Mefstimony turns out to have been...

...bullshit

Complete Bullshit

I wonder if Meffert will be called back to the stand for a more hostile examination.

Hot on HANO

Just in case you don't remember our friend Elias Castellanos, I wrote about him recently.

I have been meaning to do some follow up on this amazing article by the T-P's Katy Reckdahl, which I think people may have missed because all of the goodies are buried after the fold. While I work on that, I want to make sure you've seen this. (Emphasis mine; bizarre formatting theirs)

Letten's office last month charged Castellanos with embezzling the money over three years. During the same time period, the indictment noted, Castellanos had bought a $1.6 million mansion in Davie, Fla., just north of Miami, and five high-end cars -- a Lamborghini Gallardo worth more than $200,000, a Ferrari F430, a Porsche 911 and two Mercedes-Benzes.

It's not clear whether Castellanos has sold any of his luxury items, but he has repaid $675,037 so far, Letten said.

Alan Baum, Castellanos' attorney, said that his client had no comment.

FBI agents and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general's office spent a year sifting through Castellanos' invoices and transactions. Letten said that Castellanos' theft was discovered during an unrelated inquiry. He added that the authority is the subject of other investigations -- "plural" -- that he could not discuss.

--

Castellanos' successor, Edwin Jamora, said that earlier this year, he had put a stop to years of routine payments made from HANO to Genalyn Duka, a subcontractor with a Florida address who colleagues told him was Castellanos' wife.

--

Three years ago, HANO hired Cabellero & Castellanos to clean up its finances, and Castellanos soon made the department his own.

"There was a complete turnover of personnel responsible for the accounting and finance activities of HANO, " according to HANO's independent audit that year.

It's unclear how much progress Castellanos made in the department, which had to be re-created from the ground up after the post-Katrina levee breaches inundated HANO's Gentilly offices.

But when Jamora took over the department more than two years later, he found it in disarray.

By then, HANO had cycled through two annual contracts with Castellanos totaling $6 million and was in the middle of a third, this one worth $2.4 million.

Despite that investment, when Jamora arrived in February he found no monthly statements and no general ledger. Annual state-required audits hadn't been correctly filed for years, he said.

The conditions made it "truly difficult" to detect both well-meaning errors and intentional corruption, said Jamora, who was fired from HANO earlier this month and agreed to an interview.

Jamora, who felt he made real progress in cleaning up the mess he found, was told by federal housing executive Karen Cato-Turner that he "wasn't a good fit" for HANO, he said.

Upon his arrival, Jamora, who had been a financial director at Philadelphia's housing authority, was shocked to find HANO paying $8,000 a month for what he called a "Jurassic" computer package, so outdated that it couldn't run financial statements.

Jamora said he began an inventory of HANO's fixed assets, which hadn't been done since 2002. And he recommended that HANO hire independent accountants to implement past audit recommendations, he said.

Audits from each of the past seven years have outlined significant financial problems, but the problems appear to have been ignored.

Terry R. Cassreino, communications director for HANO, issued a statement after Castellanos pleaded guilty.

"HANO and HUD are pleased to see this case come to a quick resolution with Mr. Castellanos pleading guilty. HUD has clearly and consistently stated that neither HUD nor HANO will tolerate any fraud, abuse or misuse of our funds as we carry out our mission of providing housing options for the citizens of New Orleans." Castellanos' plea comes in the midst of a string of scandals at HANO. Early this year, HUD's inspector general found that HANO's financial statements improperly documented or reported at least $7.2 million in voucher and housing expenses.

In May, the housing authority placed three employees on leave because of a ruse that siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars to an employee's son and former boyfriend.

More recently, the man running HANO's Section 8 program -- designed to help the poor afford rent -- resigned amid allegations that he was benefiting from a voucher administered by HANO, despite earning a $100,000 salary.

Jamora said that agency policies sometimes frustrated his efforts to root out problems. For instance, he said, he wasn't allowed to speak directly with HUD or its inspector general; all conversations had to be routed through Cato-Turner.

HUD spokeswoman Melanie Roussell, speaking on behalf of HUD and HANO, said last week that anyone could talk with auditors.

"Consistent with HUD policy, all staff are encouraged to be responsive to investigative inquiries, " Roussell said.

But a May 1, 2008, memo from Cato-Turner to the staff prohibits anyone from talking to "governmental officials."

That didn't make sense to Jamora. "I used to be an auditor. I speak the same language, " he said.

This sounds like a pretty big deal. Castellanos was stealing money - a million bucks - from HANO in the most blatant way but his graft was stumbled upon accidentally in the midst of "plural" other investigations into white collar crime at HANO.

I'm looking for more information about her, but this Karen Cato-Turner character already sounds like a real winner.

She was appointed as the administrator of HUD's receivership of HANO in November, 2007, at the height of the public housing controversy, by disgraced former HUD chief Alphonso Jackson.

Sworn Mefstimony

I walked into Judge Ledet's courtroom this morning at ten past eleven right as Greg Meffert was getting up to walk out.

"I gotta pee," he whispered way too loudly at no one in particular.

And so I found myself in Orleans Parish Civil District Court to check out the latest chapter in the ongoing crime camera saga.

I ended up feeling ill and going home to rest at the first recess so please check out David Hammer's reporting from the courtroom for the T-P, but I will add a couple of my own observations.

Hammer says Meffert "exuded confidence on the stand."

That's not an unfair characterization of how he conducted himself as testimony began. But watching him fidget in his seat beforehand makes me more inclined to consider his cute joke about talking to Drew Brees about his fantasy team to be a nervous defense mechanism. He seems to be a confident-sounding guy naturally. I remember when he went on Garland's show to defend himself. He sounded just as confident then, though he was also extremely agitated.

He was much calmer in court, and seemed to grow more comfortable and confident as the Jim Garner, the plaintiffs' attorney, established a pace to the questioning.

I suppose the big story is that Meffert even testified in the first place, or more specifically, that he didn't plead the Fifth at every opportunity, but someone must have tipped everyone off beforehand.

I really wanted to hear some audible gasps but none came.

So why didn't Meffert invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Isn't he worried about incriminating himself?

I'm just speculating here, but he wouldn't have to worry about incriminating himself if he'd inked a deal to cooperate with the Department of Justice in the swirling federal investigation of City Hall. If a plea agreement is already in place, Meffert may be assured immunity from additional charges stemming from his testimony in the crime camera civil case.

Meffert seemed primed to throw former employee Chris Drake under the bus. Meffert constantly reiterated how much he had on his plate and how he had trusted Drake and delegated the crime camera project to him.

Also from the T-P write-up:

"Good, bad or indifferent, Hawaii definitely had nothing to do with crime cameras, nothing to do with the city of New Orleans," Meffert said. "I had this buisiness. I had the opportunity to give him (Nagin) a break. We went up there as friends. We barbecued. That was when he broke his ankle, if you remember that."

Meffert said he paid out of his own pocket for a "house" in Hawaii and had the mayor and his family stay there with him. He said he was there to meet with economic development officials in Waikiki, but was also there "for pleasure."

Meffert also used the NetMethods credit card to send the Nagins on first-class flights to Jamaica after Hurricane Katrina, but he hasn't fielded any questions about that today.

Meffert said the credit card was a way to supplement his $150,000 annual City Hall income, which amounted to a "50 percent pay cut" for him after some success in the private sector. He likened it to extra-duty pay for a police officer and said the card had nothing to do with crime cameras or work for Dell.

"My relationship with NetMethods was contemplated from the get-go of my coming on with the city," Meffert said, although he started at City Hall in 2002 and NetMethods wasn't created by St. Pierre until 2004. He said he needed the extra income to justify taking the city job because he had enjoyed an income of "a few hundred thousand dollars a year" at the time.

Meffert said the work he did for NetMethods had to do with kiosks and Web solutions the company developed, not crime cameras.

"I saw no conflict in what I endeavored to do," Meffert said.

Kudos to Hammer for contextualizing Meffert's testimony with the truth. Meffert said that the side pot credit card was part of the deal that allowed him to leave the private sector even though he didn't get a credit card from NetMethods until a few years later since NetMethods didn't yet exist when Meffert moved into City Hall.

For reasons I don't understand, the plaitiffs' attorney Jim Garner didn't press Mr. Meffert on that, didn't follow up with any questions seeking to clarify when Mr. Meffert began receiving payments from NetMethods.

I caught another really interesting quote that Hammer omitted from the T-P article from that same string of dialogue highlighted above.

Referencing the credit card he received from NetMethods, Meffert was explaining how he didn't think having this side account made a difference. He compared it to how NOPD officers have moonlighting gigs on the side of their regular hours on the force.

"When I decided to take a job with the city, the concept [of having a credit card paid for by NetMethods] was introduced to me."

(That quote might not be exactly verbatim, the part that caught my ear was "the concept was introduced to me," so I admit that I might not have the opening clause exactly word-for-word.)

That, to me, begs the question: Who, Mr. Meffert, was it that first introduced you to the concept of maintaining secret expense accounts with private contractors with whom the city does business?

When the court broke for lunch, I had to go home.

Hopefully this won't be the last time I make it in to watch this case

What are your thoughts? Does Meffert's decision to waive his right not to incriminate himself indicate a deal? Or do you think Meffert believes he's at no risk of incriminating himself?

Civilized Drinking With Civilized Drunks

Jay and some Batt girls talk about how to spoil children and the good old days when they'd get drunk and pass out in the backseat of the station wagon on the way home.



Enjoy!

"First of all, Michael Bloomberg, OK?"

Oyster had another great post this weekend.

This time, he has a laugh over John Georges' seemingly inexplicable decision to play nice around Ray Nagin in a recent WBOK appearance, contrasting it with memorable instances in which Georges has not demonstrated a penchant for respectful discourse.

Georges is not even willing to risk a lukewarm, "on the one hand/on the other" assessment of Nagin on a black talk radio station, for fear of alienating black voters. This guy is such a spineless putz. He has no political talent. He makes me want to vomit. I loathe his "if I don't offend them, maybe I can buy them later" mentality.

So, we're only looking "forward" are we? Phew, that's a relief, because I was worried Georges was going to repeat his wild claims about Bobby Jindal having "orchestrated" his child's home birth, and how Bobby intentionally put his son "at risk" so that he could play "midwife". I'm sure the Governor and his merry men have forgotten all about that zinger, among others.

And if we're looking "forward", we won't be reviewing how Georges teamed up with the odious Derrick Shepherd back in 2005 to remove Shawn Barney from the State Senate race. And if we're looking "forward" we won't be calculating how Georges tripled the going rate in street money to secure Orleans parish during the Governor's race. "Politics of the past" and all that...

Indeed, Georges is a putz who embodies the "politics of the past," as they say. And he often makes me want to vomit.

But I don't think he's totally without political talent, or if he is, he's certainly going to try to overcompensate for it. He's being very opportunistic and I don't think his candidacy should be dismissed lightly, especially given the current crop of candidates.

Observe another item from that WBOK interview, as reported by the T-P, one that I thought was far more interesting than his non-criticism of the Mayor (Georges and Nagin were Brass buddies; Nagin endorsed Georges for Governor):

Georges also addressed his relationship with eastern New Orleans businessman Sherman Copelin, the controversial former state representative who built a reputation as a wheeler-dealer during his 14-year career in Baton Rouge.

"Personally, I believe if you don't love every New Orleanian, you don't love any New Orleanian, " Georges said, adding that Copelin impressed him by opposing the push to "shrink the city's footprint" after Hurricane Katrina. "I watched his efforts to allow New Orleans East to come back. And I respect what he can contribute to New Orleans, " he said.

Georges said Copelin wouldn't be a member of his administration but that he would accept the ex-lawmaker's help in speeding the city's recovery.

"I tell you what, he is someone that I have not run from, " Georges said. "I will go to every part of this city and I will try to bridge gaps. . . . And the way to bridge gaps in New Orleans is to break bread with everybody."

John Georges is going to go all over this town with his millions and millions of dollars and break bread with people. That has never failed to be a winning electoral strategy in New Orleans.

I'm not sure if it will work this time, but it sure is a tactic with a track record.

--

Without a doubt, the best part of the T-P article was John Georges' new campaign slogan.

The way the paper published the following JG quote in response to a question about a lack of political experience makes it appear as though Georges sputtered like an engine on its last drop of gasoline before devolving into this handy distillation of what he'd like us to think when we hear his name.

"First of all, Michael Bloomberg, OK?"

You can expect that many future posts about Mr. Georges' bread-breaking will include that quote.

--

I am having a nightmare right now where I'm watching a Mayoral debate. The candidates are being asked easy questions about tough issues but are nonetheless struggling to respond. The candidates are giving these painful answers - from oversimplified to nonsensical - that demonstrate an unfortunate lack of knowledge about the city's big problems and more importantly, the possible solutions for fixing them. Then John Georges walks up to the microphone and instead of trying to answer the questions, he just confidently drops two or three word associations outside acceptable sentence structure. He's basically just using boilerplate slogans as sentences instead of trying to weave boilerplate slogans into actual sentences and paragraphs.

Norman Robinson: Mr. Georges, as you know, the NOPD is facing multiple civil rights investigations for possible cover-ups of post-Katrina homicides. There are numerous allegations of corruption and graft from the evidence room. Over n NOPD officers have themselves been accused of crimes over the last four years. Some people say we need to completely overhaul our police force, and possibly consider a federal receivership with the Department of Justice to ensure a new police culture has time to take root. Others say we just need competent administration over incumbent police practice. What do you think we need to do about the NOPD to make it a more effective crime-fighting agency?

Georges: First of all, national search, OK?!?

Georges sits down as the crowd goes wild.

What I've Been Reduced To

This guy speaks for me.

Nobody 2010: We can sink into the gulf all by ourselves

Thank you very much.

As much as I had my fingers crossed for a 40-50 candidate brouhaha, it's starting to look like this might only have 2-4 candidates capable of raising the $300,000 needed to make the smallest of dents.

Here are the odds as I see them for what the runoff could look like:

Georges v. Murray - 3:1
Georges v. Badon - 7:1
Badon v. Murray - 30:1
Murray v. Sapir - 150:1
Sapir v. Badon - 250:1

All of these scenarios look ugly. I see dwindling prospects for whatever viable alternatives might exist in our collective imagination.

Maybe this is a stretch

Lefties (obviously) and Righties (maybe less so, but check here or even listen to Mark Levin if you can stand it) have, for months, tried to understand the rise of the cult of Glenn Beck.

Yesterday, Nate Silver put it this way:

Beck is a PoMoCon -- a post-modern conservative. And his philosophy is not all that difficult to articulate. It borrows a couple of things from traditional American conservatism:

-- It shares an extreme distrust for government, particularly the Federal Government.
-- It shares the notion that American society is in some sort of state of existential decline.

On the other hand, it also features some important differences:

-- It is much more distrustful of non-governmental institutions, such as labor unions, corporations, political parties, community groups, the media, and scientific institutions.
-- It is largely indifferent toward 'social issues'.
-- It is much less explicitly aligned with the Republican Party.
-- It has much less use for elites, which it also distrusts.

The PoMoCons are not so much less self-consistent as they are less concerned with consistency, as compared with traditional conservatives. Theirs is a bric-a-brac, skeptical (sometimes to the point of paranoid), play-it-by-ear, relatively spontaneous reaction to the here-and-now -- not something cooked up by a K Street thinktank. There is no future, no past -- there is only today. And today is a pretty good day to be Glenn Beck.

This is mostly right but not entirely.

Beck constantly clings to a revisionist past, it's one of his most important rhetorical tools. He uses his own interpretation of what "the Founders" envisioned to justify any number of political positions.

Glenn Beck rails against community organizers but defends oil company profits. He might use the language of elite vs. working man, he might occasionally rail against "corporations" but on substance, he's a big defender of carnivorous capitalism except maybe when applied to the banking system.

David Frum has a post putting Beck closer to the Ron Paul side of things.

Beck does seem to share some beliefs with Paul. There is a definitive anti-establishment spirit, I agree with Silver on that.

Often in a similar breath, people have compared Beck's base to that captured by Ross Perot.

They're trying to define it as a conservative populism, which might be the best way to put it.

But when I think of Glenn Beck's rise to popularity over the last couple of years, I wonder if the historical derivative is not David Duke. I'm not suggesting that Beck shares any of Duke's neo-nazi viewpoints but I am saying that Beck's unexpected share of the airwaves is analogous to when Duke elbowed his way into the mainstream political discussion behind a cloak of anti-establishment rhetoric.

His regular referrals to perceived African American benefit at the expense of whites, his fear-mongering around the fictional power of organized labor, his inexplicable predictions that Obama is Castro in a tailored suit - it's to me, much more Duke than Paul or Perot. It's obviously way softer because Beck doesn't have a litany of ties to Nazi and KKK groups or statements to that effect. Beyond that, he is able to manufacture an aura of nice-guy authenticity using his tears and his selective memory of American strength cooperation after 9/11.

At other times, I wonder if the whole cult is overblown. Apparently 42% of Americans have never even heard of the guy. Nonetheless, his show is now the highest rated on Fox News or close to it. That's quite frightening, maybe more so for traditional conservatives than for liberals.

Karen Carter Peterson says no

Maybe I should change my running Mayoral odds segment from Race to the Punchline to Race from the Punchline. Maybe the bets should be for the next person to declare they're NOT running.

Yeeesh. This looks like a school board race more than it does one for the highest office in town.

Karen Carter Peterson would have been the front-runner but there are a lot of tough choices involved beyond your own electoral consideration.

Karen Carter Peterson's younger sister, Tara Carter Hernandez gets a lot of contract work through the city and would have had to quit all that if KCP won. That's not the case if Karen Carter Peterson successfully takes Congressman Cao's title, which is the job she's probably wanted all along anyway.

So with Arnie Fielkow, Mitch Landrieu, and Karen Carter Peterson bowing out, megatrillionaire John Georges looks increasingly tough to beat.

There's a lot more to elections than street money but when you're going up against a bunch of no names, being able to erect lots of big billboards and pay a bunch of sign-wavers might be enough to win.

Until someone else gets in the race or one of the other declared candidates can show they have a snowball's chance; we might be talking about Mayor Georges next year.

OIG office in crisis

I apologize for my infrequent posts lately, this one may have been more timely if I had written it a week ago. Oh well.

Anyway, things are not going very well at the fledgling Office of Inspector General.

It is both depressing and embarrassing that the office seems to have devolved before ever really becoming an intelligent life form in the first place.

To quickly recap, the original inspector general, Robert Cerasoli resigned for health reasons last winter, leaving the office on an interim basis to his number two guy, Len Odom. Over the summer, Interim IG Len Odom circumvented process to select an Independent Police Monitor, Neely Moody, just before the Ethics Review Board was to make a final decision on Odom's position as temporary head honcho. This undermined the credibility of the new police monitor with those that had fought for the creation of the position. After the new IG was selected, Odom was pushed out entirely by Ethics Review Board Chairmen Rev. Kevin Wildes before being promptly reinstated on a temporary basis by new IG Edouard Quatrevaux, who himself then immediately took a leave of absence. Odom resigned within a week. Immediately following that, the police monitor, Neely Moody resigned.

In between, Moody and Odom collaborated on a report bashing Robert Cerasoli's handling of the office and released it to the press. Quatrevaux claimed Moody told him he would "take the office down with him" during a heated argument preceding his resignation and the release of the report on Cerasoli.

Do you got all that?

It is a gigantic mess. And it's shameful. For all of those that fought for the creation of the Office of Inspector General, this sideshow basically proves the naysayers correct. It has become what they said it would become - an ineffective joke of an office that drains city resources while providing little of value in terms of exposing municipal inefficiencies and advising lawmakers and the public on how to improve governance.

Perhaps more upsetting, it has become yet another ridiculous racial lightning rod, another battleground in a never-ending and sometimes fictional turf war between dying political factions of various complexions.

Central to this is a never-ending disagreement over who is responsible for corruption and injustice in New Orleans This debate is almost always counterproductive because it is simultaneously oversimplified and overcomplicated by partisans for one side or another.

African Americans are not being unreasonable when they complain about the media and a lot of the white establishment's never-ending crusade against perceived corruption within African American political and business classes. It is unambiguously hypocritical for whites to moralize about perceived African American corruption while turning a blind eye to or openly advocating for the continuation of the structural and historic racism that has created an entire economy of white privilege and an almanac of horrible outcomes for black children born into it. Besides, it is not as if there isn't plenty of entrenched corruption amongst white political and industrial elites - superfluous boards, tax assessment treats, and the like.

However, that certainly doesn't mean that corruption in what are generally perceived as African American hustles in the municipal game should just be ignored or brushed under the rug. Not everyone who wants the law of the land enforced against crooks of color is party to white tribalism.

The whole concept of the Office of Inspector General became part of this never-ending tug of war from the moment the City Charter was changed to authorize it many years ago. That's why it took damn near a decade between the authorization of the office and it's actual creation.

Who's corruption would the OIG prioritize?

Black or white?

It's a circular firing squad and nobody feels safe enough to be the first to put down their gun.

--

Robert Cerasoli once had the credibility and goodwill to create an effective culture and reliable systems within the Office of Inspector General. He had the chance to staff the office with responsible, dedicated, and selfless auditors and investigators.

He was the general manager and head coach of the team. He not only did the hiring and firing, but he was also in charge of how his employees operated on the field.

When he and his health failed, the team lost.

I don't know what it was that caused the rift between he and Len Odom. I don't know if it resulted from how Odom went about hiring the police monitor, but it seemed to have happened sooner.

Perhaps the rift appeared immediately.

When Cerasoli turned down access to a city car upon arrival and began to audit how the city distributes cars, maybe Odom disagreed with that prioritization. The IG's office did indeed hook up some cars after Cerasoli left.

I don't know how it happened exactly.

It certainly does seem like Mr. Odom hijacked the power of the office. He totally blew the Independent Police Monitor process, hiring someone with whom he was personally close and undermining an effort by police brutality and corruption watchdogs that had been in the works for a decade. He used his office to pursue what largely appears to be a personal vendetta against Mr. Cerasoli. He decided to sandbag the OIG on his way out of the door by releasing that report to the public and otherwise conducting himself like a child.

The report on Cerasoli could have been useful if it had actually been an audit of OIG systems to date, one that had recommendations on how to improve office operations. But it isn't. Instead, it's a largely personal hatchet job. That doesn't mean that some of the observations made don't expose mistakes for which Cerasoli is responsible - there are some bad bits in there - but you only have to read the 15 page report to realize that it's personal. So many of the issues examined are a direct result of the city's efforts to obstruct progress at the OIG not Cerasoli's shortcomings.

Yet the Odom-Cerasoli dynamic isn't the only thing at play here.

I was also struck by the way Odom was asked to step down upon Quatrevaux's hiring. Again, Rev. Kevin Wildes told Odom to pack up his things and get out even though Odom's resignation wasn't to be effective until sometime in October. Quatrevaux reinstated Odom and then Odom voluntarily resigned at the end of the week.

I don't know what got into Reverend Kevin Wildes but the Chairman of the Ethics Review Board does not have the despotic authority to fire the Inspector General.

His anger is what caused the ridiculous and embarrassing gymnastics that lead to Odom in and out dance.

The whole sad affair has created the political room for Mayor Ray Nagin to launch into one of the more insulting and hypocritical tirades of his administration.

The credibility of two of the most important reform offices of the city, the OIG and the Independent Police Monitor, is at risk. That is something that should alarm all of us.

We need working systems for accountable governance, not a total retreat from of the concept.

I fear that the latter is more likely than the former.

So how do we clean this mess up?

I have no doubt that the offices will remain, but that's not enough. We need them to have credibility so that they can actually be effective. They cannot be a lightening rod offices.

1. Reverend Kevin Wildes might need to fall on the sword. I don't know if people were insulted by his behavior but it didn't look classy from afar. He may not have "started it," but he took it public and that was inappropriate. His actions demonstrate his ease over the Ethics Review Board that makes me wonder if the length of his tenure there has lead him to treat it too much like a personal fiefdom. Other members of that Board should assert themselves.

2. Eduard Quatrevaux should be given a chance to stabilize the office with the support of our elected officials and the public. I wonder if he might need to agree to a sunset date for his administration of that office if a cloud of mistrust remains overhead.

3. The new Independent Police Monitor should be selected by a commission independent of the Inspector General and the Ethics Review Board.

4. City Council has got to band together and create an uninhibited consensus on how to proceed. They must resist all efforts by the Mayor to further undermine or de-fund the OIG or the Independent Police Monitor as the 2010 budget proceedings begin. However that needs to happen - let it happen. The Council factions, too often divided by race, need to set all their BS aside and agree to act as one. Each side must compromise to do so.

-

It really really sucks that we're starting from scratch again. It's pathetic.

Given the elections and investigations underway and on the horizon, we'll have plenty of ridiculous politics over the next year that we'll be just fine if we do this one thing the right way.

Best Party Ever?

It could be if you show up!


Don't miss this. It's going to be a blast.

Tickets can be purchased here or at the door.

The fun will start right away at 8 so it won't be fashionable to be late.

I hope to see you there.

Does Arnie mean Eddie?

We shouldn't be all that surprised that Arnie Fielkow isn't running for Mayor.

He clearly doesn't have the stomach for a potentially nasty election. I think the ground for this was laid last February and March when the Councilman couldn't get the votes to pass his contract transparency measure and was totally demoralized. Within days, this widely-circulated rumor was reported by Oyster. He was in full-on sulk mode at the time.

I don't mean for that to sound so disparaging. This is going to be a difficult job for whoever is elected, one that I'd liken to a weekly water-boarding.

I respect the Councilman's decision.

--

Everyone is probably abuzz about who might pounce on the opening.

I think the in the short term, it means that Eddie Sapir looks like a lock to run.

I don't know very much about Mr. Sapir.

What has he been doing since he last held elected office?

If you've got background, please provide it in the comments below.

Similar storm, different city

More from the Nor' Emailster:

Computer forensics specialists will probably be able to retrieve at least some of the e-mails deleted, in an apparent violation of state public records law, by the top policy aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, according to several specialists who provide such services.

Yesterday, responding to an order by Secretary of State William F. Galvin, the city hired a computer forensics firm, StoneTurn Group, to scour City Hall computers for the missing e-mail of Michael J. Kineavy, Menino’s chief of policy and planning. The issue came to light after the Globe filed a public records request for the messages.

So far behind, we're six months ahead of Boston's emerging email scandal. Seriously, if I'd omitted the names of the players, wouldn't you have just assumed this was a T-P lede from earlier in the summer?

Are we done with Joe Wilson now finally?

House approves motion to disapprove.

I think that Congressman should be held accountable by their colleagues for violating Congressional rules of decorum. I think that's fair.

I think the way this was pursued was petty and counterproductive.

Basically, House Democrats witnessed one of the greatest speeches of the last twenty years, one that stated eloquently the financial and moral imperatives for healthcare reform, one that took back the reigns of the debate in stunning fashion.

They responded by focusing singularly on a sensational outburst of an uninformed no-name goofball and instead we're pretty much back where we started.

We almost were about to have a national conversation about the best way to reform healthcare.

Almost.

The House could have gone about censuring Congressman Wilson in a classier way. One would have been to just quietly hold the guy accountable for the breach of decorum the very next day without all the cable news grandstanding. The other would have been to have waited until near the end of the session after the sensationalism of the moment had passed.

In related news, Congressman Cao was one of seven Republicans to cross over and vote for the motion to disapprove Congressman Wilson. A number of progressive Democrats voted against the motion or as present, which I think is very interesting and maybe even admirable.

Dell stall tactics fall flat

I've obtained some court documents from the crime camera civil case.

In the article about Meffert's hilarious change-of-venue motion, there was another late breaking item hidden toward the end of the piece.

In a strange twist Friday, a previously absent company sought to intervene on the side of the plaintiffs, Southern Electronics and Active Solutions.

More than two years after the two companies filed the lawsuit, Camsoft Data Systems Inc., appeared in court Friday, claiming its right to a third of anything Southern and Active might win at trial.

Camsoft was initially a subcontractor to Southern Electronics, and helped put up networked crime cameras for a pilot project for City Hall in 2004 and 2005. The Baton Rouge company claims it helped develop a special network system for the crime cameras, and therefore deserves to have an equal share of the plaintiffs' pie.

Ironically, even though Camsoft's attorney Jason Melancon said Friday he agrees with the gist of the plaintiffs' case, his basis for intervening is a claim that Southern Electronics owes Camsoft money for work it did on the New Orleans camera project.

The unexpected intervention sent the courtroom into a tizzy.

I only had vaguest recollection of Camsoft but it didn't seem to me to be relevant to the case that they had some sort of payment issue with Southern Electronics. That ought to be handled in a separate case. It would seem to be quite suspicious that such an intervention would suddenly surface at the eleventh hour. Anyway, these documents should shed some more light on this.

The first is a motion to appoint special process server filed by the lawyers for Dell, who also filed to stay the trial to subpoena and depose the folks from Camsoft.

SCAN6724_000


The second document is the response from the Plaintiffs' lawyers. This is a good read. Essentially, Dell asserted that they'd been kept unaware of the relationship between the Plaintiffs and Camsoft and claimed that in their depositions, Plaintiffs had failed to disclose Camsoft under questioning.

The lawyers for the Plaintiffs document in detail the numerous times Camsoft or its employees came up during discovery.

"A search of the documents produced by Plaintiffs in this litigation reveals Carlo MacDonald of Camsoft was referenced at least 1,613 times and Camsoft itself was referenced at least 410 times."

Lawyers also pointed to another stunning example, when Dell's lead council, Phil Whittman, the same guy who filed the motion to stay, asked Brian Fitzpatrick of Active Solutions during a deposition:

"Did you have anything to do with the camsoft data systems verbiage wire portion?"

So when Plaintiff attorneys excoriate Dell lawyers within the document for "feigned ignorance," this is what they're talking about. They then follow that up with another 130 pages of supporting evidence including emails included as trial exhibits and depositions.

PDF of Letter to Counel Enc Opp to Dell's Emerg Motion for s (00040822)

I don't think I've ever seen some of the emails before but I don't have time for a close read. If you have a chance to browse through these and find anything interesting that we haven't seen before, please please post away in the comments.

It's how come I'm so much dumber now

I drink the water.

Darwin passes along this disturbing map of local Clean Water Act violators.


Go check out his post.

You'll never guess who the offenders are.

A Nor' E-mailster?

Not sure if that nickname will catch but...

Boston--

Mayoral hopeful Michael F. Flaherty is accusing the Menino administration of a cover-up after the mayor’s top aide admitted deleting public e-mails even as the FBI subpoenaed his documents - a bombshell that has all three challengers calling for a criminal probe.

“They’ve been operating under a system they know violates the law,” said Flaherty, a city councilor at-large, who alleges the mass deletion of e-mails by Michael Kineavy potentially destroyed evidence in the public corruption probe against former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson last year.

Flaherty is planning to ask state Attorney General Martha Coakley and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley to probe the missing documents. Forging a rare unified front, fellow mayoral hopefuls Sam Yoon and Kevin McCrea asked to join Flaherty at a press conference scheduled for today.

“If you’re deleting e-mails methodically . . . you have something to hide,” said Yoon, councilor-at-large.

The Boston Globe requested six months of Kineavy’s e-mails starting Oct. 1, 2008 - but received just 18 messages and an admission that Kineavy was routinely deleting public e-mails potentially in violation of open records laws, the paper reported yesterday.

Meanwhile, our very own e-maelstrom crime camera civil suit begins today. First, Judge Ledet will have do deny one of the more hilariously written change-of-venue motions I've seen during my inconsequential career as someone who reads the news.

"It is indeed a rare and tragic occasion when a litigant must state that the tide of public opinion in his home parish has so turned against him that he cannot seek refuge in the hallowed halls of justice in that parish."

-

Smith said Meffert's shot at a fair trial has been compromised by media coverage, specifically two years' worth of Times-Picayune articles about gratuities Meffert collected from city vendor Mark St. Pierre -- including access to a boat, a corporate credit card and exotic vacations for himself, his family and the family of his boss, Mayor Ray Nagin.

He even contends that future jurors have been prejudiced by the newspaper's coverage of Smith's own statement in open court that Meffert is a target of a federal criminal investigation.

He cited comments posted by readers on the paper's affiliated Web site, NOLA.com, to argue that potential jurors have already formed an opinion against his client.

Someone should really live-blog this trial. Someone really should hire me to live-blog this trial.

Let's move on from Wilson already

Sean Quinn:

Importantly, Obama should take this approach and also remind people that although Wilson’s objection was not a truthful one, that if anyone out there was bothered by what they saw with that display, the best action would be to not waste energy attacking Mr. Wilson but instead to contact their Representative and Senators and express their opinions on getting a health insurance reform bill passed. If people don’t know the phone numbers & emails for their Representative’s or Senators’ offices, he should say, just go to www.barackobama.com and type in their home address/zip code to find it. He’d have a big platform to make that pitch with media attention hot on the story.

Okay, it was fun for a day. Let's fight for healthcare now.

Mary Landrieu:

Washington D.C.: (202) 224-5824
New Orleans: (504) 589-2427

Joe Cao:

Washington D.C.: (202) 225-6636
New Orleans: (504) 483-2325

Charlie Melancon:

Washington D.C.: (202) 225-4013
At home: See here

--

And most importantly, an opportunity to get organized.

Feeling Bullish

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I thought this speech was brilliant in so many ways.

He avoided drawing hard lines in the sand on most of the specific policy proposals he personally favors.

But he drew several lines in the sand on the principles at stake here.

Either you're for participating in the creation and passage of a critically important but imperfect healthcare and health insurance reform bill or you're against it.

Either you're for working with the President to fix problems or you're against it.

He's putting his Presidency on the line.

Because if we can't fix healthcare, with all the general agreement there is on what the problems are, we're not going to be able to fix anything at all.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, corporate Democrat enemy number one of liberal progressives for his role watering down healthcare reform in the upper chamber, who stood steadfast against the public option in the face of hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads, said after the speech that it was a "game changer."

He's on board and will work with the President to pass the best bill they can.

Who else we got?

Max Baucus of Montana?

Olympia Snow of Maine?

Susan Collins of Maine?

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana?

George Voinovich of Ohio?

The New Guy of Florida?

What are you all going to do? Who you with? What side are you on?

--

Senator Landrieu's statement after the speech:

“President Obama’s speech tonight was very much needed to keep Congress on track to find a solution for the health care challenges facing our country. It was a sincere and heartfelt effort to unify Democrats and reach out to Republicans to forge common ground and build a broader coalition. Moving this debate forward will take principled compromise and an approach that draws from the very best ideas – regardless of political party.

“The President rightfully focused on the need to lower health care costs for families, businesses and the government. If Congress does not find the resolve to pass health care legislation, people will not be able to afford the insurance they like or get the quality coverage they need, and the federal government will not be able to balance its budget.

“Skyrocketing health insurance premiums and unstable costs have hurt even our most successful small businesses and stifled job growth at a time when our economy needs a jolt. Insurance reform and the new insurance exchanges that the President highlighted are excellent solutions to giving consumers and small businesses greater choice, and with it, competitive prices in a market-based approach.

“The coming weeks and months will produce a spirited debate. But as the President said, the time is now for improving health care. Our current system is unsustainable and is costing our nation more than $2 trillion a year. Louisiana and all of America simply cannot afford the status quo.”

This sounds like she's is ready and willing to vote for healthcare reform even if it includes a public option triggered four years from now with the launch of an insurance exchange and I hope that my interpretation of her position is correct.

It is shameful she hasn't been a strong advocate for healthcare reform. I don't think it's politically risky to contrast oneself with David Vitter's position. I think there is way less downside risk if one is a fierce supporter of healthcare reform but a lot of potential benefit. Conversely, hanging back until the last minute before ultimately voting for healthcare reform, which is what I expect the Senator to do, would seem to be to carry all of the downside risk without any of the potential benefits.

It was cowardly, especially given that she's not even up for reelection for another five years.

--

Congressman Cao told the Times-Picayune he was "relieved" by Obama's assertion that there would be no funding for abortion in the healthcare reform bill.

That's important. At a forum last week in New Orleans East broadcast by WBOK, Cao insisted that there was federal funding for abortion in the bill over the objections of the crowd.

As a result, Tracie Washington posed a hypothetical question to the Congressman, which he clearly answered. Even though the abortion myth has been debunked by nonpartisan fact checkers for weeks prior to the President's speech last night, Washington wondered whether Cao would support the bill if it had everything he wanted but didn't include additional specific language pertaining to abortion.

She asked if abortion was a deal-breaker.

And Cao said yes.

So Congressman Cao's statement to the Times-Picayune is very encouraging. I would strongly urge him to become that rare Republican advocate for healthcare reform from here on out. I don't expect that but I would applaud him loudly if that's what he ends up doing.

Leadership for a change?

When I think about State Senator and Mayoral Candidate Ed Murray, the first things that comes to mind are Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Voting to facilitate the relocation of the Hornets to New Orleans is just like leading Civil Rights movement, averting the Cuban missile crisis, or navigating the Great Depression!

In all seriousness, this is well-produced opening ad for man with no name recognition, no charisma, and without a particularly exciting record of accomplishment.



I think that his slogan, "Leadership for a change," is excellent. His new logo is also pretty fresh.

And he's launched a website.

The ad above will run for three weeks and cost $100,000 by itself.

So Ed Murray is really running for Mayor.

A few weeks ago, the first batch of campaign finance filings were reported on by the T-P. Murray had $131,600 as of the end of July.

Murray's fundraising either accelerated like crazy in August or he's making a big bet that it will soon.

Hat tip to Papa Bear for tracking down Murray's video so quickly.

Overslept

Did Cedric Richmond declare his candidacy this morning?

Update: Politico says yes.

Chicken Soup

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No more political pussy-footing. Pass healthcare reform now.

With Baited Breath

Right now in Judge Rosemary Ledet's courtroom at Orleans Parish Civil District Court, lawyers for Active Solutions and Southern Electronics are laying out a narrative describing a wide-ranging conspiracy by city officials including Greg Meffert and Mayor Nagin and Dell Computers to steal technology from the two plaintiff companies while they held city contractors.

There should be some interesting material unsealed for the first time. Keep an eye on the internets for fresh docs and reports from the courtroom.

Which is it?

The strange comings and goings at City Hall this week didn't just look weird to those of us on the outside. Perdido Streeters are not having a good week at the office, that much is clear.

Lots of sweating and scrambling.

Are we seeing a purge or an exodus?

Botched

Not even a promotion could keep Austin Penny from jumping ship.

Three days after Austin Penny was named a top director in Mayor Ray Nagin's next-generation recovery bureaucracy, a city spokesman confirmed Thursday that Penny is poised to leave city government, setting up another leadership transition in New Orleans' ongoing rebuilding effort.

Wacky stuff.

This was awesome

Thanks to everyone who came. Fun times.

Elias Castellanos indicted, questions about HANO-backed nonprofits abound

Don't know if you caught this but Mr. Castellanos, a former CFO of the Housing Authority of New Orleans while it was under HUD's federal receivership, was charged with embezzling nearly a million bucks.

HANO was notoriously corrupt for about three decades before it was finally taken over by HUD under President Bush. Unfortunately, it has emerged from that receivership as bad or worse than before because of the corrupt leadership Alphonso Jackson, who was GW Bush's HUD chief.


Jackson resigned in disgrace toward the end of the Bush administration after Philly's top housing guy blew the whistle on Jackson's move to withhold federal money from Philly public housing residents in a transparent attempt to extract payments for a derelict contractor and Bush supporter. Carl Greene of PHA knew how to save emails.

There have been widespread allegations of corruption in Jackson's office and some of them involve his stewardship of HANO.

I've worked on this a lot. Check out my archives for Alphonso Jackson for more.

Anyway, the little T-P blurb gives absolutely zero context on Mr. Castellanos, who worked at HANO under Jackson.

But the minutes of March 19th meeting of the Legislative Audit Advisory Council in Baton Rouge provides some details.

LAAC03172009

Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation and Lune d'Or Enterprises. LLC

Elias Castellanos with Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation, a nonprofit of the Housing Authority of New Orleans, and Jamora Erwin with the Housing Authority of New Orleans and Crescent Affordable Housing came forward to state their case. Mr. Castellanos said that like most of the entities that they oversee, HANO has been in a continuation of rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina. Crescent Affordable is a managing member of some of their operations that were going through the mixed planned development. As those audits were held back and must be completed so that the audit of Crescent Affordable could be finished. They are in the process of completing those audits. Crescent Affordable audit for 2006 should be delivered to them today, and upon their review and approval it would be released to the Legislative Auditor. They will have all related audits completed within the next month and ready upon approval and release from the auditors, will then be released to the Legislative Auditor. He further stated that Lune d'Or Enterprises, LLC is a member of Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation.

Mr. Purpera said that the report pending is the 12/31/2007 reports. Mr. Castellanos said that their auditors have indicated that Lune d'Or will be released on April 30th • Crescent Affordable audit will be released to them today for review. Senator Murray asked if Crescent Affordable Housing is an affiliate of HANO in New Orleans. Mr. Castellanos said that it is a nonprofit organization created by HANO to help support the redevelopment effort. The mixed plans developments they are entering into require separate partnership entities to initiate the financial transaction and because HANO is an agency funded through HUD, and they have certain restrictions on obligating our resources, they have to create the nonprofit in order to facilitate these mixed line developments.

Senator Murray asked if each one of the nonprofits is responsible for a separate development in New Orleans, or if all combined together. Mr. Castellanos said Crescent Affordable is generally the parent and then the nonprofits and related LLC's are under Crescent. Senator Murray asked if Crescent Affordable Housing was standing in the shoes of HANO overseeing all. Mr. Castellanos said it is the nonprofit parent entity for all mixed plan developments that they enter into. He explained that Lune d'Or Enterprices, LLC was the managing member for the Fisher 1, Fisher 3 and Gus 1 properties. Also Crescent Affordable is the sole owner of Lune d'Or, and throughout the audit it is still Crescent Affordable

Senator Murray asked if all are private nonprofits. Mr. Castellanos responded that the sole owner of Crescent Affordable is the Housing Authority of New Orleans, but it does not stand in the shoes of HANO. Senator Murray asked if HANO owned Crescent Affordable Housing and Mr. Castellanos said yes. Senator Nevers moved to grant the extension and with no objections, the motion was granted.

Senator Murray asked Mr. Castellanos to provide to himself the names of the board members of the respective nonprofits for Crescent Affordable Housing and Lune d'Or and any other ones that are in the City of New Orleans that are operating under these housing redevelopments. Mr. Castellanos said he can provide the information through the Legislative Auditors. Senator Murray said they can provide it directly to his office on Broad Street in New Orleans.

For more on Lune D'or and Crescent Affordable Housing, I found this HANO RFP (pdf) from 2007 that includes some helpful background information.

Crescent Affordable Housing Corporation (CAHC), a non-profit corporation, was created in December 2003 by HANO to facilitate the development of affordable housing. CAHC is the sole member of Lune d'Or Enterprises LLC, a for profit entity created by HANO that serves as the managing member of several for-profit Limited Liability Corporations (LLC's) that own and operate affordable housing projects developed on HANO properties. Through Lune d'Or, CAHC serves as the managing member of each of the LLC's, including those named in this Request for Proposals (RFP). Each LLC owns a phase of development at the given site. Those sites are part of the new comprehensive redevelopment strategy HANO has developed to accelerate the revitalization of low income and affordable housing. HANO and eighteen (18) affiliates of HANO have received or expect to receive tax credit allocations for Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) to assist in its redevelopment efforts and are seeking a qualified, full service certified public accounting firm with expertise in affordable housing and tax credits to conduct full spectrum audits, cost certifications, tax credit carryover, 10% tests, financial statement audits, tax valuation, and provide litigation support, trust and general consulting services.

The services contemplated herein are also required for any future affiliates created by HANO in 2007.

The current Housing Authority of New Orleans affiliates include the following:

Crescent Affordable Housing, LLC

Lune D'Or Enterprises, LLC

Place D'Genesis, LLC

Fischer I, LLC

Fischer III, LLC

Guste I, LLC

Florida IIA, LLC

Mazant Royal, LLC

General Ogden, LLC

Imperial I, LLC

Imperial II, LLC

Guste ll-B, LLC

Fischer IV-3, LLC

Tchoupitoulas, LLC

CJ Peete I, LLC

St. Bernard I, LLC

CJ Peete III, LLC

BW Cooper I, LLC

HANO is currently designated by HUD as a Troubled Agency. Further, H ANO has been placed under an administrative receivership, whereby an Administrative Receiver has been charged with the responsibility of quickly transforming the agency's overall operations and performance into one reflective of a standard or high performing public housing authority. To that end, HANO's success will, in part, be contingent upon verification of its compliance with laws and regulations applicable to all federal assistance programs.

That's all for now. This is not the first time in recent memory that a quasi-governmental nonprofit in the housing field has allowed massive graft and corruption to go under the radar. I hope that major audits of all affiliated non-profits are underway.

Would appreciate any tips in the comments section. I won't be able to google through all of these by myself. There are lots of other pdf docs online that will at least provide better context on this.

I'm curious how Mr. Castellanos came to be employed at HANO and wonder if he had a personal relationship with Mr. Jackson directly or through the contractors that were awarded funds to redevelop the Big 4.

L?

That non-compete clause can't possible apply over here, Lee.

Feel free any time.

-

Seriously, how could Mr. Zurik not cover the last months of C. Ray Nagin and the circus election to succeed him? I'm sure there's another peabody or two in there.

Some rats swim away, other rats swim back.

Mayor Nagin had Jeff Thomas walk the plank today. It appears he was fired.

Kenya Smith is back on board to replace him.

Thomas sent out an email announcing his departure earlier.

I wanted to let you know that as of today I will no longer be an
employee of the City of New Orleans.

With the City transitioning from disaster-recovery policy development to
implementation, the Administration is restructuring.

Jeff out, Kenya back in.

I guess this is what passes for recycling in Ray Nagin's administration.