once OMNI began hauling the debris to the site, a relative of the businessman told Impastato that there would be no kickbacks, making Impastato "visibly upset," the affidavit said.

To me it feels like he was caught red handed, but I’m not one to believe someone is guilty by supposed facts illustrated in the news. I do think that if you are involved in any sort of governmental profession then that takes precedent over your personal business transactions -- especially being a local government official in a devastated parish. He had to have known that even if his business dealings were legal with OMNI that someone would take offense that he is profiting from Hurricane Katrina cleanup.

Corporations Buy Destroyed Homes in New Orleans

2005-11-18T13:17:00.000-06:00

A quite plausible plan has been introduced by Rep. Richard Baker, R - Baton Rouge, to help New Orleans’ homeowners and cleaning up the city.

Key Louisiana political leaders lined up behind federal legislation Thursday creating a public corporation to buy some of the thousands of hurricane-damaged homes in metropolitan New Orleans and sell them to developers as part of the rebuilding of the region.

The bill would create the Louisiana Recovery Corporation, which would be financed with federal Treasury bonds so that the state doesn't have to return year after year to Congress seeking financial assistance in a rebuilding process that is expected to take years.

Based on redevelopment plans from state and local officials, the corporation would approach homeowners and offer to buy their property. A critical element -- how the property would be valued -- is still being worked out, but would be based on how much equity homeowners have in the property.

Under the bill, property owners would not be required to sell, but Baker expects that many in heavily damaged areas would want to, especially if they don't have the money to rebuild. Tracts of land would then be packaged and sold to developers who would bid for the right to rebuild them.

Baker said he filed the bill out of concern that homeowners would be forced into bankruptcy if they had to pay mortgages on flooded-out property and that lenders would end up with billions of dollars worth of worthless property on their books.

Opposition for the bill came from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They claimed that this corporation would be used to get rid of low-income residents who are not property owners.

Baker’s bill sounds like the beginning of something that could be really good for New Orleans or really bad. In theory, the buying up of large chunks of land and clearing it in one go sounds good, but what if a few people in the neighborhood don’t want to sell and feel pressured into doing just that? Also wouldn’t it lead to many people not moving back because they have settled some where else? New Orleans’ economy is likely to suffer a heavy blow if only a third of its previous residents move back.

I’m interested in hearing peoples’ opinions concerning Baker’s bill. Also if some of you don’t mind either creating usernames or signing your posts at the bottom, I would really appreciate it. I would like to know who’s visiting my blog. Thanks, fellow readers.

New Orleans Corruption Update

2005-11-17T13:49:00.000-06:00

Apparently the fed has decided to take charge on corruption and fraud following Hurricane Katrina. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, a St. Tammany Parish Councilman was arrested Tuesday, Nov. 15, for extorting $100,000 kickback in connection with a Hurricane Katrina debris removal contract.

Impastato was arrested during an FBI sting as he accepted two cashier's checks totaling $85,000 from a subcontractor cooperating with authorities, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said at a news conference Wednesday.

Well I am glad something is starting to be done about the corruption. Baby steps.

Baton Rouge Police receive Red Cross Money

2005-11-17T13:36:00.000-06:00

After going over the types of disaster assistance and the eligibility it appears that no one living in Baton Rouge should be eligible for FEMA as well as Red Cross assistance. Baton Rouge was never declared a disaster area by the President. The question still begs: how did ineligible people in Baton Rouge receive disaster relief assistance? For example, police officers in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The District Attorney, Baton Rouge Police and the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office have launched a joint investigation to look for any wrongdoing -- and a memo from the Baton Rouge Union of Police might have something to do with it.

The memo, dated Sept. 19, tells union members they can get a Red Cross "gift card," even without having sustained any storm damage to their property, just because they are members. Naturally, it has stirred emotion in the Baton Rouge area.

Union attorney Charles Dirks said the whole thing is just one big misunderstanding.

"This particular person who generated the memorandum, he just did a poor job of taking down information and relaying the information," Dirks said.

Um, how does that happen? The Baton Rouge Union of Police had a meeting with the Red Cross people, and some how this employee left the meeting under the assumption that Baton Rouge police could get free gift cards i.e. free money? Shady business is going to be one of the main topics following post-Katrina clean-up.

A follow up article states that:

The Sept. 19 notice sent via Police Department e-mail referred to the charity's financial assistance debit cards for Hurricane Katrina victims as "gift cards," and insists they were a special benefit for union members.

"If you live in one of the attached Zip Codes you need to go by the Electrical Workers local Hall and get your Red Cross gift card, by Saturday 9/24/05," says the memo, which The Advocate obtained through a Louisiana public records request.

"You get the gift card whether you sustained a loss, or not, do (sic) to the storm, as a result of you being in B.R.U.P. Local 237."

The memo adds that immediate family "also qualifies for the gift card if they live in a separate residence from you in one of the listed Zip Codes (father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle)."

Federal Flood Money

2005-11-17T11:52:00.000-06:00

The Times-Picayune had an article today discussing citizens in New Orleans not receiving funds from their flood insurance.

After hearing from constituents that Katrina flood insurance claims were being held up for lack of money, the House voted Wednesday to increase the program's borrowing authority by $5 billion. But similar action in the Senate has been stalled by some members who are looking to make changes in the program.

Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said that even more action is needed.

"With today's action by the House we may have headed off one crisis, but a larger one remains," Melancon said. "Thousands of homeowners who lost everything didn't have flood protection because they were never considered a risk. If we're going to rebuild, we have to give people something to rebuild with, and Congress needs to take quick action."

Melancon has pushed for legislation that would allow hurricane victims to retroactively buy into the federal flood insurance program. But the bill has run into considerable opposition from members who say it would cost too much and would send the wrong message by indirectly telling people that they could buy insurance after they suffer a serious loss.

The $5 billion in extended credit, which FEMA hopes to pay back through future insurance premiums, may provide only a short-term solution. Officials with the flood insurance program said that the $5 billion would cover only claims through the Thanksgiving holiday.

If you live below I-10 the major interstate running horizontally across southern Louisiana, you should have flood insurance especially in New Orleans. People in New Orleans who were told that they didn’t need flood insurance were misinformed. There was an article in National Geographic Oct. 2004, which predicted the possibility of the whole of New Orleans going under water.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

The prophecy that New Orleans would become a giant lake has been being predicted for years so how could you live in New Orleans and not have flood insurance? Some people were told by their insurance agents that they lived in a no-flood zone, and why wouldn't they believe them? They are the ones who are suppose to know.

I will say I am happy to see that the people who did have flood insurance are getting their money.

Corruption in New Orleans. Who knew?

2005-11-17T11:39:00.000-06:00

An article written in the Washington Post last week talks about a New Orleans rife with corruption and racial dissent. Even the reconstruction commission New Orleans mayor Ray Nagen created has been fraught with internal fighting, and there are fears that the commission could be “reduced to irrelevancy because of the state government's own commission and the recent appointment of Donald E. Powell, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., to oversee federal relief work.”

New Orleans's fractured leadership has struggled for years to keep its finances in order and to bolster its clout in Baton Rouge and Washington... In a recent Louisiana State University poll of 419 business executives, corruption was ranked among the worst aspects of doing business in Louisiana. Investors and managers elsewhere are reluctant to come "because they don't want to pay the corruption tax," said Rafael C. Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

"We've seen every type of corruption imaginable," said U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, whose office indicted 44 public officials in the past fiscal year alone. He pointed to skimming, bribery and shakedowns across a spectrum of government employment: judges, police, teachers, administrators and traffic court workers.

In August, FBI agents raided the Washington and New Orleans homes of eight-term Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), suspecting he had illegally pocketed an investor's money. They reportedly found a large amount of cash in a freezer. The same month, a grand jury charged Glenn Haydel, uncle of former mayor Marc Morial, with skimming $550,000 in city money.
In a development that offers little comfort for funders of the post-Katrina rebuilding project, three Louisiana emergency-preparedness officials are awaiting trial on charges that they tried to block federal auditors from uncovering the alleged misuse of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds. FEMA is demanding that the state repay $30 million, alleging that the money was mishandled.

Asked recently how he would make sure the requestedfederal money for rebuilding would be spent wisely, Nagin replied "You know about our colorful past?" and laughed for a full five seconds.

A full five seconds! Because corruption is real funny! Perhaps New Orleans has such horrible crime and ghettos because the money that is supposed to be being spent on urban development is getting pocketed by public officials. The article goes on to talk about the failing school system in New Orleans stating that 73 of the more than 120 city schools are considered to be failing.

A significant uncertainty is how large the city will be, and how many of its more than 450,000 residents will return, given an economic base that has been shrinking for years, especially since the oil and gas business migrated to Houston. The Port of New Orleans, for generations an economic engine, is so mechanized that it needs just 2,500 workers on an average day. New Orleans has one Fortune 500 company.
Analysts doubt that the largely unskilled workforce, even if it does come back, can sustain a prosperous modern economy. One in four adults has no high school diploma. The poverty rate in New Orleans is more than twice the national average, and the crime rate is among the nation's worst. Forty-six percent of Orleans Parish households bring home less than $25,000 per year.

"People are tired of sending money there, and it never goes for what it's intended. Outside New Orleans, they would bet the farm that it would be stolen or wasted," the Baton Rouge political analyst said. "A lot of people ask how Orleans Parish will be a better place based on what we've seen in the last 30 years."

The people in southern Louisiana have been talking about the corruption in New Orleans for decades. Decades! That would suggest that people knew about the problem. So the question is: why wasn’t anything done about it? Because the checks and balances of the city are obviously corrupt. Unfortunately, there cannot be honest government without checks and balances.

A History of FEMA

2005-11-14T10:17:00.000-06:00

FEMA has been under a lot of pressure since the hurricanes hit. One of the reasons I started this blog was to discover if FEMA, which is a federal agency, should be getting all this flack from angry citizens, who believe they should be receiving more from the federal government. The

Federal Emergency Management Agency’s job is to coordinate federal, state, and local agencies in responding to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. FEMA provides financial assistance to individuals and governments to rebuild homes, businesses, and public facilities. The agency also trains firefighters and emergency medical professionals, and funds emergency planning throughout the United States and its territories. FEMA has been around for over 200 years under different titles, but essentially doing the same thing. In 1803, a New Hampshire town suffered an extensive fire so the federal government passed the Congressional Act of 1803, which is considered to be the first disaster legislation. Throughout the next 100 years other ad hoc legislation would be passed to assist after hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.

After the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Herbert Hoover began the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The purpose of this program was to redistribute federal money as loans to banks and commercial institutions hit by a natural disaster. Then in 1934, the Bureau of Public Roads was given authority to help rebuild roads and bridges hit by a natural disaster. The Flood Control Act was passed next, which gave the Army Corp of Engineers greater control over flood control projects.

In the 1960s and 70s, a series of disasters hit including Hurricane Carla in 1962, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the Alaskan (Good Friday) Earthquake of 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971. The Federal Disaster Assistance Administration was created under the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order, which merged many of the separate disaster-related responsibilities into a new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA absorbed: the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. Civil defense responsibilities were also transferred to the new agency from the Defense Department's Defense Civil Preparedness Agency.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created to coordinated the different federal agencies that deal with law enforcement, disaster preparedness and recovery. FEMA is one of the four agencies under DHS.

The question still remains: once the president declares a state of an emergency to an area how is it decided who gets funds and who does not? In my next post, I will examine the requirements for getting FEMA. Has the federal government been warning these areas to be prepared for these disasters? And if so, should we blame state and local government for not taking notice?

Housing Issues Raised by Hurricane Katrina and Rita

2005-11-02T09:56:00.000-06:00

Since general welfare is the umbrella in which many policies fall under, I want to focus on each topic, and the many debates surrounding them. Since Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit Louisiana, many of these issues have been brought up: education for displaced children, health care, housing for evacuees, child welfare.

There was an article published by the Urban Institute, which is a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization, discussing the housing issues that have been raised during the Hurricanes. The article titled “Issues and Insights after Hurricane Katrina” shed some light on previous events that have shaped the way local and federal government handle disasters and reconstruction.

Lonnie G. Bunch, who is the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture, cited the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. “Those fires destroyed over 25,000 buildings in San Francisco. They left over 270,000 people homeless. They killed 700 people. In fact, it seemed that when the earthquake and fires were going on in San Francisco, the whole city wanted to get out and get to Oakland.” City officials were left with the huge task of reconstructing the city. Two of the main issues that needed to be resolved were the Chinese and African American communities. The officials were going to move both communities further away from the city center, but the Chinese government opposed that, and most African Americans stayed in Oakland.

Through this disaster, the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, the great flood in Mississippi in 1927 and now the recent hurricanes, “America really has struggled to find ways to match its generosity and its interests in these disasters with the needs of a racially and economically diverse populace,” according to Bunch.

Bunch believes that there is one lesson that can be learned from these disasters. When a disaster hits a city, such as San Francisco or New Orleans, the initial thought is to clean up the city: move the poor to less central locations to make that property available for land developers. Bunch believes that this cleaning up process should be looked at as opportunity to “make sure that there is an appropriate tension between what the city needs and what its less powerful, less well-off citizens need.”

The next speaker in this article is Marge Turner, who is the director of the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Community Policy Center and an expert on urban housing and development.

Many of the most vulnerable victims of Katrina were already suffering from the consequences of living in dangerous, distressed, segregated, and high-poverty neighborhoods. Before the storm, one in three poor blacks in New Orleans lived in a neighborhood that was 40-percent poor or more. The average black public school student in the city attended a school where 87 percent of the kids in the classroom were poor. And the city was actually one of the very few in America where racial segregation got worse, not better, during the 1990s… And historically, public policies, including federal housing assistance policies, have helped create these severely distressed neighborhoods. So it's especially important that we not make those horrible mistakes again as we help families find new places to live, both in the short term and in the longer term, whether back in New Orleans or elsewhere.

She believes that housing vouchers are the answer to the current issue with housing displaced citizens and also when they return to New Orleans. Housing vouchers essentially supplement what families can afford to pay themselves to rent apartments and homes that are already available in the private market. She believes that “some temporary housing, such as these RV and mobile-home ideas, might be necessary in some locations or for workers who are going to immediately start cleaning and rebuilding the devastated communities. But this temporary-housing approach poses a very serious risk of creating brand-new isolated ghettos for the most vulnerable families.”

Turner states that when rebuilding these poor New Orleans communities, it is essential that they are “replaced with mixed-income, affordable communities that have a decent quality of life, access to good schools, and access to decent-paying jobs.” It is also important that the community as a whole support these displaced victims. “The active involvement of residents, along with business owners, community leaders, and professional planners is essential if we are going to move toward that kind of equitable redevelopment process.”

Both of these women are experts in the field of African American history and/or development. What they suggest is plausible. Instead of the government moving the poor neighborhoods to an area away from sight and handing out a check, which would completely disrupt what these people are used to, they believe that the neighborhoods should remain in the same location, and in these locations rebuild safer more diverse communities. These solutions are unpartisan and support the Constitution’s phrase “promote the general welfare.”

The Constitution's General Welfare

2005-10-29T13:25:00.000-05:00

The best place to start when in investigating the government and the roles they play is the United States Constitution. What did the founding fathers originally intend for the government to provide for its people?

The first sentence of the Preamble of the Constitution reads:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Yet what does “promote the general Welfare” mean?

In Article One, Section Eight, Clause One of the Constitution, it states that:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

The United States Constitution and its Amendments can be found here.

Throughout the study of the Constitution and the rulings of the Supreme Court, the founding fathers wanted debate to take place and representation to happen before decisions were made. Much of the constitution uses broad terminology that allows for interpretation. The general welfare of the nation is some of that terminology.

“General welfare” is the welfare of the nation as seen by the general population based on what is right and wrong and supported by actual facts and commonsense.

I may think that what is right for me is to not pay taxes, but the general population that requires the use of roads to travel and promote trade and economy require roads that are paid for by tax money.

So what does the welfare of the nation entail? The needs of an individual. This could include: education, health care, social security, the welfare program, child services and housing for the poor.

FEMA Disaster Assistance

2005-11-17T11:08:00.000-06:00

I have heard of many people receiving FEMA money who were not affected by the storm. I wanted to examine the types and requirements for FEMA to see if that might shed some light on this.

Disaster assistance is defined by FEMA as “money or direct assistance to individuals, families and businesses in an area whose property has been damaged or destroyed and whose losses are not covered by insurance. It is meant to help you with critical expenses that cannot be covered in other ways. This assistance is not intended to restore your damaged property to its condition before the disaster.” There are two types of disaster assistance: housing needs and other than housing needs.

Housing needs include:

Temporary Housing (a place to live for a limited period of time): Money is available to rent a different place to live, or a government provided housing unit when rental properties are not available.
Repair: Money is available to homeowners to repair damage from the disaster to their primary residence that is not covered by insurance. The goal is to make the damaged home safe, sanitary, and functional.
Replacement: Money is available to homeowners to replace their home destroyed in the disaster that is not covered by insurance. The goal is to help the homeowner with the cost of replacing their destroyed home.
Permanent Housing Construction: Direct assistance or money for the construction of a home. This type of help occurs only in insular areas or remote locations specified by FEMA, where no other type of housing assistance is possible.

To obtain housing needs assistance, all of these must be true:

You have losses in an area that has been declared a disaster by the president.
You have filed for insurance benefits and the damage to your property is not covered by your insurance.
You or someone who lives with you is a citizen of the United States, a non-citizen national, or a qualified alien.
Your home is in an area that has been declared a disaster area by the president.
The home in the disaster area is where you usually live and where you were living at the time of the disaster.
You are not able to live in your home now, you cannot get to your home due to the disaster, or your home requires repairs because of damage from the disaster.

You are not eligible for housing needs assistance, if any one of these is true:

You have other, adequate rent-free housing that you can use (for example, rental property that is not occupied).
Your home that was damaged is your secondary or vacation residence.
Your expenses resulted only from leaving your home as a precaution and you were able to return to your home immediately after the incident.
You have refused assistance from your insurance provider(s).
Your only losses are business losses (including farm business other than the farmhouse and self-employment) or items not covered by this program.
The damaged home where you live is located in a designated flood hazard area and your community is not participating in the National Flood Insurance Program. In this case, the flood damage to your home would not be covered, but you may qualify for rental assistance or items not covered by flood insurance, such as water wells, septic systems, medical, dental, or funeral expenses.

Assistance may be obtained for Other Housing Needs, which include:

Disaster-related medical and dental costs.
Disaster-related funeral and burial cost.
Clothing; household items (room furnishings, appliances); tools (specialized or protective clothing and equipment) required for your job; necessary educational materials (computers, school books, supplies).
Fuels for primary heat source (heating oil, gas, firewood).
Clean-up items (wet/dry vacuum, air purifier, dehumidifier).
Disaster damaged vehicle.
Moving and storage expenses related to the disaster (moving and storing property to avoid additional disaster damage while disaster-related repairs are being made to the home).
Other necessary expenses or serious needs as determined by FEMA.

To qualify for Other Housing Needs assistance, all of the following must be true:

You have losses in an area that has been declared a disaster area by the President.
You have filed for insurance benefits and the damage to your property is not covered by your insurance. You may be eligible for help from the Individuals & Households Program (IHP) to repair damage to your property.
You or someone who lives with you is a citizen of the United States, a non-citizen national, or a qualified alien.
You have necessary expenses or serious needs because of the disaster.
You have accepted assistance from all other sources for which you are eligible, such as insurance proceeds or Small Business Administration Disaster loans.

Just going over the types of disaster assistance and the eligibility shows that no one living in Baton Rouge should be eligible for FEMA money. Baton Rouge was never declared a disaster area by the President. The question still begs: how did ineligible people in Baton Rouge get FEMA assistance?

What you can depend on.

2005-11-07T12:58:00.000-06:00

I stated in the description of my blog that I am researching what the government owes to the American citizens. In so doing that, I will make every effort to be accurate and politically impartial. I believe these are the two most important things about my blog.

I hope the information I provide is well written and understandable. I also promise not to change the date on my posts. If I come across some new data that pertains to a previous post, I will write a new post and include the date of the prior post in the new title. For minor errors, I will revise the post and not state that it was updated. My plan is to have new or updated posts a couple times a week. I will have a link to the sites where I have collected information, found articles or discovered interesting blogs.

I welcome comments. The Web is a huge place, and I might miss something that should be included in my post. However, I reserve the right to delete comments that are inappropriate: profane, derogatory comments or commercial comments. I am not trying to sell anything. I am just trying to inform.

I believe it is crucial to have a foundation in which the reader can depend on.

Introduction to an Idea

2005-10-26T13:58:00.000-05:00

Since Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit the South, the whole nation has stopped and taken notice of what the conditions were in New Orleans and other poor regions. I live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, right in the middle of both storms, and the city where many evacuees are staying. Right after Hurricane Katrina, there was a barrage of stories on the news and in the papers about people being stuck in shelters in New Orleans. These people were without food and water, and reports were that the government was failing in its duty to serve these people and evacuate them from the city. It was further reported that those who were evacuated to cities like Baton Rouge or Houston were creating a problem due to the influx of thousands of people.

I initially thought of doing this blog after seeing an interview on Fox News. The interviewee was an evacuee from New Orleans who was transferred to Dallas, Texas. The interview was mainly about him being upset that he had not received his FEMA money yet, and the miscommunications he had had with FEMA. At the end of the interview, the host of the show asked the man what he thinks he deserves from the government. He said in a very matter of fact tone that he deserved a house in a Houston and $20,000. The whole transcript from this interview can be read here.

The reason I mention this is not to illustrate how misled some folks are, but instead to ask the question how much do we “deserve” from the government. The posts following this introduction will look at the different avenues in which citizens can receive money from the government, and the reasons they can receive these funds. To put it another way, this blog is an introduction to the who, what, why and how of government funding focusing specifically on disaster recovery.