Pinch me

From the Lagniappe section today:

Just as New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin is beginning to recall what he was doing a few months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, along comes a reminder of what he was doing just a few days before the storm struck.

On Aug. 23, 2005, when forecasts still were predicting that New Orleans would be spared the brunt of the storm, Nagin was on the steps of Gallier Hall, filming some of his scenes for the family adventure tale "Labou," the mayor's acting debut.

The movie, written and directed by Greg Aronowitz, was released directly to DVD on May 19.

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In the film, three children get lost in a swamp near New Orleans while hunting for the ghost of a 19th century pirate. During their adventure, they meet the titular swamp creature (whose whistling race -- part Yoda, part Gremlin -- is said to have inspired the birth of jazz music), stumble upon a crooked development deal that can be traced back to City Hall and discover the pirate's treasure.

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Nagin plays Mayor Adams, New Orleans' corrupt leader, who agrees to seize privately owned land in order to sell it to oil company executives looking for a spot to build a huge refinery, regardless of the effect on the environment. When confronted with revelations about the deal, Mayor Adams responds, "There were offers, but nothing firm was put on the table."

Accepting such a role was a risky choice for a sitting mayor. Those wondering if the risk pays off can rest assured that Denzel Washington's career is safe.

Wow. I don't there's anything anyone can add. Just wow.

We did it! HB 780 passed unanimously out of committee!

Thanks so much to readers and friends who called and emailed their legislators!

It mattered!

HB 780, which to us at first seemed like a real long-shot, passed out of the Health and Welfare UNANIMOUSLY!

HURRAY!

Big thanks to Rep. Nowlin of Natchitoches for sponsoring and fighting for this bill.

Additional thanks to Reps. Hines and Abramson of New Orleans. They seemed skeptical at first and asked some legitimate questions as to what the consequences of this bill would be but took everyone's testimony into consideration and were won over.

Even Treasurer John Kennedy sounded like his old self again. Check it out:



There were some real fireworks between Kennedy and LSU's Dr. Fred Cerise. You don't want to miss the full report at SaveCharityHospital.com!

I can't say it loud enough: those phone calls, those emails, the testimony of affected New Orleanians - it made all the difference.

When the bill goes before the full Legislature, we'll need to do it all over again.

A simple but important request

Last week at SaveCharityHospital.com, I wrote about Rep. Rick Nowlin's House Bill 780 which provides some very basic protections for homeowners in Lower Mid-City, residents of New Orleans, and taxpayers statewide.

Click here to register your support for House Bill 780

Update: THE COMMITTEE VOTE IS THIS WEDNESDAY! I NEED YOUR SUPPORT!

The bill prohibits the state from expropriating private property in the hospital footprint until the Legislature approves a financing plan from LSU.

This very simple measure will safeguard against possible botched developments that languish as empty lots for years or are outright aborted prior to completion. One doesn't have to look any further than the DOA convention center expansion or Central City Albertson's to see evidence of that here in New Orleans.

Given that there are very real questions about LSU's financing outlook for the proposed $1.2 billion development, it seems like plain common sense to require that a funding plan be in place BEFORE the state starts razing homes and businesses.

The convention center and Albertson's footprints once held structures that were prematurely razed to make way for development that never occurred. New Orleans residents, Lower Mid-City property owners, and state taxpayers deserve protections to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

The National Trust has made it very easy to lobby for the passage of HB 780 right from the comfort of your desk, couch, or bed. It will take less than five minutes and you'll be making a difference.

Click here to support House Bill 780!

The more involved I get with this fight, and with the processes of government in general, the more I have come to recognize how critical every little email or phone call is. It's easy to be cynical about this kind of basic participation because it's so hard to see where your 5 minutes makes an impact. But trust me - it does. When politicians see their inbox explode, votes change. I know that a lot of legislators are on the fence. This one is going to be close. Every single phone call or email is going to make an important difference.

I know that there are a lot of mixed opinions about the LSU/VA vs. Charity controversy out there, even just within the comments section here at WCBF. House Bill 780 is not an either/or proposition as far as that controversy is concerned.

It does not matter whether or not your are for or against the LSU/VA plan. This bill protects everyone from abusive expropriation policy. It does not further delay LSU; instead, it forces them to prove they have a plan to finish the job.

Please, click here to send letters to the legislators of the Health and Welfare Committee.

Have you done it yet? Let me know with a comment below.

If you want to be really really cool, you'll call the Committee Clerk in Baton Rouge at 225-342-2404. Just say "I'm calling to register my support for the passage of HB 780!"

Then, there are three New Orleans area reps on the Health and Welfare Committee. If readers are represented by any of the following, please make an additional special call to their office.

Neil Abramson (504) 275-8051

Walker Hines (504) 756-4675

John LaBruzzo (504) 833-7788

Ink Still Wet

On the indictment of Renee Gill Pratt.

Pratt lost her Council reelection bid in 2006 to none other than Stacy Head. Pratt was, by every single account I've ever heard, an absolutely horrendous representative. A class act.

It's important to learn to catch these crooks in the act instead of after the fact.

Endemic, systemic corruption - it's killing us.

A Different Philadelphia

A big change in Mississippi.

Yes on 780

Link!

Common sense insurance policy to protect Lower Mid-City from demolition if LSU doesn't have financing.

"Completely Destroyed"

Charity Hospital or Congressman Cao's shot at reelection?

Link!

Can't believe I'm cool with this

It must be that he's got the Phils on the TV in the plaza. Scroll through all the pictures.

More cool new stuff in Philly here. Cool "old" stuff in Philly here.

re: e-maelstrom

From a T-P editorial I largely agree with:

[O]ne thing is clear: The council and its attorneys are trying to keep legitimate public records under wraps simply because they may be embarrassing or offensive. Saving public officials from their own words, however, is not one of the exceptions in the open records law. If the council truly favors transparency, it should stop fighting the release of records to which all Louisianians are clearly entitled.

Get 'em out. Leaks of selective emails make the whole thing just into a political hit on Head. While I'm sure some will say that that's precisely what the request was about in the first place, I'm not sure that remains relevant to the question regarding whether the rest of the emails - which include those belonging to three other Councilors - should be released.

Also I think adrastros' take on this is spot-on.

Jeffersontext

There are a million sides to every story. Be back with more later.

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It's later.

As things get sticky for Councilwoman Head around these emails let's me make sure that I'm telling the whole story.

We'll ultimately get many of these emails released but if what was leaked to me and others yesterday by LJI is the worst of the worst, count me as mostly unimpressed.

The Councilor is going to have to answer some questions about this for sure.

But...

Let us not forget the unusual circumstances around the early off-the-books release of the emails to LJI through Veronica White.

Connections to the Jefferson machine are quite transparent.

I actually have grown to have a lot of respect for what Head has brought to District B after ages of careless representation. Those changes have been good and I would hate for a sensationalized feud between Washington and Head to lead to the undoing of what I would say has been largely progress.

What really makes me angry and uncomfortable with the whole thing is that in my heart, I think that the LJI world and the Stacy Head world ought to be allied instead of feuding. I would say that 80% of their substantive interests align but that personal beefs around mostly inconsequential BS have distracted both sides from doing some really important things.

I have occasional email contact with both camps.

It's amazing how often they're on the same side of an issue but think they're working against one another. It's almost funny but it's mostly distracting. And I hate feeling like I have to pick a side.

Caontext

Councilor Stacy Head's elitist checkout commentary aside, there's a much more comprehensive picture that puts those comments into an even more unfortunate context.

Though I've often vehemently criticized certain comments she's made and more importantly, policies that she's championed, Councilor Head earned a lot of respect from yours truly because of her work ethic and the lengths she goes to provide effective constituent representation. More respect than I ever thought I could possibly give her after the stances she took on housing.

But there's not much excuse for all this.

Ya know, when you hold yourself to a higher standard...

I received these early yesterday afternoon.

UPDATE:

Publishing items with personal email addresses of people I don't know without permission violates my own personal comfort level. I was too hasty earlier so I've decided to take down those emails. Essentially, Stacy Head was receiving extremely detailed communications on the mechanics of the Cao campaign. She was not responding to them in a particularly substantive way and was redirecting them away from her official council email account. But there may have been some questionable activity involved.

UPDATE II:

ABC26 actually already published the same emails minus the addresses. You can go check 'em out there. Link! And here I'd thought I may have broken one... ha ha on me.

Ways and Means

I actually did download and watch.

Link.

Strange...

Vitter, according to spokesman Joel DiGrado, believes that a public hospital should have already been rebuilt downtown, that LSU has delayed that far too long, that its plan is too big and expensive and that "gutting the old Charity shell and rebuilding a state-of-the-art hospital in it could save a lot of money."

... let's go with bedfellows.

Link

Public Hearing on NOAH

Tonight at City Council chambers, there's going to be a public hearing on health care issues and how we can ensure that New Orleans Adolescent Hospital remains open and operational amidst the Governor's budget cuts.

I think it's pretty interesting that we haven't had a similar public hearing on other critical health care issues like Charity Hospital, for instance.

Tonight (May 12th)

6:00 PM

City Council chambers.

See you there...

Teaser

I feel like most people already saw this New York Times article about C. Ray Nagin's last year in office. The piece represents the first time a national news gathering organization has really alluded to the swirling e-maelstrom.

Now, however, that sense is coming to an end, after accusations arose in a civil lawsuit concerning city technology contracts. In a deposition, a former city official said he took a Hawaiian vacation with Mr. Nagin and their families in 2004 that was paid for by a company whose owner did extensive business with the city through other companies. Claims of other trips raising ethics questions were raised in later testimony.

At a news conference on April 7, the mayor defended the Hawaiian vacation. “I don’t see it as a violation of any law, any ethics rules,” he said, because he had been told that the city official — Greg Meffert, the former chief of technology for New Orleans — was paying for the trip, not the contractor.

“It’s been cleverly portrayed that there’s something wrong here, and no one has proven that yet,” Mr. Nagin said at the time. He acknowledged, however, that “there’s still a question whether this is illegal or unethical.” He declined requests for an interview.

There's certainly nothing ground-breaking about the report, it's just an interesting first. We're going to see a lot more national news attention as the last year of Nagin unravels and as our upcoming Mayoral race exposes itself as a comic tragedy clusterf*ck. I think the NYT is going to regret pulling it's regular beat guy. They're going to be paying for a lot of flights here or a lot of AP reprints.

Starving for health care and jobs

Our legislature has rubber stamped this LSU/VA proposal every step of the way but doesn't even know what it's getting - or in this case - not getting.

$1.2 billion for a measly soup and salad?

If you click there, you'll find another link to the T-P's rendering of the still-unfunded "phase one" and an even more mythical "phase two" that doesn't even have a cost estimate attached to it.

State of the art parking lots

I'll likely have a lot to say about this at SaveCharityHospital.com tomorrow but everyone should read this Bill Barrow story in the Times-Picayune today. It's dead on and I think you'll be hearing a lot more like it over the next several weeks. The paper version is way more powerful because of the accompanying illustration.

The pro-boondoggle crowd has worked hard to pull the wool over our eyes and I'm glad I've gotten so involved in exposing this charade for what it is.

Budget Negotations and Council Effectiveness Overall

I have fallen so far behind in my writing that today I'm going to bring up a T-P article that appeared in last Saturday's paper. I thought it was so important that I packed it up and brought it with me when I moved.

N.O. budget methods slammed in report

The report, sent Thursday to Mayor Ray Nagin and City Council members, said the way Nagin's team, like previous administrations, creates and presents the budget "has been anything but inclusive and has provided no opportunity for outside input" until after the document is revealed. At that point, there's usually only a month left before the council's Dec. 1 deadline to vote on it.

Odom said the recommendations in the report could be implemented before the 2010 budget, the last one Nagin will present, is prepared and debated.

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The report notes that since 2007 the administration "purports to have adopted" a process known as "budgeting for outcomes," which "is intended to promote transparency, accountability and inclusion in the budget process."

However, it says, even though that process calls for involving a broad spectrum of "stakeholders, including citizens, community leaders and council members, in establishing the city's budget priorities," the city's actual procedures "offer no effective opportunities for discussion" until after the mayor unveils his proposals.

The lack of outside participation, especially by council members, in preparing the mayor's 2009 budget "became evident in the struggle that ensued after the mayor submitted" his proposals on Oct. 28, the report says.

As a result, the report says, "all the extensive planning work that had gone into prioritizing programs through the 'budgeting for outcomes' ranking system went out the door when the final spending decisions were made."

This year, the report says, the administration should make "a meaningful effort to involve citizens" in setting priorities, and above all it should involve the council at each step of the process.

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It also says the council should start assessing the performance of key departments and the revenue outlook for 2010 months before it receives the final budget recommendations.

I am very thankful for this report. If you followed last year's budget "negotiations" even a little bit you saw what I witnessed actually sitting in Council chambers. That process made an absolute mockery of municipal government. Poor Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, Chair of the budget committee, looked like she was going to hang herself by the end of that process. The way it worked was that the Mayor proposed a budget and then Council had about ten or twenty working days to analyze that spending via the testimony of different department heads before they were more-or-less expected to provide a rubber stamp.

It is the Mayor's job to prepare and propose a budget. That's all fine and dandy and shouldn't change just because this Mayor isn't particularly good at it. The problem with the process was Council's inability to effectively vet the various proposals. Though one issue is that the Council only has about a month to look it over, it would appear to me that simply moving forward the Mayor's submission deadline to give Council more time doesn't do enough to address the meat of the matter.

Council needs to be able to get deeper into the progress of city departments over the course of the year. If Council is performing quarterly audits of every city department in which they're really getting into the nitty gritty of what we're getting for our money, I haven't noticed. If Council effectively exercised their oversight powers on a regular established schedule, the 3rd Quarter September evaluation would perfectly segue into the budget process and would make the testimony of department heads during those negotiations less hurried and sensational. As it is, the budget hearings appear to be the only forum Council members have to investigate public and private allegations of waste or incompetence from various departments. This is what made this past year's budget negotiations so contentious and counterproductive.

If Council was regularly evaluating department performance, the ineffective budget process we have now wouldn't be nearly as bad because it would be much clearer which programs are working and which are not going into negotiations. Mayors would be less likely to ramrod bad spending into the budget because Council oversight would have already exposed the waste in the preceding months. Reasonably good Mayors, even average Mayors would naturally adopt IG Odom's suggestions of inclusion and discussion in the budget but this Council needed to be more effective in terms of providing public oversight year-round to safeguard against this particular horrible Mayor. That's not to call out this particular Council or the members that comprise it. I imagine that Council has never really established effective oversight systems. I actually think this Council is capable of starting to institute those kinds of reforms. The budget process is a great place to start and I'd like to salute Cynthia Hedge-Morrell for calling on the IG office to supply this initial advice.

I think we citizens are going to need to get real about how much we compensate our Councilors as well. It's a full time job that requires incredible dedication and expertise. But they make peanuts, certainly not enough to support a family unless they're already totally loaded. I think their salaries should double. Immediately. The quality of your choices each election day will be much better. I'm tellin' ya.

More

Nagin spokesman James Ross' response to the IG's report was insulting, off-base, and tone-deaf. I don't think I have a shred of sympathy left for this administration or anyone still associated with it after all this time. They're scorching the earth and salting it for good measure.

James Ross, a Nagin spokesman, said Friday that the administration "has not had an opportunity to read" the 10-page report "and therefore is unable to respond to it with great specificity."

But he said it was "unfortunate that the office of the inspector general has failed to take an opportunity to herald the vision, best practices and commitment of the (administration) to look beyond the challenges of this recovery and implement an open, transparent budget process that this city government has never had before."

Ross said the administration in fact "utilized the information from community meetings hosted by the mayor to serve as guiding points" in creating the 2009 budget. "Hundreds of New Orleans citizens from every walk of life were part of these meetings," he said.

No public announcement of such meetings was made at the time.

Wouldn't a much more effective response be something along the lines of:

"The Mayor's reforms to the budget process were groundbreaking but clearly more work needs to be done. The Mayor has read every page of the report and would like to thank the IG for his suggestions. He will take them under advisement as he makes tweaks for this next and last budget."

But no, Ross couldn't help but dump more gasoline onto already fallow fields.

More Visions

The registered agent for Visions is Franz Zibilich, a rather unsavory assistant city attorney well known for representing the defendants in the Danziger Bridge killings and the Davis police brutality case. He also represented the city against citizens who lost their homes via the city's embarrassing private demolition racket.

I guess we can find all of our friends at 4000 Downman Road.

Jeez.

Reed denies Nagin is a client

I reached Criminal Defense Attorney John Reed over the phone.

Is he providing council to the Mayor?

"It's not true and there's no basis for it."

I was the third person to call, Reed said he told WWL and WDSU the same thing.

Moving on...

--

There just aren't that many big time defense attorneys with experience doing white collar cases believe it or not. Some other possibilities include Arthur "Buddy" Lemann III and Eddie Castaing out of New Orleans and Lewis Unglesby out of Baton Rouge. There are some others but too many.

Repetitive Visions

Remember when former Deputy Mayor and Chief Technology Officer Greg Meffert said when asked about his jaunts to the strip club Visions in his recent deposition in a related civil case?

"Sometimes I'd pay for myself. Sometimes they'd pay."

I really want to know whether or not "myself" means using the special Mark St. Pierre-financed American Express card from NetMethods. Because that's still money coming from the same individuals getting all the IT contracts.

Going through the NetMethods credit card records released just the other day, I was perplexed by several gargantuan charges for "food and beverages" that always ended in nice even numbers.

Turns out strip clubs have very different policies about how they list themselves on credit card statements. Larry Flynt's Hustler Club and the San Fransisco Gold Club were pretty marked quite clearly. Club 390 in Chicago, patronized to the tune of several hundred dollars in 2004, was also pretty easy to figure out.

It took a little bit more creativity to figure out who "L.I.G. LLC" and "RCI Entertainment were."

RCI turned out to be Rick's Caberet, where Meffert dropped an even $1000 in March of 2005.

L.I.G. turned out to be our old favorite on Downman Road, Visions.

04/08/05: $1,400 plus another separate charge of $102
04/06/06: $1,160
09/20/06: $840

Kinda fun that the charges around the April 2005 jaunt went like this:

8th - Visions
9th - One night stay at the Ritz-Carlton
15th - Rite-Aid

Have a great weekend!

From up above?

I'm hearing that Nagin didn't get a letter from Letten. But I have also heard that he's now retained personal council, perhaps someone up in Baton Rouge. I haven't been able to confirm it.

If the letter came from D.C., what would that mean? Grand Jury?

Letter from Letten: "Lawyer Up!"

UPDATE: False alarm?

I can back up Dambala. It seems a lot of people are saying that Mayor Nagin has indeed received a "target letter" from US Attorney Jim Letten.

But what exactly is a target letter?

Here's an interesting article at TalkLeft.

I'm beginning to see some people, including at least one news service, misapply the term "target letter." Just so it's clear, a "target letter" is what the prosecutor provides to a witness who has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. It is an advisement of rights, particularly the right to counsel and the right to not testify.

Once the investigation is complete and the grand jury has heard all the evidence and is about to return Indictments, target letters are no longer used. [ Addition by LNILR: They are not re-issued everytime a witness/target comes in. Any competent defense lawyer has already met with the prosecutor to learn the client's status and role in the alleged offense under investigation. Target letters go out after the targets and subjects are identified by the prosecutor and investigators. The investigation may be years old before target letters go out. A "target letter" is just what it implies: You are likely going to be indicted, and you better act accordingly.]

Once an indictment is returned, the Prosecutor may notify the lawyer for the indicted person to make agreements on whether a summons will issue or arrest warrants, and, if it's going to be an arrest warrant, whether the person will be allowed to surrender at the courthouse or FBI office rather than be arrested at home or at work and bail amounts can be agreed upon. At this point, the case is past the "target letter" stage. The notification of indictment and arranging surrender can be formal (by letter) or by a telephone call.

Wow. So Mr. Ray Nagin is going to have to scramble to find a white collar defense attorney. How many of those haven't already been snatched up? Might be slim pickings... This is why it was so bizarre that he hadn't already retained private council in this matter, instead choosing to continue to rely on city attorneys Bob Ellis and Penya Moses-Fields, who are representing the municipality in an official capacity.

Also, here's a sample target letter from the Department of Justice website:

This letter is supplied to a witness scheduled to appear before the federal Grand Jury in order to provide helpful background information about the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury consists of from sixteen to twenty-three persons from the District of ___. It is their responsibility to inquire into federal crimes which may have been committed in this District.

As a Grand Jury witness you will be asked to testify and answer questions, and to produce records and documents. Only the members of the Grand Jury, attorneys for the United States and a stenographer are permitted in the Grand Jury room while you testify.

We advise you that the Grand Jury is conducting an investigation of possible violations of federal criminal laws involving, but not necessarily limited to *. You are advised that the destruction or alteration of any document required to be produced before the grand jury constitutes serious violation of federal law, including but not limited to Obstruction of Justice.

You are advised that you are a target of the Grand Jury's investigation. You may refuse to answer any question if a truthful answer to the question would tend to incriminate you. Anything that you do or say may be used against you in a subsequent legal proceeding. If you have retained counsel, who represents you personally, the Grand Jury will permit you a reasonable opportunity to step outside the Grand Jury room and confer with counsel if you desire.

Cordially,

Feel free to sign cordially in the comments section...

Guys Night Out

I know I said I was going to be away for a few days as I unpack my new place but I can't help it...

This T-P has posted (pdf) all of the charges that former Chief Technology Officer Greg Meffert made to the credit card he was given by NetMethods, a dummy company set up by city contractor Mark St. Pierre.

As one might imagine there's some interesting stuff in there. Tons of charges related to resort travel with the Mayor, tons of fancy meals at Sean Cummings' International House Hotel and other well-known food and beverage hot spots. The man simply could not go out to lunch without dropping $75 or more. All told, there were over $130,000 in charges.

There were also a high number of airline flights purchased for he, his wife, and his kids. One cost that's justly generating a lot of sensationalist buzz is a $2,675 charge Meffert made to the NetMethods account for his good time at the San Fransisco's Gold Club, "San Fransisco's Premier Gentlemen's Club."

Does anyone know what kind of left-wing services were rendered in that commie pinko San Fransisco club that he couldn't just have easily received from his favorite local spots, Visions, Rick's Cabaret, or Larry Flynt's Hustler Club?

What was especially sleazy about the charge in San Fran becomes more obvious when you dig a little bit into why he was over on the left coast in the first place. Looking at the credit card records, here is what it appears occurred:

On March 9th, 2006, Greg Meffert purchased three round trip flights between New Orleans and San Jose, California for his wife and two boys. A few days later, he booked his own flight to San Jose by way of San Fransisco. He would be joining his family for a vacation at Yosemite National Park - food, lodging, and souvenirs paid for by NetMethods. But of course it took him an extra day to get from San Fransisco to San Jose. There was business to attend to at the Gold Club.

Who knows? It is possible that he only went to the Gold Club between flights. There are no other charges in San Fransisco listed to the NetMethods account.

Another couple of charges that I thought you might find interesting involve single one-night stays at the New Orleans Ritz Carlton Hotel from April and July of 2005. You won't see these reported as newsworthy by the proper media but I have no particular problem leveling the insinuation given what we know about Mr. Meffert's. . . appetites.

Blakely Be Gone

Wow, I gotta get back to work...

Two big stories today in New Orleans.

1. Meffert paid for Nagin family trips to Jamaica

I just said that.

2. Blakely be gone.

I just said that too!

I've got great stuff to bring to you soon, I promise. I'm just a little bit swamped right now with the unpacking process - I don't have internet at home yet. Plus, I've got loads of fresh content over at SaveCharityHospital.com to tide you over.


UPDATE: The Mayor's schedule, as obtained by WWL, will continue to yield some very interesting information...

The E-maelstrom is going to jump a few categories up the scale pretty soon. I feel like we're going to get a few more layers peeled back sooner rather than later.

I've been bad blogger. I'll be back with a vengeance to explain...

Apologies for my absence

I've been busy. I have moved back to the Irish Channel.

I still have lots of boxes to unpack and lots of things to do over at SaveCharityHospital.com.

I've been saving up lots of things to say here.
Once I get settled and I get my home wireless set up, I'll get back to regular posting.
Talk at you soon!