Perry Campaign Already A Daily Affair

While everyone anxiously awaits my next Mayoral odds line (later this week but no promises) why don't we check in with dark horse darling James Perry?

Perry, the executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, confirmed his interest in the Mayor's office to WCBF in mid-December:

The fundamental concern is that the rebuilding effort is failing. So far, the folks who have discussed running for Mayor have not had a strong record when it comes to rebuilding. Many of them are great folks with strong records but they haven't been pushing on these issues around getting the neighborhoods in New Orleans rebuilt.

Frustrated by the lack of support municipal government has provided for the city's various grassroots citizen-driven recovery initiatives, James Perry seems to have both the record and rhetoric local progressives like myself have yearned to inject into the political discourse.

The question for Perry has been and will remain whether or not he can generate the grassroots support necessary to compete with wealthier rivals. Without a vast personal fortune or the seemingly prerequisite political alliances, Perry will have to outwork adversaries in every other facet of the campaign from messaging to the field organizing. To be taken seriously when campaign fever hits the rest of the city, James Perry will have already needed to infect an army of supporters with his own mutated strain of the virus.

Considering the mountain ahead of him, it's hard not to be hopeful about the initial groundwork. He's announced his interest and formalized his exploratory committee, which is more than other contenders can say. He's launched a simple but interactive website, cultivated online social networks, attended more community meetings and events than previously considered possible, and set an initial fund-raising target. The $25,000 goal is extremely modest considering what he'll eventually need to compete, but nothing grows without seeds.

Recognizing that a competitive coalition will depend heavily on the enthusiastic support of young voters and the city's most engaged progressives, Perry is already laying down tracks - demonstrating the ability to use the tools of online networks for concrete organizing in the flesh. He hasn't just started a Facebook page for his campaign, he's tapping his early supporters there to host house parties on his behalf. He hasn't just opened a Twitter account, he updates regularly. He hasn't just published a website, he's provided forums for supporters to contribute to his platform.

So if you haven't yet...

Join Convince James Perry to run for Mayor of New Orleans!!!

Follow James Perry on Twitter

Donate a small sum to his campaign

Contribute your voice to his issues pages for crime, economic development, education, and housing. (I'm dominating these mini-forums by the way, someone had better get over there and shout me down.)

And if you're already ready already, endorse him on your blog - like my main man DSB or bad ass Princeton politics professor Melissa Harris Lacewell.

At the very least, join the facebook group and get to know the guy and what he stands for.

Hurricane Protection and the Infrastructure Stimulus

Oyster has a must-read post today about Bush administration efforts to refuse SE Louisiana the critical levees it needs. During the Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to change that. Obama has a full fact-sheet on Katrina, it's worth your while to read (pdf).

As president, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

So what does that mean for hurricane protection?

As president, Barack Obama will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm. Obama and Biden will also direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection.

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Barack Obama and Joe Biden will help the Gulf Coast restore the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that are critical to tamping down the force of hurricanes. They will work with local governments to develop the best strategies for protecting and expanding wetlands.

These promises are vague. We have to pin the Obama administration down. Certainly there are many angry legislators willing to speak out over the Bush administration obstacle course but I have not seen much evidence that our elected officials will be attempting to do force the immediate action we need using the infrastructure stimulus bill. This strikes me as a missed opportunity.

I also have not seen much evidence that national progressive bloggers or mainstream journalists are particularly interested in pinning the administration down on hurricane protection infrastructure. I haven't seen many outside of SE Louisiana particularly willing to put effort into promoting issues related to hurricane protection in even a general sense.

So that leaves...

Us?

The issue of hurricane and flood protection is fundamental to the most basic sustainability of this region in the short, medium, and long term. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to inject our issue into the national conversation about the infrastructure stimulus bill?

In the mean time, I've floated the idea of flood protection for New Orleans to the Citizen's Briefing Book at Change.gov. The way it works is that if an idea is popular, Obama people respond to it. Failing that, it probably helps to put New Orleans issues out there to see how much they resonate with the mainstream liberals that presumably populate the Change.gov community.

There are only a few ideas on that site that directly relate to New Orleans. The one I've created appears to have the most points but that's not saying very much at all.

We need to force the issue. This little experiment takes all of 45 seconds of your time.

"Vote Up" Flood Protection for New Orleans

And tell your friends? Yeah, tell your friends.

Easy Internet Activism Experiment

I've only casually browsed Change.gov, the grassroots arm of Barack Obama's transition. The Citizen's Briefing Book is pretty cool and at the very least, provides a forum through which even 'unconventional' ideas can be democratically evaluated and injected into the discourse. For instance, users have been enthusiastically promoting different suggestions related to the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana or other efforts to drastically reform drug policy. While it is unlikely that Obama administration will drastically liberalize drug policy, at least his surrogates were challenged to defend the status-quo in that regard. There was a minor media boomlet involving those issues, all because of the voting behavior of users of change.gov.

I wonder if New Orleanians can use this tool to circumvent our own feckless leadership.

Lately, I've become extremely troubled by our state leadership's priorities as Congress begins to negotiate an infrastructure stimulus package that could cost over $1 trillion. Early media reports are signaling that Governor Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana congressional delegation have aimed for a shockingly low share of that money, something in the order of $1 billion. I've been trying to dig into this and from what I can figure out, the majority of that request involves housing program deadline extensions and extra money to make up for the funding shortfall needed to begin construction on the controversial LSU/VA hospital redevelopment.

Why wouldn't our elected leaders aim a little bit higher than that? At the very least, a large request would highlight the forgotten needs of the region. How does Louisiana rank nationally on education, public health, incarceration rates, literacy, poverty, infant mortality, etc?

But forget all of that, even. What about our basic physical security?

What about Category 5 levees?

We need 'em. They ain't asking for 'em.

So let's try something.

Here, I've made a pitch to the new administration using the Citizen's Briefing Book. I don't get into the specifics of levee protection vs. seawalls vs. coastal restoration, but I try to briefly pitch the general issue of flood protection for New Orleans.

Right now, the leading issue is high speed rail with more than 5800 points.

One vote = 10 points.

Real Flood Protection for New Orleans under 100 points. So we have a ways to go.

But why not give this a whirl and see if things snowball?

Online political mischief, from the comfort of your desk!

Real Flood Protection for New Orleans NOW!!!!

And if you're browsing around and see another important New Orleans-related suggestion in the briefing book. Throw up a link in the comments section and I'll click-vote for it as well.

For Facebookers

Group for justice in racist vigilante killings.

What Will We Do?

Anon calls out liberal whites in the comments section of this post:

So what will local "anti-racist whites" do? Should we be satisfied with leaving this issue to an outside, African American group, Color of Change? Did we leave Ray Nagin, Bill Jefferson, and Veronica White to some outside group? Will blacks have a point if they say that whites are quick to protest black officials but we wont take the lead in dealing with white racism in our own community?

Damn. In our face.

What do you think about that? What should we do and how should we do it?

In related news, I should point out that Rep. Conyers of Michigan is outraged about the revelations from Mr. Thompson's article. As Chair of the Judiciary Committee, he is actually positioned to do something about it, he can initiate a wide-ranging investigation. I've always liked John Conyers, don't know if I've ever mentioned that.

Meanwhile, Color of Change is pushing forward with requests to Buddy Caldwell and Bobby Jindal.

Mission Accomp... Naaah

What a blast I had today at City Hall delivering the petition to dismiss Sanitation Director Veronica White.

Each City Councilor's office has received their very own limited edition personalized copy of the petition.

Of course, so has the Office of the Mayor.

Did it work?

Well, Veronica White is still on payroll. So no, not yet.

However, I was able to generate some press for the issue, and for the greater specter of progressive grassroots coalition building.

Earlier this morning, Mayor Nagin announced some difficult budget decisions.

Council decided to hold a significant portion of the Sanitation Department's budget in reserve, presumably giving Veronica White the opportunity to prove that she has the credibility to lead the agency.

The Mayor's office has rejected that.

Instead, the Mayor is reducing the sanitation budget by cutting services.

I'm happy to sacrifice the French Quarter's chemical lemon scent, but I don't believe such action does anything to address the fundamental issues plaguing the Department of Sanitation. There is an underlying lack of transparency and credibility that has undermined public trust.

Service cuts don't address the procedures for awarding sanitation contracts. They don't magically reproduce the accounting numbers that were so poorly kept over the last two years. We're not being reimbursed for services not rendered. Seemingly, we're further away from a citywide recycling program than we were a year ago.

Relieving SDT of some of it's French Quarter responsibilities certainly does nothing to address the flawed demolition process that has allowed some of our neighbors' homes to be rendered prairie mid renovation.

The Department of Sanitation cannot change until our Director of Sanitation has the legitimacy needed to earn back the trust of the public.

Veronica White has lost that basic credibility as a public official. She must be replaced.

Trash Delivery Day

I'll be heading over to City Hall at 1PM tomorrow to deliver the unprecedented and amazing petition calling for the dismissal of Sanitation Director Veronica White.

This will hopefully coincide nicely with the scheduled delivery of the Mayor's sham audit.

I'll be delivering a copy of the petition to each member of City Council and to the Office of the Mayor.

I spent all day at the Kinkos so these better be read thoroughly.

I'd suggest recycling the paper afterward, but, um, we don't have recycling services in New Orleans.

I was hoping to arrive in a gold plated garbage truck. In a perfect world I'd dump thousands of copies of the petition out of the back of the truck and just stay double parked on Perdido for the whole day.Unfortunately those kind of theatrics will have to wait for Mardi Gras season.

Instead, it'll just be me and a stack of paper.

Feel free to meet me there, I'll need moral support.

Thanks to all that signed and to all that spread word.

McBride: Trash Irregularities Abound

(I've added links to the photographs)

Matt McBride:

You are likely aware of the recent problems between the New Orleans City Council and the Sanitation Department. At the center of the dispute is an attempt to determine which houses are actually getting serviced by the city's three main garbage contractors, SDT, Metro, and Richards on a month by month basis.

A couple of weeks ago, the Sanitation Department handed over Microsoft Excel address lists from Richards and Metro to the City Council (no SDT information was submitted). Stacy Head's office compiled a memo summarizing preliminary findings after an examination of the data. It's attached, and it provides good baseline information like rates the companies charge and how many houses they were charging for at various times over the length of the contract.

I have also received the monthly house count spreadsheets for October, 2008 for both Richards and Metro, as well as the May, 2007 sheet for Metro. I spent a lot of time over the past few days cleaning the three sheets up, and then analyzing the results. They are very interesting...

Duplicates

While media accounts and and city officials have simply counted the number of rows on these sheets and considered that equal to the number of houses, I found that was false. In fact, there are thousands of duplicate addresses buried within these lists. This is found when one cleans up the addresses and sorts them properly.

The problems with duplicate addresses seem to be far more severe with the Metro contract than with the Richards one. I analyzed the lists to isolate unique addresses. Here's what I found;

Metro, May 2007, 40,110 rows, billed for 40,000, actually 38,835 unique addresses

Metro, October 2008, 45,626 rows, billed for 45,336, actually 43,592 unique addresses

Richards October 2008, 64,101 rows, billed for 63,000, actually 63,600 unique addresses (it appears they are underbilling the city, but read on...)

So if one just looks at the number of rows compared to the number of billings, it would appear the city is actually getting houses serviced free. However, when one takes into account the inflating effect of duplicate addresses on the spreadsheets, it appears the city is paying money they shouldn't.

In October, 2008, there were about 2500 duplicate addresses between the two companies, including some addresses which appeared four times. Here's the details:

Metro May 2007:

1265 duplicates (3.2% of unique addresses)

9 triplicate addresses

1 quadruplicate address (4319 Chartres, Apt B)

Metro October 2008:

2014 duplicates (4.6% of unique addresses)

18 triplicate addresses

2 quadruplicate addresses (4319 Chartres, Apt B, and 13411 Curran)

Richards October 2008:

484 duplicates (0.76% of unique addresses)

16 triplicate addresses

1 quadruplicate address (2723 Jackson)

As the City Council memo indicates, the billing rates for Metro are $18.15 a residence. Theoretically - if the city can find a way to recoup these funds - it appears the city paid an extra $23,000 in May, 2007 and an extra $36,500 in October, 2008 to Metro. Using an average of these two numbers ($29,750), that would mean an average estimated overbilling of $375,000 per year due to duplicate addresses on Metro's contract.

What is noteworthy regarding the Metro duplicates (besides the large amount of them), is that 665 addresses that only appeared once on the May, 2007 list then became duplicate addresses on the October, 2008 list. Additionally, all but six of the 1256 duplicates on the May 2007 remain as duplicates on the October 2008 list. The remaining 99 duplicates on the October 2008 list were brand new duplicates that month, when compared to the May 2007 list.

Since the city paid for 600 fewer unique addresses than Richards says they collected from in October, 2008, it seems that the problem of duplicates on the Richards contract did not affect payments. But there are other problems with the Richards contract, as detailed below.

Multiplexes

For multi-unit buildings with more than four units, the owner is required to contract with a private trash contractor rather than signing up for the city's service. Such places should not be showing up on the lists of residences serviced on these municipal contracts. But they are.

There's more of this irregularity on the Richards contract than on the Metro one, and it only appears to be a few instances. But they are obvious.

On Richards, I found the following more-than-four-unit properties getting billed in October, 2008:

418 Pelican (eight-plex)

1015 Washington (appears to be six-plex, and - oddly - owned by the same person as 418 Pelican, a William W. Benson)

3351 Kabel (what appears to be a commercial multiplex property)

3820 3rd (six-plex)

3214 Diana (nine-plex) - I've attached a picture of this place from Google StreetView with 7 Richards cans out front. If you go on Google Maps and search on this address, and then click the little guy to see it in StreetView, you'll see an 8th can against the building. All 9 units actually show up on the Richards list.

In total, there are 35 "buildings" on the Richards list apparently receiving five or more cans, though not all have five units or more like those examples above. Some are fourplexes with duplicate addresses in individual apartments. Others are legitimate, and are artifacts of odd address assignments by the city. For example, there are 16 cans shown as assigned to 1 St. John Court. But that's because all the houses in that Bayou St John cul-de-sac have the same number address, but use letters to distinguish themselves.

Temporary trailer parks

This was one of my oddest findings. I discovered that Richards is still billing for temporary trailer parks as recently as October, 2008. It is unclear if trailer parks were even allowed to receive city trash cans under the contract. However, that question seems moot, because Richards continues to bill for them on the October 2008 list, even though (I believe) all these parks were shut down months ago. The addresses are:

Trailer park at 1605 Horace and 3220 Lawrence (trailers are all gone) - Richards appears to have been double billing this place, since both addresses are at the same corner. Looking at this place on Google Maps StreetView shows it as an empty lot when the StreetView van went by (last summer I believe). I have attached a screenshot of this. In the lower right corner, you can see the even older overhead shot from Google Maps which shows the trailers when they were there.

Trailer park at 2379 Rousseau (picture attached of Richards cans in front of trailers - note Google StreetView van passed by in 2007, so this picture is a historic document - all the trailers are now gone)

Trailer park at 9018 Dixon (picture attached of Richards cans in front of trailers - note Google StreetView van passed by in 2007, so this picture is a historic document - all the trailers are now gone)

Demolished properties

In response to an order from a federal judge, on November 13th the city finally began issuing lists of properties it has demolished and for which it received FEMA reimbursements. The latest version of the list was issued on November 26th. It covers demolitions performed by the city's contractor, DRC, between December 2007 and November, 2008 and can be found here:

http://www.cityofno.com/Portals/ImminentHealthThreatDemolitionProperties/Resources/CompletedDemolitions11-25-08.pdf

This list is the most authoritative list of city-initiated demolitions, since it includes the actual date a house was demolished. I cross referenced this list against the Metro and Richards sheets for October, 2008. Here's what I found:

Metro: 67 properties with demolition dates between December 1, 2007 and October 31, 2008

Richards: 33 properties with demolition dates between December 1, 2007 and October 31, 2008

My research indicates that the rebuild rate on demolished lots is about 10 to 15 percent, meaning that the vast majority of these 100 lots are likely still empty, but the city is getting billed for trash collection at them.

I also cross referenced the Metro and Richards October 2008 lists against four other types of demolition-related lists:

a) Properties which have appeared on one of the 10 Imminent Danger of Collapse lists from September 15, 2007 until July 17, 2008. Imminent Danger of Collapse (IDC) properties are those targeted for demolition by the city because they are about to fall down, or have already fallen down.

b) Properties which have appeared on one of the 22 Imminent Health Threat lists issued by the city from March, 2007 until November 20, 2008. Imminent Health Threat (IHT) properties are those targeted by the city for demolition because they are ungutted, unsecured, have tall grass, or some combination of the three. They are not in as bad a shape as IDC properties, but they are extremely unlikely to be occupied and receiving trash service.

c) Properties which received demolition permits for anyone - private owners or the city's or Corps of Engineers' contractors - during the term of the contracts - from January 1, 2007 until October 31, 2008

d) Properties which received any demolition permits since Katrina.

Here are the results:

IDC properties

Metro - 11

Richards - 9

IHT properties:

Metro - 181

Richards - 90

Demo permits from 1/1/07 to 10/31/08:

Metro - 607; including 34 duplicates

Richards - 191; including 18 duplicates

Demo permits from 8/29/05 to 10/31/08:

Metro - 1284; including 85 duplicates

Richards - 365; including 29 duplicates

While appearance on the IDC or IHT lists, or even the existence of a demolition permit, does not necessarily guarantee that the property is gone, or unoccupied, or otherwise unsuitable for garbage collection, they are strong indicators of that unsuitability. When one adds in the estimated rebuild rate of 10-15% on demolished lots, it seems clear there seem to be very many questionable properties on both Richards' and Metro's address lists.

Conclusion

There are many irregularities in the Richards and Metro address lists provided to the City Council. While at first blush it would appear that both firms are actually underbilling the city, it would appear Metro is definitely overbilling, and Richards is borderline.

Among the irregularities are:

- thousands of duplicate addresses being counted in the billing totals,

- billing the city for apartment buildings with more than four units, commercial buildings, and non-existent trailers (even double billing a trailer park in one case)

- billing the city for properties that have been demolished, targeted for demolition by the city, determined by the city to be in imminent danger of collapse, or which have had demolition permits granted to them.

With this many irregularities, it seems the skepticism some have expressed over the contracts' cost effectiveness is justified.

Best regards,

Matt McBride

Here is a link to the helpful preliminary report from Stacy Head's office.

Is a real municipal department of sanitation out of the question? Why doesn't the city own trucks or employ a workforce? It doesn't really seem like it's been particularly cost effective to go the selfish contractor route.

Certainly one place to make a change is at the top.

Have We Properly Fattened Up?

I have. It's been nice to revel in relative abundance.

You could say that I'm thankful.

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There's a risk though.

It's called Tryptophan.

And it makes you sleepy.

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Leftovers are delicious but mind the downside.

There's a lot going on in New Orleans, a lot of drums to beat.

It is a good time to be particularly diligent.

It's Going Almost Too Well

I was hoping the signature goal wouldn't be reached until toward the end of the holiday weekend, but things are moving much too quickly. We could approach 400 signatures by the end of the day today.

Dismiss Veronica White Now.

Intergovernmental congeniality is meaningless when improved policies and/or function do not precipitate.

They killed trees for THIS?

The founder and CEO of WCBF sounds like an idiot in your Saturday edition of the Times-Picayune. Man, that soundbite shit is hard. It took a lot of negotiation to get them not to print what I said about mouth-breathers. Yeah, you know the type.

I almost shut down the blog today to throw any would-be new readers off of my scent, but I know that's only for the yellah.

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If you've come to sign the petition to dismiss Veronica White, you can find it here. According to analyst calculations, it is 63% complete.

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Here's an uncomfortable interview between Norman Robinson and Mayor Nagin over the Veronica White fracas. Mayor Nagin refuses to defend the actual assertions he made to Council about the event in an email. My favorite question was:

"You don't feel, as the elected leader of this city, are exacerbating this by throwing this out there without offering any clarification, any real clarity?"

Nagin's answer:

"...we'll see where the legal procedures go from here."

Ugh.

Fielkow: "I Don't Think That's Democracy"

Arnie Fielkow isn't particularly enthused about the latest detente negotiated between Councilwoman Clarkson, Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, and Mayor Nagin.

Responding to a question about Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell's plan to cut off microphones in the event of future heated exchanges, Councilman Fielkow concludes:

"I don't think that's Democracy."

He doesn't believe it's addressed the underlying issue that lead to the recent spat over decorum - whether or not the Nagin administration is providing the information that Council requests.

“Ultimately, that is the most important question. Does the council have the information needed to formulate an opinion on the particular sanitation contract? I don’t know the answer to that,” Fielkow said.

Here's another WWL report.

Apparently, then-Councilman Jay Batt tried to get Veronica White removed in 2004 with an ordinance.

The only other 'yea' vote in that effort belonged to none other than Jackie Clarkson.

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I did not know that.

I wonder if Jackie has signed this petition, which calls for Veronica White's dismissal from her post as Director of Sanitation.

Sign it and spread it, friends.

Hey Neat

The petition calling for the dismissal of Veronica White is officially half way to its signature goal. It's only been a few days. That's not too shabby.

If you haven't signed it yet, why wait any longer?

And if you have signed already, have you emailed the link to all your friends, enemies, and frenemies?

Just because we're eagerly anticipating whether or not the next Council meeting will feature actual questions and actual answers or the revocation of microphone privileges doesn't mean we wait to organize. Quite the contrary. This is our time.

Dismiss Veronica White now.


Update:

Oyster makes a compelling case for why we should also organize against any more funding for crime cameras. We've got a 25 million dollar hole to climb out of. An end to maintenance funding yields about $1.6 million. What could we get back if we also then sold the equipment?
There must be some other dumb municipality out there willing to make the same mistake we did, right?

All Better Now?

Earlier tonight, Ray Nagin, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, and Jackie Clarkson emerged laughing from an expensive French Quarter restaurant where agreed to do absolutely nothing substantive to address the status of Sanitation Director Veronica White.

They have a new "system" in place that will prevent future disturbances from occurring, one in which committee chairpersons will be faster to cut off the microphones of whichever speakers might be disagreeing too loudly.

Flat-out unacceptable.

Dismiss Veronica White NOW!


UPDATE:

WWL now has the raw video.

Jackie Clarkson and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell were actually surprisingly insistent that they did press upon the Mayor that Department Directors are going to have to actually answer questions now.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Council asks about sanitation contracts with Richards, Metro, and SDT. I wonder whether or not Council asks about recycling.

And I especially want to know about demolitions...



Of course there are the answers to look forward to as well.

Dismiss Veronica White Now

200 signatures and counting.

Add yours.

Dismiss Veronica White Now

If you haven't signed yet but act quickly, YOU could be the 100th New Orleans resident to stand up against incompetence!

Sign the petition NOW!

The 250th name gets TWO free tickets to the public budget hearing of their choosing.
The 500th name gets to FOUR free tickets to the public budget hearing of their choosing.

Don't wait. Act Now. We'll throw in another moving treadmill thingie free of charge.

SIGN NOW!

One person included a special message on his/her petition signature that asked why we don't yet have recycling services from our Dept. of Sanitation. I neglected to include this in my official points about Ms. White.

But why DON'T we have recycling services?

UPDATE:

101 and counting...

Dismiss Veronica White Now

Sign the petition!

Those of us that have followed the most recent spat between City Council and Mayor C. Ray Nagin is not really about who said what at a hearing. The real issues are the prolonged dysfunction at the Department of Sanitation and the diminished credibility of its Director, Veronica White.

Not only did she lock us into some really questionable sanitation contracts, but she has repeatedly stonewalled audits into the efficacy of those contracts by failing to provide City Council with relevant data.

She also presides over the badly broken demolition process that has saddled the city with what could prove to be millions of dollars in lawsuit damages. The wanton demolition of private housing has been one of the city's most-maligned "recovery" initiatives. Not only does Ms. White have her fingerprints all over it but she has demonstrated a belligerent unwillingness to make necessary changes.

At this point, the lack of trust between the Veronica White, City Council, and the public has rendered the Department of Sanitation incapable of credibly carrying out its mission to people of New Orleans.

WWL is reporting that the Mayor and Councilwomen Clarkson and Hedge-Morrell will meet to discuss the dispute between Veronica White and Councilwoman Stacy Head. I know that a lot of people are frustrated by Council's willingness to sign truces with the administration without actually securing any significant concessions. This time must be different.

This petition calls on the Mayor to dismiss Veronica White as the city's Director of Sanitation.

I encourage everyone to sign it.

And spread the word!

We Monitor Our Own Elections

Check out this fascinating article by Simon Owens profiling the use of new media to monitor the vote.


Especially look at the Twitter Vote Report.



Pretty neat.

Add it to my rudimentary list of tools we can use to track voter suppression: The Last Hurdle

Docs 4 U

A reader passed along a file from a lawsuit during the early '90s in which Concordia, the architect behind the pending New Orleans school facilities master plan, was sued by the DeSoto Parish School Board for various alleged failures involving a high school project there.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Of note, if relevant:

"Failed to design all project parts for a construction cost within the adjusted fixed limit of $12,154,212.60 including the failure to provide statements of probable construction costs in a generally accepted format while providing unreasonably low estimates of probable construction costs..."

"Failed to provide and coordinate the mechanical and electrical design in compliance with good practice and with generally applicable codes and standards for a public school in the Parish of Desoto..."

"Provided confusing, uncoordinated, and difficult to read construction documents including the architectural drawings and references in the electrical and mechanical specifications to codes for the State of Washington, together with nonrelevant plan information , for example items pertaining to hospitals, garages, and elevators..."

Do 83% of White People in Louisiana Really Think We're On the Right Track?

It can't be true that only 17% of white folks in Louisiana support Barack Obama, can it?

In my humble opinion, there's only one way to make sure that it isn't.

If you know five white people in the state of Louisiana, then you have five people to convince to vote for Obama by this Tuesday.

This is indeed a call to action.

Convince five of your white friends to vote for Barack Obama.

It is a conversation worth having, however you choose to communicate. You can send word by carrier pigeon if you want, just spread the message.

If you care about affordable health care, protecting the environment, creating middle class jobs, a sane foreign policy, and rebuilding our region then you're with Barack Obama on the issues that matter most and must have the courage to pull the lever for him on Tuesday.

Based on early voter turnout and projections for next week, we don't have to convince every single white person in the state to reevaluate their position. If a mere 25% of white people in Louisiana vote for Barack Obama, then our state is very much in play.

So talk to five of your white friends. If they already support Obama, tell them to talk to five of their friends.

If they don't yet support Barack Obama for President, have a conversation with them. Explain why this election matters, listen to their concerns, and find common ground.

Call your mom on the North Shore. Text your coworker in Kenner. Email your old college roommate from Shreveport.

Make it happen! Get them to the polls on Tuesday to vote for Barack Obama.

Don't let the poll porn lull you into thinking Louisiana doesn't matter in this election. Act locally!