NOAH, NOAH, NOAH Your Boat

Lee Zurik has done a little googling himself.

It would appear that S & A Construction's Cedric Smith is Ray Nagin's brother-in-law. Cedric Smith delivered a speech on behalf of the Mayor at Mr. Nagin's 2nd inauguration.

Watch Mr. Zurik's report here. Watch the complete video of Mr. Zurik's interview with Mayor Nagin here.

Mayor Nagin's assertion that the list his own administration provided to Mr. Zurik and also to me, per my records request of NOAH, is not the correct list is pathetic. His attitude toward Mr. Zurik's line of questioning is childish and unbecoming of the office he's sworn to uphold.

"If there are problems, we'll clear 'em up."

When were you planning on doing that, Mr. Mayor? Were you planning on doing it before Mr. Zurik's 'totally unfair' reporting brought it to your attention?

I've never seen this Mayor look so nervous and uncomfortable. Where in the past, Mr. Nagin deflected the important questions of reporters with a bemused smile, now the Mayor has been reduced to arguing linguistic specifics with an 'it ain't my job' defensiveness.

Mr. Zurik says "I'm using the list that you gave me last week."

So Nagin interrupts and says "I didn't give you anything," as if attempting to claim innocence because he himself did not physically hand the list to Mr. Zurik. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining how ridiculous that is. Clearly Mayor Nagin takes no responsibility for the actions of his own staff.

Also, Mr. Nagin brought up the inaccurate lists that included a home owned by indicted Congressman William Jefferson's non profit, New Orleans Metropolitan Housing. Karen Gadbois reported on that here. He or his administration (because there's a big difference) claim that no services were provided and no contractors were paid for work done on that property.

Right now, I can verify that NOAH did issue a task order to General Contracting Inc and Dwight Richard that included 2225-27 Willow St.

I viewed this document at NOAH's offices on Tuesday. I can not concretely demonstrate that Mr. Richard was paid for work done on that specific property, I did not immediately see a check number. However, it is certainly interesting that a NOAH document required a contractor to work on a building owned by Congressman Jefferson's non profit.

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Additionally, the Times-Picayune's failure to report on the NOAH scandal has gone on long enough. At first, I was willing to believe that the paper was holding back in order to prepare a substantive contribution that would allow them not to regurgitate the reports of Mr. Zurik and the blogosphere.

However, the time for that has come and gone. That there was no piece in today's paper is glaring embarrassment for the Times-Picayune.

The FBI, Inspector General, and HUD are all now looking into corruption within Mayor Nagin's administration. It's not just some obscure blog post that they're dismissing, it's a probe with the potential to alter the operation of government. They are failing to provide their readers with an obviously relevant news story and I'd like to know why.

UPDATE:

The Times-Picayune has caved to the demands of We Could Be Famous fans everywhere and written a substantive and interesting article about the NOAH scandal.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

I am opening up an investigation into whether or not there are problems and if there are, I'll fix 'em.