Snowball

I'd love to put this Mayor Nagin interview side by side with some of the other he's given over the last few months.

So many contradictory statements, such denial. It's incredible. Another classic.




(Props to Fox 8 for making their video embeddable. More of our local stations should do this.)

The best part (if one can even choose) is toward the end when he discusses the crime camera investigation.

Kim Holden: Let's switch gears a little bit -

Ray Nagin: (interrupting): Really?

Holden: Another controversy involving the crime cameras -

Nagin: (agitated interruption): Controversy?

Holden: - That came up this week. The IG report blasting your office for basically failing to hold the contractors accountable for the work they did, way too much money being spent on this, and the fact that maintenance costs are going to be astronomical from this point on. At some point do you say let's just abandon this whole project?

Nagin: I wouldn't do that. I mean, you know, one of the things I want to remind the public is that this is something that we pioneered. This was a research and development kind of project that the city of New Orleans really hadn't done. And when you do research and development and you pioneer things, you know, you're going to have some issues. I want to tell you I was just in Washington and Mayor Daley came up to me and he said, "look, I like these crime cameras that you guys are doing in New Orleans. They're cheaper than hiring more police officers and we're going to do them in a big way in Chicago."

Now, have we had issues? Absolutely. It's been well documented. We started to look at it back in August and make some changes. The gentleman who was in running the department is no longer in charge of that, no longer in charge of contracting, and we're cleaning this up. We have had some issues and we are going to do better.

Jonathan Carter: Well right now there have been a reported three prosecutions coming off of the crime cameras. With a cost of $6.6 million, Raphael Goyaneche of the Metro Crime Commission, I mean, he said that's basically $2 million for a prosecution and... and... in his words, he says, "that's not much bang for your buck."

Nagin: Well, Raphael is not really a crime expert so, I mean, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. I will tell you that three number I don't think is accurate. I know for a fact the US Attorney's office has used the crime cameras to solve cases. The Police Department has many more cases than three that they've used. Now, whether one case where you prevent a murder or you solve a murder is worth $6 million dollars, I mean, we're going to have that debate for a long time.

Holden: How do you feel about the US Attorney looking into this whole issue and the IG's report reviewing it -

Nagin: The IG? I mean, I'm happy to see that the IG has produced another report. It's the second one in eighteen months, so that's a good thing. The first one we thought was, um, not well written but this one is better. It confirms our forensic audit. As far as the US Attorney, I, I welcome it. We've always said if there's something wrong that we have done or one of our employees [has] done and if there's anything that crosses the line of the law, we were going to turn it over and that's what we're doing here; and we'll get to the bottom of it.

But, my read of this is that I'm not sure what criminal violations happened. But I'm not an attorney so we'll see.

Another interesting exchange came as Nagin tried to downplay the insufficiently nicknamed email controversy.

Carter: Do you have any plans to talk to Veronica White about what happened?

Nagin: Uh, I...I'm, that's... she reports to the Chief Administration Officer Dr. Brenda Hatfield. And I've asked Dr. Brenda Hatfield to look into this a little further and if there's any, you know, thing we need to do from a disciplinary standpoint, we will do that. . .

Very interesting defensive posture to take to a very basic, non confrontational question. He won't even discuss the matter with his own Sanitation Director. That's how isolated this guy is. He won't even directly "talk" to his own sanitation director, who controls one of the city's largest and most consequential service departments and who controls a budget of tens of millions of dollars. Is Brenda Hatfield the only person the Mayor talks to on his own staff?

Not one of the questions he was asked was particularly probing. They're all open-ended. They just ask "well what about this thing" and give him a platform to get out his message Imagine if a reporter actually pegged him with some tough questions that ask him about specific names and dates or specifically confront some of the bogus claims he makes.

For instance, he got angry during the interview when Holden asked him if it was "fishy" that all of council's emails had been leaked when he himself has been subject to a records lawsuit because his administration had refused to hand over his own emails before it was revealed that they had been deleted. He went on some long explanation about how the council and mayor's emails are stored on different servers (which doesn't really appear to be true) and how all of his emails are now available for public consumption (which almost certainly isn't true).

Overall, it's gotten to the point that even the mere suggestion that one of these issues be labeled a "controversy" is out of bounds.

And this is pretty much the only media outlet that Ray Nagin still talks to at this point.

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At onset, I thought Nagin would be able to once again out maneuver Council in terms of political tactic but there are just too many 'fishy controversies' confronting his administration at the same time. It's really looking disorganized over there and there's too much bad press coming all at once. This Mayor was and is deeply unpopular. Council isn't fighting itself over the emails matter. He needed that in order to "win" on the transparency/emails kerfuffle and by proxy, obscure the crime camera disaster and now this new expenditure issue.

It's too much at once.

The Mayor is on very shaky ground right now. He might have been better off just staying in the bunker.

James Perry, Leader?

I wanted to say something last week about Council's failure to override Mayor Nagin's veto last week but got caught up in Mardi Gras.

First off, there's been a lot of unfair criticism of Cynthia Hedge-Morrell's decision to abstain from voting. I think she made the right decision. She angered a lot of people by articulating people's mistrust for the good government crowd but I thought it would have been extremely useful as a starting point for negotiating a consensus response from Council to Nagin's executive order.

Part of the reaction derives from people's misunderstanding of what that vote meant. Hedge-Morrell did not kill a transparency law. The proposed ordinance, passed unanimously by Council and vetoed by Nagin would have brought professional services contract advisory committees under the purview of public meetings laws. Nagin circumvented the ordinance entirely by simply abolishing the advisory committees. So when the vetoed ordinance came back to Council for a potential override vote, it was totally worthless.

In my opinion, there was no reason to hold the vote. Hedge-Morrell suggested at City Hall that Council instead focus on discussing the language of a potential charter change - the only means Council has at its disposal to substantively alter the impact of Nagin's executive order. But instead, Fielkow and Clarkson pressed ahead with the vote, posing an unfair political challenge to Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, who was the only African American willing to sit in on the meeting.

While I don't understand why Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis had to be in Washington D.C. with the US Conference of Mayors instead of at Council for this debate, at least she has an excused absence.

The person to be disillusioned and angry with is Councilman James Carter. He was at Council chambers when the contentious debate began, only to slink out when things got too hot. It was unforgivable gutlessness. He could have provided a level-head and helped foster a respectful conversation. Instead, Councilman Carter headed for the hills. I believe the best excuse his office mustered to the media was a "previously scheduled appointment" or some nonsense like that.

The disdain he seems to have for his own responsibility is increasingly noticeable and unfortunate. He's a coward.

As soon as Carter abandoned ship, the vote should have been postponed.

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Meanwhile, in a stunning juxtaposition....

What is all this?

Am I really seeing a New Orleans political figure synthesizing viewpoints to take a stand in the midst of a fiery controversy? Huh?

Go read what James Perry says in Race and Trust in NOLA:

To build trust we need to have information from disinterested sources. We need information that provides clear unbiased data that we can rely on.

In New Orleans there is strong racial mistrust and general mistrust of our elected officials. We can use honesty and transparency to overcome that distrust and create a new basis for working together. Information and data, are key components in building this new trust. When objective data is unavailable, regardless of what the truth is, people revert to historic racial dividing lines. In today’s information age, there is a new opportunity. We can share all data and information and build relationships in much the way that friends do.

In working towards a post-racial New Orleans, sharing data is key. If we all have the common goal of a better City then there is no harm in making information available to everyone. Decisions about contracts should be open, inclusive, and transparent. Transparency and openness provide a base allowing trust to endure even through disagreement and bad reasoning. We need transparency in New Orleans government now. The progress of New Orleans’ racial dialogue depends on it.

This is an interesting way to construct the argument in favor of transparency since a lot of folks have been saying that the whole reason we can't have common sense public meetings and records laws is because of racial mistrust.

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Certainly the issues last week were extremely frustrating but I'm at least glad that when things finally broke down last Thursday, there was some frank talk (in Council and online) about the racial tension that too often manifests in blood pressure doubling passive aggressiveness.

James Carter's cowardly display was not what we needed. Arnie Fielkow's poorly contrived attempt to symbolically rebuke Mayor Ray Nagin was not what needed.

What we need is leadership that isn't afraid to substantively and publicly tackle the political and racial controversies that hamstring our recovery.

Bad Politics By French Quarter Chotchky Elite

Unless you've been living under a soundproof rock, you know that this city's been gripped by a particularly nasty wave of violent crime since the New Year and citizens across New Orleans are fed up.

Of course people are fed up with the actions of violent criminals but what makes the reaction to this crime wave different is the overwhelming frustration with the NOPD itself.

This frustration is felt in black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, uptown neighborhoods, and downtown neighborhoods. People do not trust the police. People do not respect the police. Too many officers have been arrested for crimes themselves. There are too many documented and anecdotal stories of indifference and laziness, brutality and violence on the part of the NOPD. Too many caught criminals have been released because NOPD officers don't file police reports properly or on time. Statistically speaking, if you murder somebody tomorrow in Orleans Parish, there's only a 20-30% chance you'll ever fact legitimate punitive jail time. And so on and so forth...

Again:

[E]xperts have already identified many of the major issues facing the NOPD. The NOPD itself ordered an audit by BGI in 2007. But after BGI identified several systemic failures and prescribed a blueprint toward the superior community policing model, the NOPD suppressed the report for months. To this day, Warren Riley has failed to substantively institute the suggested reforms.

Wendy Byrne's murder in the French Quarter was certainly a flash point. But so were the murders of little Ja'Shawn Powell and Adolph Grimes. It's the compounded frustration of so many instances of violence touching so many of our lives that I think compelled so many people to participate in some of the organic anti-crime activities of the last week.

But piggybacking on some of those efforts was today's so-called "Meeting of the Minds." They called a big press conference in the Royal Omni Hotel to call attention to a petition they circulated that calls for a number of both totally reasonable and extraordinary measures to address crime in the French Quarter and Marigny Triangle. Here is the list of signatories:

• Chuck Ransdell, chair, Meeting of the Minds
• Eric Reitman, president, French Quarter Business Association
• CoCo Paddison, president, French Quarter Citizens
• Jude Marullo, president, Bourbon Street Merchants Association
• Chris Costello, president, Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association
• Lori Herbert, vice-chair, North Rampart Main Street
• Samara Poché, president, Lower Quarter Crime Watch
• Ken Ferdinand, executive director, French Market Corporation
• Darryl Berger, senior chair, French Quarter-Marigny Historic Area Management District
• Mike Moffit, president, Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents & Associates
• Christine Sory, president, French Quarter Business Women’s Network
• Beth Lovett, representative, Upper Quarter Neighborhood Watch
• Stephen Swain, president, Patio Planters
• Jason Patterson, chair, Frenchmen Street Coalition

Anybody missing from that petition?

Yes. The entire rest of the city.

By discussing the crime problem as something specific to the French Quarter and the Marigny, these organizations are demonstrating a callousness to the much more frequent violence occurring in every other neighborhood.

It allowed Superintendent Riley to couch his response in these terms (video available):

"We understand the value of the Quarter to the city, but we also understand the value of every community."
--
"This is one New Orleans,” he said. “We are not gonna pull other resources from other parts of the city, to put into the Quarter, when we feel we have a sufficient force there at this point."

That argument is going to win every time.

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In a similar vein, the Mayor has challenged the same business community by backing off a prior compromise agreement with City Council to fund full sanitation services. Council is livid because the Mayor seemingly sprung this upon them without any kind of warning. They're threatening legal action to compel the Mayor to continue FQ sanitation services. After it seemed like a compromise was already in place, why would the Mayor all of sudden threaten to pull the rug out from under the French Quarter by cutting sanitation right before the busiest season of the year?

It's a proxy war, I tells ya.

It's another opportunity to force French Quarter business owners to demand extra services, money, and attention denied to the rest of the city's residents.

It forces the FQ business community to engage in two geographically-specific battles against the administration at once.

Good divide-and-conquer strategy by the Nagin administration.

Predictably bad strategy of exclusion by various French Quarter business associations.

On Third Thought

Let's look at some numbers:

Orleans Parish, December 9th 2006:

Jefferson: 23,218 51.30%
Not Jefferson: 22,044 48.70%

Orleans Parish, December 6th 2008:

Jefferson: 23,197 50.74%
Not Jefferson: 22,523 49.26%

Hmm. Remarkably similar. New Orleans has more full time residents now than in December, 2006 but maybe this indicates something about the upper bounds of Jefferson's post Katrina electoral base. Not buying the 'African Americans were confused' thing. If that were the case, Orleans would have gone by a much higher percentage to the Not Jefferson candidate, no?

Of the households that have returned to New Orleans in between the end of 2006 and the end of 2008, what percentage are African American and what percentage are white? An accurate estimation of that breakdown might help us establish some sort of test hypothesis for the vote totals to be expected from an off-day December runoff. I do find it curious that the anti-Jefferson vote was more or less the same as 2006, in terms of total cast and as a percentage.

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Jefferson Parish, December 9th 2006:

Jefferson: 11,935 70.61%
Not Jefferson: 4,967 29.39%

Jefferson Parish, December 6th 2008:

Jefferson: 8,099 38.34%
Not Jefferson: 13,027 61.66%

Sickening. The bosses over there have way too much power.

Also remarkable because it would seem that Jefferson Parish voters changed their mind between 2006 and 2008. Unless... maybe Bill Jefferson's supporters in Jefferson Parish were 'confused' about the election this year.

Update: Schroeder's got a more nuanced table of stats.

African Americans 'Confused' About Election Day?

I have never preferred the analysis of UNO's Ed Chervenak.

His conclusions regarding Anh Cao's upset victory over William Jefferson drove the title and tenor of the Times-Picayune writeup and have contributed to a meme that seems to have been repeated in other blog posts and articles I've read about this election.

African Americans didn't show up at the polls because they were 'confused.'

The dearth of voters showing up at the polls Saturday likely owed to lack of awareness of the election, Chervenak said.

With Louisiana holding closed party primaries for the first time in 30 years, the winner-takes-all general election became the third race of the season, rather than the second, as under the previous system. Complicating matters, Hurricane Gustav forced the first contest to be postponed a month, pushing the general election into December, sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Call me crazy but hasn't the scheduling of New Orleans elections always been confusing? African Americans weren't confused on election day in October, when Jefferson barely slipped into the runoff with an anemic twentysomething percent of the vote. Chervenak is essentially suggesting that African Americans knew about the October date because it had been previously scheduled and didn't know about this date because it was making up for one postponed in early September. This sort of implies that voters go to the Secretary of State's website and writes down all election dates on the calender a year in advance and then don't ever look at the news after that. And this idea that it was confusing because there was a closed primary... it's ridiculous. You know there's an election coming by watching the news or taking notice of the fliers and signs everywhere.

African Americans were not mobilized for this election, there's no doubt about it. It may be true to a certain extent that people were 'unaware' that polls were open, but I'd argue that people were not significantly more unaware than usual. From my experience, most people that follow politics generally learn when elections are being held and most people that don't, don't. Those in the latter category need to be mobilized. That's why campaigns are run.

This is every election.

Chervenak's rationale for why he thinks it was confusion is also interesting:

One school of thought holds that Jefferson was abandoned by voters who could no longer bear the weight of his legal difficulties. After FBI agents allegedly found $90,000 in marked bills in his freezer and linked him and several relatives to a wide-ranging bribery scheme, Jefferson was indicted on 16 counts of public corruption. His trial is expected early next year.

But in Chervenak's view, "People don't change their preferences that quickly in such a short period of time."

It seems implausible, he said, that "people would come to his defense and support him with their vote in two elections only to stay home for the election that would keep him in office."

Want to know what I think? I think that what Ed Chervenak believes amounts to 'demographics is political destiny.' Actually, I know it does. I've taken one of Professor Chervenak's political science courses. It was awful and there was a strange bipartisan student rebellion against him. (Ask me about this another time.) (Also, Oyster monitored use of the 'demographics is political destiny' theme during the Presidential race. Maybe he even coined that phrase.)

Chervenak inexplicably thinks it's 'implausible' for people to vote one way one time and then, after events occur, vote another way at a later time.

In 2004, President Bush was reelected. In 2006, his Presidency, party, and platform was repudiated by the same country that had just given him "a mandate" two years prior. Were white Republicans 'confused' about the date of the election in 2006?

Guess what? A lot of African Americans were 'confused,' but not by the date of the election.

I think a lot of African Americans were 'confused' by the actions of the African American political establishment.

I think a lot of my African American neighbors heard all sorts of stuff about how they needed to reelect people like Jefferson and Nagin in order to protect their communities only to watch those same politicians instead work to implement the same trickle-down recovery policy championed by the conservative establishment while their own neighborhoods are deprived of services and investment.

I think this confused African Americans enough that this time, many decided they'd rather stay at home or stay in Houston than mobilize for this corrupt Jefferson guy who doesn't seem all that interested in delivering for flooded black neighborhoods after all.

This isn't to say that had Jefferson had more money or actually done some campaign work, we wouldn't have seen a different outcome, but to suggest that African American confusion was a reason for Jefferson's defeat is a total cop-out.

The Times-Picayune needs to stop going to Chervenak for everything. At the very least, they need to stop publishing his analysis as fact by surveying a more diverse lineup of political analysts for articles like this one.

Wow

I just cannot bring myself to vote for anyone with that party affiliation right now. I'm a little bit prejudiced, well mainly because of what Republican governance has done to this country over the last several election cycles. When I woke up this morning, I was still thinking of either abstaining or voting for Malik Rahim. I ended up voting third party under the assumption that Jefferson would win big.

This is a truly stunning result.

The Jefferson Machine has been weakened significantly over the last two years. I look at Cheryl Gray's 2007 thrashing of Jalila Jefferson for LA Senate as a demonstration of that.

Yet after he cruised through the open primary and runoff with Moreno, I just figured he'd found a way to mobilize enough voters this one last time.

Without the Obama excitement getting people to the polls, turnout was abysmal. Cao won with just over 33,000 votes. That's not very many at all, even with a smaller population.

When a Republican wins in a city that voted near 80% for Obama, when a Republican wins in a district like ours after what Republican politicians did to this country, that the race was even competitive -- what does it say about popular confidence in the local leadership class?

New Orleanians have no faith in their government.

It speaks to a stunning leadership vacuum in this city. It is our first problem, the problem we must solve before we can credibly address any other.

Eric Kleefield at Talking Points Memo is already looking at 2010:

[L]ook for the Dems to put up a strong candidate in 2010 -- maybe one who isn't under indictment -- and make this seat their top pick-up target.

What people don't realize is that there's really no such thing as "the Dems" in New Orleans. Politics here is not partisan, it's tribal.

New Orleanians do not do a good job of communicating political conditions to the rest of the country. And the rest of the country sometimes writes New Orleans off to eccentricity or to drown.

Here's an incomplete list of themes that I often write about and think about:

1. New Orleans is corrupt as hell. The incredible leadership vacuum at the municipal level has lead to the city's unsteady and vision-less gridlock.

2. There are frightening and offensive quality of life issues.

3. It is emblematic of the ultimate national disillusionment with W. Bush, who should be banished from this city for the rest of time and with the concept of American geopolitical superiority, as the Katrina response demonstrated a sobering hollowness of capability reminiscent of tales of the USSR in the '80s.

4. Recovery policy is transparently unjust, racist, trickle-down horseshit. I believe that Barack Obama can only help this place by empowering and demanding his new Recovery Czar (in whatever form) live in New Orleans, engage in policy, and take strong public positions on regional issues.

5. If New Orleans weren't so kneecapped by this three-legged stool of racism, corruption, and incompetence, it would actually be well positioned to lead on matters of urban sustainability.

6. These are the most resilient people in America, some live in spite of government and some lives to spite the government.

I'd really really love for the Dems, the national ones, to come down here and take a look at this place as a pickup target in 2010. What they're going to find out is that the investment in leadership was needed a long time ago. New Orleans was desperate for competent, progressive leadership pre. It's that much more desperate post.

I hope local Democrats take notice of the political environment; Bill Jefferson's defeat today cannot be dismissed as a full exception. He'd been indicted by the Feds, but there are many more local officials who have been indicted in the minds of the public.


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Too wordy? Too preachy?
A downer? Dead-on?

So NOAH What?

Is there anything NOAH can do now after this incredible must-see Lee Zurik report?

We paid to service a property owned by Warren Riley.

We have homeowner confirmation of NOAH falsifying records for numerous properties that were in fact gutted by homeowners themselves or by volunteer groups and not the contractors that were paid to do the work.

It's real.

And City Council needs to lead.

This scandal demands more than the outrage of one or two. City Council must work together to move this investigation forward as a united front. Already we are seeing the rumblings of a desperation defense. I believe this is purely an administrative strategy and not a reflection of the sentiments of my neighbors and I feel obligated to share some thoughts.

When it came time for Ray Nagin to knock down the public housing stock of this city in accordance with the wishes of Alphonso Jackson, City Council failed to recognize the more imminent need for a sensible housing policy and stubbornly refused to delay immediate demolition for the purposes of mere common sense fact-finding, yet was somehow then able to present a united front. Then, there was no problem turning a collective blind eye to the city's ongoing affordable housing crisis. That demolition vote went 7-0.

Now that we are witnessing a scandal that increasingly appears to have all the makings of a federal probe, we are faced with the possibility that some on our Council may not have the guts to call it what it is. If individuals on Council do not show backbone in investigating this scandal in full, abolishing NOAH and holding rule-breakers accountable in-house, we're likely in for a much worse circus than that which embarrassed so many of us last Wednesday. I refuse to believe that City Council can't muster the seven, six, or even five votes necessary to empower a full public investigation of NOAH and its enablers.

If the Ray Nagin administration or any agencies under the Mayor's purview decide to make a desperate attempt deflect the real issue at hand by playing the very same race card that the Nagin administration has had revoked for time and again adopting policy positions directly counter to the interests of black and poor New Orleanians, it will be up to Council to weather the temper tantrum and recognize the diminished power of his dwindling base of support.

Concerned New Orleanians should begin calling and writing members of Council, those from their district and those from beyond, to tell them to fully investigate the NOAH scandal and to forcefully denounce distasteful tactics of desperation.

Couhig Confused About Redevelopment

From the Philly Daily News' Stu Bykofsky:

This came in response to me asking if it is wise to rebuild the entire city.

To the same question, lawyer Couhig gave me an answer as long as a Ryan Howard home run*, but didn't directly answer.

"You're saying 'no,' aren't you?" I asked.

Couhig didn't reply, but he smiled. I guess there are some things that you don't want to be quoted as passing through your lips.

It is sad that it is unclear for Mr. Couhig whether or not New Orleans should be rebuilt, given that he serves as Secretary of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, one of the most powerful city agencies responsible for helping neighborhoods recover.

More specifically, NORA charged with combating blight by taking acquiring abandoned and storm damaged properties and putting them back into commerce. According to its website:

Its powers include acquiring real property through negotiation, gift, or expropriation; disposing of said property by sale or lease; borrowing money; issuing bonds; and providing security to support slum clearance and neighborhood development.

NORA has the power of eminent domain to acquire private property. Yet what NORA actually does with that power is a little bit more difficult to describe. We know that NORA has been waiting on the Road Home program to deliver thousands of properties into their hands. We know that they're supposed to put those properties back into commerce.

Eminent domain acquisition can be tricky but putting properties back into commerce once they've already been acquired should be less so.

If my understanding is correct, NORA has only recently begun selling properties within the last few months.

This is NORA:

The magnitude of the devastation and the scale of the impending redevelopment effort require NORA to take an even greater role in rebuilding New Orleans’s neighborhoods. By initiating official Community Improvement Plans throughout the City and by fully utilizing its finance, property acquisition, and strategic planning capabilities, NORA will be assuming a lead role in the revitalization of this great city.

Is it appropriate for Mr. Couhig to continue serving in such a powerful and influential redevelopment position if he is not willing to state whether or not he favors the core mission of the very redevelopment agency for which he is Secretary?

I was able to reach the Philly Daily News over the phone about the article he wrote and about his interview with Mr. Couhig. Mr. Bykofsky was very clear about his characterization of Mr. Couhig's evasiveness related to the rebuilding question and stands by it.

I explained to Mr. Bykofsky why his article and Mr. Couhig's comments were so cringe-inducing to many New Orleans residents.

It does not help our city's image that Mr. Couhig's waffling impression of the importance of rebuilding our city is being broadcast in a major newspaper. We have a 'brand' problem here and it hurts us when prestigious city power players go 'off-message' by adopting national right-wing talking points that blame Katrina victims and attempt to absovlve the federal government and Bush administration of liability for the failed levee system and pathetic emergency response.

Mr. Couhig may attempt to explain himself by claiming that his comments to Mr. Bykofsky as published in the article were meant to be critical of local government's failures, not New Orleans citizens. However, this would belittle his own contributions to our political failures. Oyster has defined a "Couhig Conservative" as a conservative New Orleanian that stategically interferes in Democratic Party politics to swing elections toward the weaker, less competent candidate. I spent a good hour laughing and crying at old posts by the shellfish tagged 'Couhig Conservatives.'

Mr. Couhig should be forced to step down from his position at NORA. And Mr. Couhig's future use as a public representative of New Orleans should be seriously limited.

*A Ryan Howard Home Run is often impressively long

Required Reading

This article in the Times Picayune about geographic rivalry in City Council.

I have a lot to say about this, hopefully I'll get to it this weekend.

Not totally unrelated is the bidding for management of RTA.

Think about how these things are connected and we'll reconvene later.

C.R. Nagin Boulevard?

Leigh and I have been separately reading New Orleans After the Promises by Kent B. Germany.

I picked it up again over the weekend after I published part 5 of my series on Alphonso Jackson and the sickening systemic perversion of black capitalism by New Orleans' African American political and economic elite.

I'm going to reproduce a critical paragraph that supported by a prescient cry from Oretha Castle Haley in September, 1969.

Please read the whole thing:

A more important reason for black political disunity was the way that black leaders seized and then exercised power. The rewards system of local politics encouraged a decentralized and fragmented scramble for power. Benefits went to individuals and to tightly organized groups, and the market rewarded those people who possessed the wherewithal to manipulate it. In New Orleans, the climb to power was inherently disruptive and discouraged racial solidarity. The elections of 1969 and 1970 showed that black support of black candidates was not necessary for the growth of black power. Many black leaders pursued coalitions with whites as essential political stepping-stones. Others denounced these politicians for putting their own careers above the interests of the black community. Oretha Castle Haley spoke for "black women" who were "fed up" with being second-class citizens. She demanded that the city's black male politicians "stop being puppets and tools of the white man," stop being "traitors," and "stop pimping for the man to the detrement [sic] of your women, children and community." Black leaders who coalesced with white leaders, she declared, were simply selling themselves. In a stirring call for men to "fulfill" their masculine roles, she offered them a thundring challenge: "We dare you to become men!" If they did not, then the black woman was going to stop "standing 100% behind her man" and assume "responsibility" for the salvation of the race.

In another recent post I asked if New Orleans had a 1990s. Maybe New Orleans didn't have a 1970s or 1980s either. Oretha Castle Haley could make the same statement today and it might be even more descriptive of the way a microscopic African American elite has been incorporated into a racist and classist power structure that sustains itself through endemic political and economic exclusion.

I'm Fighting Corruption, The Politicians are on the Run - hold on a sec, my phone's ringing

Yes, this is he.

Wait, I need to get on a plane to where?

But...

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Whoopsadaisy!

The Great "Law and Order" Hope James Bernazzani has been shown to his new cubicle...

Very very suspicious. Or as an old Shreveport friend used to say, s-u-s-spicious!

Here's what we know:

James Bernazzani has been the head of the New Orleans FBI field office for the past three years. By most accounts, he don't take no guff. He's been indicting and intimidating choice cuts of the traditional machine faster than you can say Derrick Shepherd flank steak. Interestingly enough, Jeffrey the Astute took note of some extremely over-the-top grand standing at the press conference announcing that indictment. That was a few weeks ago on April 12th.

Then, a little later, we had a flurry of reports confirming that Bernazzani was entertaining the idea of running for mayor of our fair city. In some reports, "heavy hitters" or "prominent business leaders" apparently approached Bernazzani with promises of funds and support if he should decide to run. WDSU tracked Mr. Popular down within a few days and Bernazzani apparently personally confirmed his interest in the post. (A special shout-out to the AZ, who I think beat the ragsites to the punch.)

All this glad-handing and rumor amplifying piqued the interest of Bernazzani's boss in the District of Columbia, who clearly saw the conflict of interest and yanked Jamesie back to the ant colony. You see, there's something called the Hatch Act that prohibits FBI agents from engaging in political activity.

So is Bernazzani just an idiot? The abrupt relocation certainly appears to be an awkward way to kick off your campaign.

Jeffrey, in his immediate reaction, thinks that Bernazzani purposely seized on this opportunity to get off of his New Orleans post so that he could run in two years.

Oyster, on the other hand, sees another potential cause and effect pattern for this rearrangement at the local FBI office.

Bernazzani, as you may recall, had just announced that his office would be entering a crucial six month stretch in the fight against local corruption. Now that office has been turned over and the investigations must, at least temporarily, be on hold.

Read Oyster's post.

The ???omgisherunningformayor??? whisper campaign was clearly coordinated. That kind of stuff doesn't just show up in several locations over the course of a few days, it is put there on purpose.

Was that effort coordinated by Bernazzani himself or was it the bold idea of the "heavy hitters" that stoked Bernazzani's daydreams with promises of bags of money for his campaign?

Answering the question above would help answer the question below:

Does this abrupt and bizarre relocation do more to sandbag his legitimacy as a candidate than release him from legal restraints preventing him from doing so out in the open?

Either way, it's pretty clumsy. If Bernazzani wanted a to be a candidate out in the open so badly, he should have waited until after the summer to request a transfer or to resign. If our corrupt overlords wanted to undermine FBI investigations, they might have tried doing this BEFORE Bernazzani had cultivated an evidence-rich forest of file cabinets.

Though, the more I think about it, there are elections coming this fall, and any delay in the announcement of further indictments, any delay in the naming of names could certainly benefit someone's ambitions to become, remain, or install an elected official.

Shall we speculate?

Our Population Has Declined Since the Storm, Alright?

This Times Picayune article details the findings of a new study by University of New Orleans political scientist Ed Chevernak.

Though voter rolls have remained virtually untouched since the flood, the comparison of voter turnout in the 2003 and 2007 gubernatorial contests shows that about 100,000 fewer people cast ballots last year in New Orleans and seven surrounding parishes than in the 2003 race.

Losses weren't borne equally by racial and party-affiliated groups, according to the analysis by University of New Orleans political scientist Ed Chervenak. For instance, a disproportionate loss among black voters across the region helped drive up white voters' share of the electorate, from two-thirds in 2003 to nearly three-quarters last year.

Democrats also lost ground, with their participation sliding from 58 percent of the electorate in 2003 to 51 percent in 2007, the report shows. Republicans, meanwhile, saw their share of the voting population jump from 28 percent to 33 percent during the period.

Chevernak's report states the obvious fact that the city and region have lost population as a result of the storm and that this means our region is less politically influential.

However, Chevernak analysis compares the 2007 gubernatorial contest to that in 2003 as the telltale evidence.

Why not just look at the population figures? What do the voter turnout numbers tell you about our population loss that the population figures can't?

To me, the 2007 gubernatorial election was a sham. The election Bobby Jindal seemed to be a foregone conclusion for the entire cycle. There were no Democratic candidates remotely capable of raising money or inspiring local voters. There were no voter registration drives. People in this city, disproportionately Democratic voters, are disillusioned with the electoral system and with local officials of all stripes. I don't want to say that people elsewhere in Louisiana aren't disillusioned by politics, but it's not a stretch to say that New Orleanians carry some extra pebbles in their shoes that might irritate feet enough to stay home on election day. (Disproportionate to the population)

Get my point?

What was the purpose of Chevernak's study? Seriously, why not just look at the population?

Seems like a wash to me.

The Times Picayune headline was "It's Official," as if the UNO team had actually provided something of note.

Sweet!

Obama sweeps!

Washington, Nebraska, and right here in Louisiana!

I like to think that my canvassing on behalf of Mr. Obama swung the tide in New Orleans precincts. Barack Obama won 75% of the vote here in Orleans Parish. That's a pretty substantial blowout, no?

Rep. William Jefferson Jefferson received 126 votes for the Presidency.
Nice to see he's looking forward to his next job and not over his shoulder where progressive Democrats are poised to have him electorally embarrassed if he's not already sitting in prison.

His speech tonight had some really compelling pieces to it.

Barack Obama's campaign in November will feature a candidate actually looking forward to representing the values of what once was the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton cannot make the same arguments because of her centrist Senate record. Check out the whole thing:



Tomorrow is Maine.

Tuesday is D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

---

Locally, there has been a moderately successful insurgent takeover of some local Democratic Party apparatus offices. The Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee and Democratic State Central Committee are receiving some fresh blood.

I'm still not exactly sure what those committees are supposed to do but I recommend they get to work on winning this state for the Democratic nominee in November. Turnout in recent elections has been extremely disheartening. When I'm Mayor, I'm going to complain about turnout and vote. I'm a change candidate too. Our citizen participation snowflakes are going to become snowballs this summer. It ain't even an oxymoron.

Results from Orleans Parish!

Congratulations to the bloggers, neighborhood activists, and local representatives that have made the cut. Special shout outs to Cheryl Gray, Karen Gadbois, Kimberly Marshall, Ed McGinnis, Walt Leger, Deborah Langhoff and the District A trio, Natasha Hutchinson, and all you other heroes, we'll know who you are because we'll be watching.

Reform-minded bloggers Oyster and Michael Homan fell disappointingly short.

Oyster's fear of germs prevented him from attending the campaign events I had planned for him. Oh well, this just sets him up to get Cheryl Gray's State Senate seat which she will vacate to defeat William "Freezer Bank" Jefferson. (Don't answer me now, just form an exploratory committee. We can raise money by throwing a pizza party!)

Michael Homan apparently overly courted the Elvis lobby too close to election day. I mean you have to get your base out to the polls but most voters get turned off by that kind of pandering.

Beautiful weather out there today everybody.

It was an awful situation

I got to City Hall around ten minutes before 10:00 AM, which was when the public hearing on the public housing demolition projects at City Council was scheduled to begin. I walked around the corner and saw a large group of public housing activists standing around a locked gate. Bill Quigley was locked out too. Maybe there were 100 people total, though it seemed to grow to 200 people or more before too long. People were pretty upset.

I was ticked too. I rearranged my whole schedule to have the day off so that I could make sure I was down at City Hall. People were saying all around me that HUD, HANO, and Council had stacked the room with all of their staff and employees and stuff to block spaces that would have gone to public housing residents and activists. Apparently, those people started filing in at 8:30 or 9:00 AM before anyone else even had a chance.

I kept asking around for an estimate of how many public housing people actually made it inside. Some people said in the twenties, some people said in the fifties, I can't really be sure.

It seemed Council had decided to exercise the fire code to prevent more people from entering the hearing beyond the 27o-something that could be seated in chairs. I heard Mr. Quigley saying how unusual it was for council to do so much to restrict access to a public meeting. There were apparently close to 500 people allowed in for a different meeting the week before. It felt like a pretty dirty trick to me. We were all stuck standing in the rain waiting to see if those inside could negotiate to get everyone allowed inside. "Everyone" included media, housing advocates, housing residents, bloggers, and gadflies.

It wasn't going to happen. People were very tense to begin with, being excluded from the Council meeting really made protesters upset. (As if the metaphor of being locked out of the process and locked out of the projects needed to be buoyed by actually being locked out of a public Council meeting) I believe the situation was made many times more volatile both inside and outside of the building because of Council's decision to refuse entry to such a large number of advocates and residents.

The protesters outside received updates from allies on the inside. At around 10:40, it was reported that Arnie Fielkow had begun the meeting and was ejecting all of those making noise or being disruptive.

Within five minutes, I saw a WDSU reporter with a nerdy haircut jumping up and down like an excited little child, I overheard him exclaiming about the fight breaking out inside the building. New Orleans Nation has a sweet post up about the goings on inside City Hall. By 10:55 there were NOPD reinforcements allowed through the gate and a few minutes later there was a stretcher brought in as well. Protesters were talking about the use of tasers on those being ejected from the building and the arrest of rapper Sess-45.

Not long after that, the T-P's Gwen Filosa said it was around 11:15, the protesters outside began becoming increasingly agitated, presumably as word spread about the rough treatment on the inside. Several protesters began violently shaking the gate and it appeared it would soon give way. One man breached the gate and was quickly apprehended. Officers swarmed on the gate area and one got up on the fence to spray mace. Here are three silent videos I have of that incident from my dinky digital camera in chronological succession:





After this first pepper spray incident, people backed off briefly. One man was hit pretty directly in the eyes but recovered in an amazing amount of time and reclaimed his place at the front of the crowd at chained gate.

This original breach of the gate prompted police officers to handcuff the gate together.

Within minutes the crowd was back at the gate, shaking it violently. Those handcuffs proved to be useless and snapped, the gate swinging open toward the crowd. One woman was being crushed by the open gate against the police barricades along the side of the driveway entrance. Activists and witnesses lifted her out of trouble. Concurrently, the police charged again, and attempted to pull the gate shut again. They utilized pepper spray and mace to push back protesters. It all happened very quickly. One woman was hit with both spray and the stun gun and began having what appeared to be a seizure. She hit the ground and started shaking violently. I, along with a group of several carried her out of harms way into the grass where she was helped. I have some video of these events as well that I will post as soon as YouTube begins accepting them. These are shorter and are of poor quality because I started running out of battery and because I dropped my shot to assist the injured. Otherwise, I'm sure there's extended video out there somewhere, maybe even with sound. My mom said she saw me on CNN (she said I looked handsome)

Those affected by the pepper spray were on their own for too long considering the large numbers of emergency personnel on site. There were many pedestrians around with some medical knowledge that took charge. Someone ran and out to buy milk (the best antidote, apparently). Otherwise, the ambulances parked within 50 yards of the incident were empty. I don't know what happened to the girl that had the seizure, I hope she's okay. She was turning blue, it was scary.

After all that, people were extremely upset, but realized I think there was no use in rattling the fence anymore. That pepper spray is powerful stuff. I got a little bit on my right arm from helping to carry that one person and I developed a pretty nasty irritation. I mean, I got it second degree and it still took me 20 minutes of scrubbing when I got home to clean my arm off. So it shouldn't be surprising that the protesters locked out of the meeting were largely incapacitated. They chanted and sung for over an hour after that but it started raining harder and harder. After a senior citizen and public housing resident fell ill and was taken to the hospital, leaders of those protesting outside decided to adjourn the mobilization.

It was really ugly. Very upsetting. The whole event made me sick to my stomach and not because of the pepper spray fumes, though that didn't help matters. It didn't have to happen the way that it did. City Council was extremely arrogant and undemocratic in the way they handled the proceedings today.

There are other tried and true means of diffusing a situation like the one City Council was confronted with this morning. If I were in charge, I would have let all of the advocates and residents come in, I would have let them chant and yell and scream and take turns with the microphone. I'd have allowed them to do that all morning. Then you have HUD and HANO and the developers do their side and then you vote. Given the experience at the demolition hearing last week, there was no real reason to assume things were going to get out of hand. Sure people are going to shout and be rowdy. They're going to boo things they hear and don't like. They're going to stomp their feet and speak out of turn.

Big deal. Let them. At the hearing last week (see the link), public housing advocates were well behaved, they allowed representatives of HANO and HUD and the Developers to prevent their case. Sure people interrupted to boo from time to time but the meeting went forward, the vote went forward. They voted with the developers and against "the mob" but nobody went out burning condominiums, nobody pushed down police officers, nobody was violent against any of the HUD or HANO officials, and representatives of the developers, or any members of the review board. The same thing probably would have happened. Protesters would have filed in, they would have been loud and obnoxious, council would have voted in favor of the developers and protesters would have been loud and obnoxious. Big deal. They would have left in peace. Maybe someone would have broken a window in frustration or something.

People want to feel like they're listened to. They want to yell and scream. They want to be given access to the democratic process. They want to feel like their voice matters. That is why so many people showed up this morning to attend this meeting. They all already knew they had little chance of stopping council from approving the demolitions. Don't we all know that?

But when they were cut off completely from the process, barred from entering a public meeting by their own elected officials, literally locked out..... that's what really pissed people off - in a let's break down this fence and let ourselves in kind of way.

People weren't even chanting "stop the demolitions" at that point, they were chanting "let us in!" Here's a video from NOLA.com of the fence breach. You can see my red shirt in the background at the end of the video, helping to carry away that one woman.




It made me mad too. I thought everyone that wanted to do so should have been allowed to witness that meeting, witness Council's vote and Council's decision. Would that have been so hard on everybody? Really?

Instead, what everyone is witnessing, all around America, all around the world, is another scene of New Orleans being out of control. That's hard on all of us. Really.

David Vitter, You Ain't Cuz You Not - And Other Thoughts On the Public Housing Debate

Yesterday, I said this:

Politicians will be able to further use the media to make the public housing advocates seem like a danger to ordinary New Orleans citizens. I am sure they are already on the horn with the FBI and DHS to prepare for some sort of attack from an unknown enemy that hates the freedom to have a condo. A politician will say something about these safety precautions in front of a camera, thereby reinforcing the supposed legitimacy of "the threat" and the supposed irrationality of the public housing crowd.

Today, New Orleans City Business says this:

Sen. David Vitter, R-Metairie, is calling for a federal investigation into fliers that threaten to destroy a condominium for every unit of public housing destroyed in New Orleans.

"I write to request that you aggressively investigate this matter and take all appropriate law enforcement action," Vitter said today in a letter to Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and James Bernazzani, FBI special agent in charge in New Orleans.

This is juuust great. (h/t: Tim the Nameless)

I think it will be awfully hard for the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions to secure any type of negotiating power given the veracity of the public outcry against them. (Thanks largely to media handling of poster-gate) Public officials will feel totally justified in railroading protesters.

--------

As we have discussed this impending public housing demolition, I have noticed an unfortunate rhetorical pattern that I think it is important to address.

Firstly, I will call myself out.

I don't think I have been particularly comprehensive in my descriptions of "the point" of opposing the demolition of public housing. I believe I have been very passionate in trying to push for solidarity with public housing advocates and residents and I still think we must support our neighbors. I described the demolition plans as racist. I am comfortable alluding to the recent collection of housing-related news as a deliberate scheme to permanently banish the African American working poor, or otherwise make further returns impossible. I through my support behind the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions because I believe that there is a crisis here.

And I have followed up by continuing to link to sites that are directly affiliated with the protest mobilization. And cajoling people to be more active. Others have done the same.
It is not unexpected that, during this week of protests and sensationalized threats, media and blog energy has been focused on the public housing demolition debate. That is the top story and it should be.

Unfortunately, however, in attempts to be forceful and passionate, many parties with opinions on public housing have been forced to fit into two diametrically opposed frames:
You are either for demolition or you are against it.

I have tried to temper this by saying caveatted things like "You must oppose immediate demolition," or "You must be against this demolition until the housing crisis is mitigated."
But I think given the events of the past ten days, the passion, and polarization, my attempts at being "inclusive" via wordplay have been half-assed or otherwise ineffective due to short-sightedness.

Certainly the protests this week are about more than public housing demolition. The issue is so much more complicated than that.

I, myself, have proven that I have complicated feelings on public housing issues. Earlier this fall, I moved to defend River Garden and other mixed-income communities in Philadelphia and criticized the four projects targeted for demolition from a design perspective.

Yet I think others have also been guilty of short-sightedness in regards to this week's public housing debate. I've sensed that people out there are reluctant to take a stand against demolition because they have long supported the demolition of these public housing units. There is a sense that staving off demolition this week represents an endorsement of returning to the pre-Katrina public housing situation, an endorsement of crime-ridden encampments of social and economic isolation. For example, Pistolette (a favorite of mine, sorry to use ya as an example) is "against the rebuilding of those 'concentration camps' known as public housing."

"I simply saw them as a humanitarian disasters based on 'positive' racism - a social disaster perpetuated by the 'well-meaning'... ...We need to socially integrate our low-income residents, not corrall and isolate them from the rest of society so we can forget about them."

Now I agree with that!

But there's a big but. Actually there are few of them.

If you listen to what these public housing advocates are saying, they're not actually demanding a permanent return to the isolated and neglected public housing lifestyle of the past.
There isn't even a whole lot of blistering rhetoric against River Garden or the idea of mixed-income communities. The issue is that even the most rosy projections of HANO and developers indicate that new units will not be livable until 2010. (and of course there won't be any delays or anything in New Orleans)

Housing is an issue that demands immediate attention:

From the December 2nd NY Times: New Orleans rental crisis.
From the November 29th Times-Pic: FEMA to evict trailer residents.
From the November 12th MSNBC: 12,000 homeless in New Orleans.

The stop the demolition movement seems to be much more about forcing government to somehow address the housing crisis BEFORE going ahead with demolition plans, given that many argue these projects could be viable short-term emergency housing options.

There is no reason there can't be compromise on this issue. Why not increase aid vouchers to give people a better chance of finding market apartments? Why not quickly remodel one or two of the project complexes and while taking down the others? Why not force developers and HANO to have a redevelopment contract in place before beginning demolition so that we can guarantee that these land tracts will not sit empty (like Magnolia)? Why not begin a program in which salvageable homes slated for demolition are distributed to working families so that our city is not dismantled into empty lots? I mean have you read what Karen Gadbois has been saying?

This is NOT a debate about whether or not do demolish these projects. This is about a humanitarian housing crisis. This is about a demolition blight crisis. This is about a developers and politicians having do it together crisis. This is about addressing the needs of the people living here.

This is why it is important to support the Coalition to Stop the Demolitions. They are trying to force municipal government to address these things. They are trying to force Ray Nagin, City Council, the US Senate, HUD, and HANO to come up with a plan more sustainable than the current agenda of knocking down the buildings without redevelopment plans in place.

Please, please consider becoming more vocal about the problematic nature of this demolition process. Pay no attention to the man behind the poster. Do not be distracted by the bullshit.
----
You can go here for a list of elected officials to contact and other news about this week's mobilization agenda.

See Ray's letter here.

Here's another place for mobilization news.

-----
Update: I hit publish and saw that two minutes ago Karen Gadbois emailed to say that crews have begun demolitions on C.J. Peete ahead of schedule. Makes me sick!

Update 2: Make that B.W. Cooper

Mobilization Tactics Thwarted By Crazy

First, I'll get to some pictures from today's events. These are in chronological order. Leigh C. has the most accurate account (for my gelt) of what it felt like to be there.

Malcolm Suber and Episcopalian Bishop Charles Jenkins


The crowd assembles

in front of City Ha(ll)

March to the metal detectors begins

Make sure to empty your pockets and put contents in the bin

"Give us our homes, we'll be alright"

Rev. Truehill

This guy with the hands was so annoyed. He sucked.

Mr. Smirkswhilehetalks HANOman is scolded by a resident


Panel Curmudgeon on the right is realizing he won't be sleeping at night.
Panel Curmudgeon on the left has no soul.

The Times Picayune report of this hearing describe it as "raucous" event in which public housing advocates are able to prevent the issuing of a demolition permit for the Lafitte project. Yet, HANO has already promised to appeal the matter to City Council.

Protesters left in need of an updated strategy. According to Laureen Lentz and Metrobloggin', there does seem to be a loose direct action framework in place for the rest of the week: (I wish only to provide the schedule so this is heavily edited)

Tuesday, Dec. 11th: Preparation and training for a larger mobilization...

...Thursday, Dec. 13th: Day of Action: Mass mobilization of protesters at Lafitte. The plan is to deliberately block the I-10 exit ramp...

...Saturday, Dec. 15th: Whomever is not yet in jail, protest at St. Bernard.

Jump in Front of Bulldozers: Some cursory thought was given to Plan B. If the HCDRC approves the demolitions, these folks plan to send a message to those contracted to do the demolitions that they will be met with the same level of hysteria. They plan to stand in front of the bulldozers.

Okay okay okay. They've got this loose plan in place to ratchet up the level of crisis in this city. I'm not sure if that strategy is currently sustainable. At around 10:00 or 10:15 AM, one demonstrator informed others about WWL's report linking their mobilization to a flier posted around City Hall and Duncan Plaza.

By 10:44 AM, the Times Picayune had this poster, large and in charge, as the feature position on NOLA.com linking to a user response forum segment called In Your Own Words. Here's their blurb: (Emphasis added)

Tensions rise over public housing

As tensions rise over the planned demolition of public housing units in New Orleans, some anti-demolition advocates are threatening more direct action. This poster is appearing in the CBD.

How does this message make you feel? Are you more or less likely to support the anti-demolition position, or those making this threat? What should the government response be? Share your thoughts.

I don't think adding the clause "or those making this threat" does a whole lot to that question other than clearly sway one against the "anti-demolition position". Then, immediately asking "what should the government response be" also biases a reader toward thoughts about appropriate government response to "the threats" of the "anti-demolition position" rather than the "threats" posed to the residents by HANO and the affordable housing crisis being ignored by politicians.

Either way, this poster is the talk of town. Talk radio squawked on and on. It was the number one story at NOLA.com.

The New Orleans City Business Blog featured its story on "the threat" as well: (I MUST do my own emphasizing, this was written by Deon Roberts, their online editor and it should infuriate you)

But why are they targeting condos? Homes on tony St. Charles Avenue are way more expensive than most condos around here. It’s likely the threat applies to more than condos. The use of the word condos is probably a reference to the homes of the rich, New Orleans elite. But that’s just speculation.

In any event, this flier – this terrorism, basically – is the latest example of the craziness that is unfolding in New Orleans as Saturday approaches, D-Day, the demolition day for public housing developments. The C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper, Lafitte and St. Bernard complexes are among those slated to be torn down.

Combined, the four total about 4,500 units. So that means 4,500 condos will be destroyed, according to the threat.

The public housing debate has made New Orleans fecund ground for protests and threats of widespread arson. As D-Day day draws near, activists have become feverish. Some have threatened to chain themselves to public housing in an attempt to block the wrecking ball. Last week, a civil rights lawyer was handcuffed at a City Hall meeting. Over the weekend, public housing supporters staged a protest in front of Mayor Nagin’s home.

And now this: arson. What’s next?

As D-Day draws near, will City Hall be locked down? Will the bomb squad be on standby?

There is no proof that the poster came from Quigley, Suber, or anyone else affiliated with the 100% peaceful mobilization at City Hall today, let alone the protest at Nagin's house and that in which Mr. Quigley, a white Civil Rights lawyer was arrested.

It is much more likely that some misguided individual put up these posters acting for his or herself, expressing a level of outrage. The city is not blanketed with the fliers. To my knowledge, they were posted on polls only in the area immediately around City Hall. To me it is not too much more incendiary than someone advocating Revolution via a Ron Paul presidency or reading "Bush to the gallows" graffiti on a public bathroom wall.

Yet Deon Roberts takes this opportunity to directly equate public housing residents and others who oppose immediate demolition to terrorists. Roberts actually claims a poster is an act of terrorism. "4500 condos will be destroyed! Arson?!?!? What's next?!?!?!? Bomb squads?!?!?!?"

That's right, you heard it hear first. People that want to find solutions to the immediate affordable housing crisis in New Orleans before undertaking demolitions of public housing structures are stupid no good baby eating terrorists! They're going to bomb this whole city unless we all start letting them live in a house. My heavens!

So I'm going to go ahead and say that it is an undeniable fact that the poster story was sensationalized by New Orleans mainstream media.

The question is why? Why would the two primary establishment news sources and establishment talk radio be so keen on demonizing the legitimate, peaceful, and organized public housing protesters by inextricably linking them to a wanton violent threat that has not been proven to be even slightly credible?

Why why why?

What could it be?

Why would the establishment want to do that?

------------------

The actions of the media have now placed the mobilization against demolition in what could be an impossible scenario:

The sensational coverage of the poster thing has ratcheted up a counter-mobilization of racists and curmudgeon types, those that typically get tricked by these media feeding-frenzies and talk radio hose outrage. The cranky phone calls city officials and representatives get from these individuals will serve to counter the citizen advocacy on the part of the public housing advocates. Also sales of Depends and V8 will rise slightly.

Frightened individuals demand punishment and the peaceful anti demolition advocates will be confronted more aggressively by police and politicians increasingly confident that public housing protest allies constitute a negligible electoral base. (Particularly now that white people are supposedly in charge of voting)

Jeffrey says:

There is absolutely no threat of an assault-of-the-unwashed upon the pristine condo-developments and austere mansions of the "New" New Orleans. Zero. No one with any sense actually believes that such a thing could actually be organized. (cough cough Deon Roberts New Orleans City Business cough cough)

However, much of the population of "New" New Orleans is given to fits of senseless hysteria and will now openly arm itself against the threat presented by these posters. Now the demolitions will not only be cleared, they will be carried out without the least bit of remorse.

Politicians will be able to further use the media to make the public housing advocates seem like a danger to ordinary New Orleans citizens. I am sure they are already on the horn with the FBI and DHS to prepare for some sort of attack from an unknown enemy that hates the freedom to have a condo. A politician will say something about these safety precautions in front of a camera, thereby reinforcing the supposed legitimacy of "the threat" and the supposed irrationality of the public housing crowd.

The mass mobilization planned for Lafitte project in which protesters may or may not be considering blockading an I-10 ramp may be easily smashed given the "legitimate danger" and the citizen outrage. Future plans to physically occupy public homes slated for demolition seem more tenuous.

(My personal opinion is that the blockage of a single highway ramp is more of a minor annoyance than the "disruption of business as usual" sought by protest organizers. Highway construction and lane closures are constant, will motorists really notice the difference?)

It is imperative that organized advocates figure out a way to distance themselves from the flier. Some people smell a rat. If they could link it to a developer or big media or city gov't, that'd be enormous. Otherwise, they're going to have to figure out a hard-hitting symbolic tear-jerk gesture that might be able to win back some more sympathy from their media manipulated New Orleans neighbors. Today feels like a net loss.

I'll still be standing with my neighbors. Go here for info as to how to help.

Stopping the Demolition

Well I made it to the rally at City Hall. 

It was okay, I guess.

Leigh to the C. sums up the chronology with accuracy.

It was fascinating to see the organizers of the rally, make tactical decisions on the fly. Quick votes, coordinators yelling back and forth at each other, it's a really neat thing. Malcolm Suber, public housing residents, and their advocacy allies seemed highly motivated and passionate.

How'd the tactics work?

Well, I don't know. The panel was swayed to block demolition at Lafitte. But it won't last because HANO is presumably going to appeal it to City Council. 

Mostly, the panel's brusk and business-as-usual attitude succeeded in taking much of the air out of the room. It was not a free-for-all, nobody in the back could even hear anything. It was hot. They were annoyed that we were there. I was annoyed at their smug attitude toward a room full of engaged citizens. It was not a free-for-all. We weren't acting like a bunch of crazies, though some of us smelled like crazies. (the room was quite warm, many of us took the stairs)

Meanwhile I heard protest group organizers talking about the report going out over WWL airwaves about a certain sensational poster. How sexy is that poster man? So sexy.

My eavesdropping revealed that none of the organizers knew anything about the poster and were pretty ticked about WWL's decision to focus upon it.

The posters were indeed all around the Duncan Plaza/City Hall area.

ARE poor public housing residents going to persecute rich white people?

The Times-Picayune goes Dr. Phil: "How does this message make you feel?"

The TP placed a photo of the poster right smack dab on the front page of NOLA.com.

It is the featured story as we speak. 

Not the rally

Not the decision against Lafitte demolition

Not the pros and cons of demolishing preexisting public housing in a city supposedly suffering an affordable housing crisis.

This decision by the editors at NOLA.com undercuts tremendously attempts by public housing advocates to garner support from everyday neighbors. 

Instead, the T-P is playing some sort of socioeconomic division game, insinuating that the public housing advocates are ready to go buck wild and start taking their rich neighbors to the guillotine. Nobody was buck wild. 

Everyone was angry, passionate, and outraged. 

Why demolish these buildings without concrete contracts for site redevelopment?

Why demolish affordable housing units just as hundreds sleep in tents across the city and hundreds more prepare for eviction from FEMA trailers?

THERE WILL NOT BE ONE RETRIBUTIVE OR PUNITIVE ACT AGAINST ANOTHER NEW ORLEANIAN BECAUSE OF DEMOLITION. 

The anger is toward HANO, HUD, the C. the Ray the Nagin. There surely is resentment toward New Orleans neighbors presumably because public housing residents are disappointed in the lack of solidarity. I am 1 million percent positive no condos will be burning... that is a lie that increasingly feels like a deliberate dirty trick.

I have no doubt that public housing advocates do plan to be disruptive to business as usual in this city and will be directly disruptive of any and all attempts to raze the projects. 

I hope to stand with them.

That is a sexy, sexy poster. Too bad no cute white girls got hit with bricks, then we'd have a real free-for-all, wouldn't we?

I'll try to have more on this later, including pictures, but I'm late for work already.