It's Obama's fault!

Here's a hypothetical scenario that I'd really like to collect reader thoughts on.

If the President or local Congressperson were to propose a $20 billion program to fund a variety of Gulf Coast infrastructure projects and social programs, would it pass? What if it were $10 billion? Or $5 billion? What do you think the tally in the House and Senate would be?

My initial assumption is that there would not be sufficient votes in either chamber but I haven't given it a whole lot of thought.

Cao: New Orleans Shafted!

Given how little we know about precisely how the stimulus will work around the nation, to start making job projections for individual Congressional districts seems silly, more so when one realizes that so much of that the allocation of much of each state's haul is still up for negotiation between governors and legislatures.

So I wouldn't get too indignant about the details of this article in today's Times-Picayune. The problems in New Orleans are so vast that a more direct infusion of federal attention is to be expected, and it is highly unlikely that more stimulus money would have been procured at the cost of special attention later.

Nonetheless, Joe Cao would have you believe that the real reason he voted against the stimulus package was that it didn't include enough jobs for the 2nd Congressional, which does indeed rank last on the Obama administration's estimate of jobs created or saved per district. On Monday, he unveiled this line in an op-ed penned to the Times-Picayune. Yesterday, he was flogging this talking point at a joint event held with Steve Scalise at the Port of New Orleans.

However, we know very well that the jobs per district number is misleading. More useful would be a calculation of jobs per capita or per 100,000 residents. The 2nd Congressional district lost a huge percentage of its population as a result of, well, you know.

But that's not really the important point.

The questions I have are:

Where the hell was Joseph Cao when the stimulus bill was being written?

Was he on the phone daily between the Regional Planning Commission, the Regional Transit Authority, the City of New Orleans, the Recovery School District, the State Department of Transportation and Development, and the Port of New Orleans?

Was he talking to traditional friends of New Orleans in Congress like Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Judicial Committee Charmian John Conyers, Committee on Education and Labor Chair George Miller, or Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Barbara Lee?

Was he working with other fiscally conservative moderates who were working on maximizing returns for Louisiana and New Orleans like Rep. Charlie Melancon or Senator Mary Landrieu?

Did he try to leverage his highly coveted vote as a Republicam moderate to try to win extra spending on projects important to his district? The Democrats were bending over backward to try to get some GOP support. Did Joseph Cao try to use that?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Cao went the other way. He didn't put the pressure on Democrats to tailor the bill to help his residents.

He got pressured by conservative wing nut Republicans. He's alternatively had Newt Gingrich, Steve Scalise, Eric Cantor, and others whispering into his ears while stepping on his feet.

Take this revelation from the Politico:

He told reporters an hour or two before the vote that he was strongly considering a vote in favor of the stimulus measure after rejecting an earlier version – “At this point, I’m leaning ‘yes,’ but I’m not absolutely certain.” He reasoned that his heavily Democratic district could use the money with many of his constituents still struggling to rebound from Hurricane Katrina.

Beforehand, Cao acknowledged that Republican leaders had put “pressure” on him to oppose the package, and the party’s chief deputy whip, California Rep. Kevin O. McCarthy, stood near Cao during the entire vote.

“They encouraged me to vote ‘no,’ but they understand the needs of my district,” Cao said.

Does Joseph Cao understand the needs of this district?

Something tells me that the deregulation/kill government/fundamentals are strong/let'em drown crowd doesn't understand the needs of this district AT ALL. Nobody representing the leadership of the Republican Party has any credibility to talk about the needs of New Orleans.

So Joe Cao better decide quickly who precisely he's representing.

Lobbyists Get the Memo

No "pork" in the stimulus bill means no "pork" in the stimulus bill.

"Somebody's going to earmark it somewhere,"

Something for New Orleans to keep in mind.

Levee Protection for Hurricane George

Maddow and Olberman were admirable in deconstructing President Bush's shameless revisions of his administration's handling of Katrina. The President was angry and defiant and showed not one shred of remorse.

I don't know what kind of accountability he and his administration will face once their reign of terror ends next week. I still believe that we could use a comprehensive federal Katrina Commission.

I would really like to see our next Mayor and City Council officially banish George W. Bush from Orleans Parish. I'm not suggesting that he'd have any interest in gracing us with his presence once he has retired, but it's important to build up our protections just in case Hurricane George threatens once more.

He was a hundred year President.

Or better yet, we could put a levy on the Bush family so that if he'd have to pay a fee in order to come visit. Something in the order of $15,000,000,000 seems fair.

Heartbreaking (Still)

Incredible job by June Cross.

Full video available.

More to say later.

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I'm not one for assigning homework but seriously if you don't watch June Cross' report for Frontline, well then I don't see how I can pass you.

There are a number of amazing things about it, whether we're talking about the Gettridge family on which the story is centered or the report's high production value, much enhanced online by all sorts of interesting interactive options to learn additional information.

Most remarkable is that it tells an incredible human story without sacrificing political or cultural context.

It's called the trifecta and this might be the only time I've seen it pulled off. A lot of journalists can get 2 of 3 but I've never really seen it all come together.

On the cultural front, Cross is able to describe the Gettredige Clan as part of a richer tribal fabric that weaves together generation after generation of New Orleanian not just as natives of a particular city but as a unique people. You even get the historic context, a description of how the Gettridge patriarch fought to integrate an elite tradesman guild reserved for creoles.

I just can't say enough about it. It's essential.

There are a couple of things I've really been chewing over in particular on the political front.

One is that I don't consider often enough the implications and injustice of Bush's waiver of the Stafford Act. There are books about this and I need to read one. (And please do recall that Helena Moreno the somehow the best New Orleans democrats could muster against Bill Jefferson.)

The second thing I don't consider often enough when I'm figurin' about local politics is the lingering implications of the decision to pink slip 50% of the municipal civil service. This devastated the African American middle class of course. And in spite of all the waste and inefficiency built into that system, the halving of the city's work capacity certainly hasn't done much to streamline the provision of services. There's an awful lot of resentment there. And it reinforces explanations as to why the Nagin administration's divisive communications strategy remained so powerful for so long.

--

Lastly, there's the untold story of Lawless High School. Cross uses powerful images of the inundated and unsecured Lawless High in the Lower 9th Ward as a device with which to contrast the resilience of individuals like Mr. Gettridge and the generosity of volunteers to the indifference and inefficiency of federal and local governmental rebuilding. She goes back to Lawless again and again to demonstrate the irrevocable nature of the changes Katrina wrought on New Orleans communities. The frustratingly slow process of home reconstruction was still nonetheless inspiring. But then Cross would go back to Lawless to demonstrate government's failure or refusal to restore neighborhood services or rebuild basic community institutions.

It was very powerful.

It struck me particularly hard because I know what happened to Lawless High School when the Orleans Parish School Board signed the Recovery School District's school facilities master plan into law.

I argued for months and months that this master plan was being formulated under the immoral premise of community "viability" under which only communities able to pass an artificial threshold of 'already-rebuilt' would be extended the privilege of public education. The worst damaged neighborhoods were not populated enough for schools and would thus not get schools. The worst-damaged neighborhoods were and are most in need of institutional reconstruction as catalysts for neighborhood revival but governmental reconstruction ideology was and is predisposed to starving the most desperate neighborhoods of services and institutions. This amounts to de facto shrinking the footprint and de facto racism. See this post:

Moments ago, I attended the media presentation of the master plan at the Contemporary Arts Center. I asked State Superintendent Paul Pastorek to what extent he believed the locations of schools facilities might impact future population patterns. He answered that he believed it would have a positive effect. I then quickly followed up by inquiring whether it then followed that the population of a community might be negatively impacted because it was not selected to receive a school. He had no satisfactory reply, stumbling toward an insistence that the master plan was not in the business of influencing re-population.

If the presence of governmental facilities, assets, and services contributes to an individual or family's decision to return and rebuild, to what extent does the absence of such basic maintenance discourage population renewal?

I was most upset because the Upper 9th Ward was not going to get a single high school. Both Carver and Frederick Douglass were slated for closure, with no school being rebuilt in Phase 1, the only portion of the plan with funding.

But what's remarkable is that Lawless HS was a Phase 1 project.

The money was ready and there was going to be a new Lawless High School in the Lower 9th Ward by 2012-2013 ish.

I was there as other communities deprived of schools organized to demand public education in their respective neighborhoods. It was something of a PR nightmare for the Recovery School District. The RSD team had to run away hard from the term (their term) "landbanking," which is what they planned to do to school properties that were not going to be rebuilt. When the Bureau for Governmental Research weighed in negatively about the financing outlook beyond Phase 1, communities scrambled hard to try to get their school on top of the first wave of construction.

Carver and Douglass High Schools made noise and won concessions. Douglass will not be landbanked as quickly as originally planned, opening the door for possible renovation of that building, which is still in decent shape. Carver HS got moved from Phase 2 to Phase 1.

These changes were previewed in the Times-Picayune on Saturday, released to the public Monday, and approved by the Orleans Parish School Board on a Thursday. So it wasn't as if there was a whole lot of time to review the modifications.

And guess who got screwed?

Lawless High School was removed from Phase 1 and Lower 9th Ward residents, who had assumed for months and months that Lawless would be there, were given all of four days to organize against the last minute changes.

-

Last week, I wrote about Louisiana officials' unambitious play for a piece of the upcoming infrastructure stimulus package. The school facilities master plan is not amongst the projects for which the state is requesting federal funds. Why not?

Those projects are as close to shovel-ready as any we have in this city. We could bump damn near every school construction project into Phase 1, including Lawless in the Lower 9th Ward.

Pastorek promised aggrieved Lower 9th Ward residents that the school facilities master plan was just a blueprint, that they would work with the community to resolve some of their issues.

Well now's the time. There is a going to be a bill in Congress that spends damn near a trillion bucks on infrastructure. We have Congresspeople, call 'em up. Get some extra money for the SFMPOP and break ground on new schools this year, including one called Lawless in the Lower 9th Ward.

New Orleans and the Obama Administration: We Won't Receive What We Don't Ask For

Deon Roberts of the City Business blog tossed out an interesting concept for a blog post recently where he examined who was to blame for the slow pace of New Orleans' recovery.

(I've never met Deon Roberts, I've heard that he's a great guy and was a decent reporter when he stayed on beat, but his blog leaves a lot to be desired. He never seems to actually analyze or interpret, he just pastes quotes from articles and summarizes.)

Anyway, in his two part post, Roberts introduces quotes from different local and federal officials blaming each other for the slow pace of recovery.

Though the quotes apply to specific recovery-related programs, it's worthwhile to consider them in the context of the big picture because I think we can create some pretty interesting hypotheses to explain the different layers of our recovery's slowness.

On one hand, you have Doug O'Dell, the Federal Recovery Czar. The AP summarized his view of things: (emphasis mine)

The Bush administration says more than $126 billion has been earmarked for Gulf Coast rebuilding following the 2005 hurricanes. Retired Maj. Gen. Doug O'Dell, who began in the job earlier this year, said he never believed the pace of recovery was about lack of resources and he said Thursday he couldn't identify any need for additional federal funds immediately.

Mayor Nagin, on the other hand, recently ordered FEMA officials out of his office: (emphasis mine)

"I had FEMA in my office yesterday and almost, kind of, threw them out," the mayor said. "They're just not aggressively helping us."

Mayor Nagin is correct that FEMA has routinely shortchanged the city for different recovery-related reimbursements. But let's also recall how our local state and municipal governments have tended to prioritize economic development over recovery. (Using CDBG money on the LSU/VA project and Reinventing the Crescent instead of for affordable housing or main street redevelopment, for instance.)

But let's see if we can zoom out a little bit.

The quotes are indicative of the long-standing disconnect between local and federal officials dating back to the storm itself. Our local officials have tended to blame the slow pace of recovery on federal red tape. Federal officials, in turn, put it back on the laps of local officials, claiming that funds have been approved and are ready to be spent.

Our local officials complain about FEMA shortchanging reimbursements for things like the rehabilitation of Charity and for slowing down the blight removal process, etc. Federal officials point the mirror back at state officials for the failure to do things like build Katrina Cottages or quickly distribute money through the Road Home program.

I'm sure one could parse out who's right and who's wrong about reimbursements and existing aid programs, etc. But would solving these typical complaints about the programs that were designed to address short term rebuilding do anything for our long term recovery?

Even if local and federal officials were working harmoniously to make these programs hum, would New Orleans' long term prospects be appreciably less pessimistic?

I'm not so sure. It would seem to me that if FEMA capitulated to all of Mayor Nagin's reimbursement requests, the only things that would be different would be the estimate for Charity and the speed with which FEMA agrees to repay for other demolitions. That would give us half of a hospital that local officials don't want to rebuild anyway and a bunch more empty lots.

Let's also go back to O'Dell's apparent inability to identify the need for any more immediate additional federal funds. One could take a look at his statement and think that he must be disengaged and unaware of our community's needs. However, I don't think that's the case. Recall his poignant criticism of the leadership of Mayor Nagin and Ed Blakely from last August. His position has been consistent - that until the city and state can intelligently spend what has already been allocated, then the federal government will not distribute additional funds.

(You may disagree with the Bush administration's decision to take a hands-off approach to local recovery failures, but that policy has been remarkably consistent. Replacing Blanco with Jindal did not appreciably alter federal policy, for instance.)

The problem seems to be that our local officials don't know what kind of help to ask for.

The argument that the federal government is failing Louisiana would be a lot more credible if local officials had a long list of things that the federal government was refusing to fund. The squabbles over FEMA reimbursement amounts are small potatoes compared to the overall needs of the region.

--

Consider that Obama is pledging an unprecedented trillion dollar stimulus package for infrastructure projects. Yet, if you read this AP article, it would seem that Louisiana is woefully unprepared to request a game-changing share:

Louisiana's post-Katrina wish list for the next Congress and incoming Obama administration, lengthened by 2008 hurricanes Gustav and Ike, boiled down in a transition brief to one essential message: Don't forget us.

While progress has been made since Katrina and Rita lashed Louisiana in 2005, "our state still suffers an extreme housing crisis with affordable rental property hard to come by and billions of housing and infrastructure repairs yet to be completed," the Louisiana Recovery Authority said in the brief dated Dec. 8 and which the LRA provided a copy of last week.

The state's wish list for the Katrina and Rita aftermath include an extension of federal disaster housing assistance, including rental subsidies, set to expire March 1.

It also includes a call to push back by two years, to December 2012, a deadline to finish housing projects benefiting from tax credits due to the sour national economy. And there's also a call for establishment of a "blight removal fund" to help speed cleanup of thousands of derelict properties that are seen as stalling reinvestment in some devastated communities.

Louisiana also may seek a congressional appropriation if it can't come to more favorable terms with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the level of Katrina damage to New Orleans' former public hospital for the poor, Charity. The state believes it's due $492 million; FEMA's offered $150 million.

A few things about this. First of all, the LRA's insistence that the federal government help the state address the massive affordable housing crisis is straight-up laughable given all of the state and municipal policies put in place since the storm that have directly limited the construction of affordable housing. The other things on the LRA wish list are deadline extensions and a better reimbursement figure from FEMA for Charity. That's just not a very ambitious target for the nation's neediest state.

It might explain why the AP encapsulated the Louisiana pitch to the Obama administration as a helpless and flailing "don't forget us."

Have we not drawn up even preliminary plans for any of the following?

Replacing the energy grid

Rail service along the coast

Category Five levees, sea walls, wetlands restoration

Comprehensive metro streetcar system

Granted, the first phase of any Obama stimulus package would fund projects that are immediately ready for construction. But there simply aren't a trillion dollars worth of projects around the country that are "shovel-ready." So I wonder why we haven't put forth targets for the second, third, and forth phases of the stimulus.

Obama transition officials are already reaching out to states and municipalities so that a stimulus bill is submitted to Congress immediately after he takes office. I'd be willing to wager that when they sat down with the numbers from New Orleans and Louisiana, they called back our local officials and whoever else in the planning community and stated somewhat incredulously something along the lines of: "you guys aren't asking for nearly enough."

It will be quite interesting to see how our officials scramble for New Orleans' share of the stimulus pie over the next several months.

New Orleans East and the Master Plan

There have been a couple of interesting articles about the new master plan and the future of New Orleans East over the last week.

From City Business:

The days before the master plan charter change amendment appeared on the Nov. 4 ballot were marked by opposition from black community and neighborhood leaders who feared giving legal license to a land use vision that could ostensibly plan low-lying neighborhoods out of existence.

While television ads and dozens of “Vote No” signs at key intersections in eastern New Orleans, Gentilly and the 9th Ward failed to produce enough voters to defeat the widely supported measure, the campaign succeeded in hitting a delicate public nerve, reopening a conversation about the role race and class play in the development of the city.

“They talked about ‘green-dotting’ neighborhoods and really hit this spot of mistrust, fear, anger and disappointment,” said Pam Dasheill, director of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development and an advocate of the master plan process.

I don't think the lingering trauma related to the green dot map can be overstated. People try to pretend like that effort didn't happen but it did. The power players behind it are still big time power players. The inability to heal those wounds has been one of the biggest factors complicating efforts to build biracial progressive coalitions.

That is why it is so understandable that the heart of the opposition to the master plan charter change came from the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East. The very existence of those communities was put in doubt under the BNOB plan. Since then, Mayor Nagin's recovery ideology and the larger edict that neighborhoods must prove their 'viability' instead of their need, have combined to compound the frustration and distrust in these communities.

So for me, the misgivings that many had about the charter change and the whole concept of planning in general are entirely understandable.

Yet, when I think about New Orleans East in the future, I don't exactly envision a series of sustainable communities. Instead, I see miles and miles of neighborhoods suffering from lack of social services, private investment, and public development. That's the direction it's been heading in, at least. I certainly don't see the area regaining substantive political clout given the current pace of repopulation.

For New Orleans East to be sustainable, doesn't it need a master plan more than anywhere else?

Michelle Krupa's article on Saturday was a great read.

Strident remarks in recent days by Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents most of the eastern part of the city, have given voice to racially charged suspicions that city leaders might not embrace the area's complete redevelopment. And those suspicions have been stoked by citywide voters' approval of a City Charter amendment that will give a master plan for land use, one not yet complete, the force of law.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis' position is curious to me. She has consistently and vocally complained about the lack of recovery projects in the East and the failure of her ally, the Mayor to provide the resources necessary to help it rebuild. Yet must vote with the Mayor's agenda close to a million percent of the time. I wonder what kind of political leverage she expects to get moving forward that would allow her to transform her district. I'd like to know Councilwoman Willard-Lewis vision for fixing New Orleans East. I don't mean that in a sarcastic or snarky way. I think it would be helpful for her to articulate how we could get a full recovery for her district. What would it look like and how do we get there?

There are 60,000 some people in the East today. There's no turning back.

They really need a plan, right?

Doesn't New Orleans East really need a high density mixed use urban main street? How else does CWL expect to get that?

From the end of the Krupa article:

Nabonne said that with the passage of the master plan amendment, his focus has shifted to another line of defense: "Now, we have to have full and meaningful participation."

That's so true.

New Orleans East needs this process to work. They need a plan.

Obama, Cities, and This City

Yesterday I mentioned Barack Obama's plans for an office of urban policy.

Obama transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett mentioned it again later to NPR.

Block: "What would that office do that's not already being done by other departments already?"

Jarrett: "When you said 'other departments' you hit the nail on the head. . . It's really important that we take all of those different agencies and have a comprehensive approach to our urban development. And so having someone in the White House who going to be an advocate for cities and take all the variety of federal programs and target them in a logical and systematic way is part of what President Obama is trying to get at with this position. Those of us that have worked in city governments recognize how invaluable that person will be."

If it hadn't occurred to you yet because you were too preoccupied with obsessively checking poll numbers this whole time, we're actually going to have a President with ideas and initiative.

You might have even realized that of course Obama would be investing in our cities, but you have to admit it's difficult to truly imagine what actual federal investment looks or feels like. It's been a long time since we've had to think about practicalities - a President that cares about cities has always been more of a theoretical proposal.

So I think it might be useful to start considering how the new office of urban policy comes to interact with existing agencies and our priorities on the Gulf Coast.

Immediately, when I think "city" and "federal agency," I come up with HUD, the cabinet-level position governing housing and urban development. Would Barack Obama's urban policy department supersede HUD? Or would there be separate cabinet positions for a stripped down department of housing and a newly minted department of urban policy?

HUD in its current form has few fans. Not only was it turned into a patronage palace under George W. Bush and Alphonso Jackson, but many consider it to have acted as a marginal policy agency even during friendlier, more competent administrations. Conservatives, on the other hand, never really supported HUD in the fist place.

Thus, Obama's department of urban policy signals the death of HUD. It is unclear whether or not a new department would be created to just to handle housing or if housing would be a subdepartment within the new urban policy agency. I suspect the former scenario.

What about the recovery of the Gulf Coast? What about New Orleans?

New Orleans still qualifies as a city. Would the special help it needs become the responsibility of the department of urban policy? Or does Obama maintain the Gulf Coast Recovery Czar position as a separate cabinet-level coordinator?

I see how this can get complicated...

Now, HUD distributes Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money. It is pretty clear that that would fall under the purview of the theoretical urban policy department but how much say will that department have over how cities spend?

In my heart, cities would be able to spend CDBG money as they see fit on projects critical to neighborhood vitality and regional sustainability. In my head, I know that some cities aren't capable of distributing those funds responsibly or even determining which development projects are most important.

During those rare events when we're able to account for how Nagin and Blakely have spent some of New Orleans' CDBG money, you can't exactly be happy with our leadership's priorities.

Barack Obama's department of urban policy, therefore, needs to have the power to set and enforce rules on how development dollars are spent. Not only does it need to set up better monitors on the money so that it doesn't disappear, but it needs to be able to ensure it be used for progressive development policies. What's sad is that many other liberal cities have leaders capable of setting those priorities independent of federal intervention. The federal government, in those instances, would just need to sign the checks and let the city or the region implement.

New Orleans is not ready for that. Our administrative systems do not inspire public trust. Our leaders have not set sensible priorities.

So for New Orleans and for other cities with long histories of systemic corruption, incompetence, and undemocratic practice, Barack Obama's new urban department is going to need to be more proactive than just setting policy guidelines and operating the paper work machine - some cities will need more direct action from the feds.

This is one of them.

Harry Shearer suggests that Colin Powell would make a good Gulf Coast Recovery Czar under and Obama administration. The idea would be that Powell could redeem himself for lying us into the Iraq War by helping to get New Orleans back on track. General Powell could do this, I suppose, because his overflowing gravitas on both sides of the aisle would re-legitimize our plight in Congress while his national name recognition could help us win back the sympathies of our nation.

But I don't think it works like that. I don't think the Gulf Coast Recovery Czar can ever do anything truly productive because it's a just coordinator position. The way it is set up now (correct me if I'm wrong), the role of Recovery Czar is to make sure different federal, state, and city agencies are working together and to report back to the President. That's not much power. That's not much authority.

I don't think Colin Powell wants to be a hall monitor.

On the other hand, if you give Powell or whoever else the power of an agency, the power of a budget, the power to distribute grant monies - politicians understand the power of the purse.

How about scrapping the Gulf Coast Recovery Czar altogether and instead making our city and region's recovery a top priority for the Department of Urban Policy?

Obama, Cities, and This City

It's funny what happens when you elect a rational forward-thinking former community organizer to be President of the United States of America.

You get good ideas.

If you haven't started thinking about how the Obama administration can help the Gulf Coast to recover, well now is time to imagine and advocate.

Harry Shearer wants Colin Powell to be named next Gulf Coast Recovery Czar in some sort of fantastical redemption role play.

Please drop a line, I'd like to read what everyone else:

1. Desires in a best case scenario for cities and for New Orleans
2. Envisions more realistically

I'll add thoughts after several more cups of coffee

Blight Fight

Will the experiment in the Irish Channel work? How easily can it be replicated? What about neighborhoods not as far along as the IC?

F#ck It, We'll Do It Live

Be comforted that video of the Bill O'Reilly freakout streams on loop all over this conference.

Meanwhile, you can watch the New Orleans panel at Netroots Nation LIVE!

Our panel starts at 3 PM Central Time.



Karen Gadbois, John Barry, Marshall Truehill, and Al Giordano!

Film Screening

In one of what appears to be the only other official New Orleans-related panel/event, a special screening of Trouble the Water is about to begin. I'm hoping that the Q&A presents the opportunity to plug tomorrow's panel.

Going to Austin: Netroots '08

Alan Gutierrez has allowed me to fly to Austin for Netroots Nation '08 in his place. I'd like to thank and congratulate Alan on putting a great panel together. There's nothing worse than negotiating conference logistics.

I've come to this opportunity at the last minute but I have given it a great deal of thought.

The Netroots Nation conference is an important yearly gathering, formerly known as Yearly Kos, of influential stakeholders within the netroots community and the world of progressive online politics.

Many in New Orleans have protested as our city has been repeatedly bypassed for national political gatherings. I specifically remember some well-expressed ire toward the organizers of this conference in particular. Additionally and unfortunately, it appears likely that Hurricane season will pass us by without a Presidential debate.

To me, and I say this as a resident of this city, as an American citizen not born here, and as a regular human being, the situation in New Orleans demands national attention.

It is not enough that politicians pay lip service in favor of category 5 levees; the federal government must deliver category five levees. It is not enough for HUD to promise affordable housing; thousands upon thousands of our neighbors need a place to live in order to return home. It is not enough for Howard Dean, the DNC, Barack Obama, and his campaign to tout the 50-state strategy; local progressives need substantive help in reforming an entrenched system of corruption and waste.

To detail the last point, the Obama campaign has not yet opened or staffed a field office in New Orleans.

One of my goals in Austin, in addition to ensuring that our panel runs smoothly, is to speak to other influential bloggers, Obama representatives, DNC organizers, in order to push for better attention to be paid to local progressive reform efforts in New Orleans and to the recovery process in general. That the right wing routinely attempts to rewrite the story of Hurricane Katrina to reduce Bush administration culpability often without immediate and forceful rebuke from the Obama campaign, the DNC, and many progressive bloggers troubles me. Rebuilding New Orleans must be a staple campaign issue in 2008, not a peripheral talking point.

Friends of New Orleans and regular readers of New Orleans blogs can assist me in this effort by closely following news from Austin, covering our panel, and commenting vigilantly on other blogs and news sites that discuss the Netroots conference.

I am hoping to provide updates from Austin as often as I can and will post links for those interested in watching our Saturday afternoon panel live as soon as possible.

Please feel free to advise me how best to advocate for New Orleans.

It would be much easier if Netroots organizers had just held the conference here like they should have all along.

RTA Management Decision Upcoming

This will be a very interesting decision.

There are three contenders for the RTA management contract.

Two of the firms, Veolia Transportation and First Transit Inc., are private for-profit companies.

The other, TMSEL, represents the current employer of RTA personnel.

Veolia is an international giant in transportation management while First Transit has more modest contracts nationally. TMSEL, at least the way it is described, would represent status-quo for retaining the current in-house administration.

The way the article is set up, one would expect Veolia to get the contract. Not only do they have the most impressive international pedigree, servicing nearly 3 billion riders annually, but have already alluded to planned installation computerized bus stops that estimate the next arrival. They have promised to headquarter in New Orleans and have assured the RTA that the management team will be comprised of locals.

If RTA management is privatized, it is likely that there will be noticeable bus route reorientation that emphasizes more convenient services for post-Katrina population centers between the canals. It is possible that regular service to Lakeview, Gentilly, New Orleans East, and the Lower Ninth Ward will be cut.

UPDATE:

The consultant hired by the RTA to vet the proposals has recommended Veolia Transportation. The RTA will make their choice in July.

All By Himself!!!!

Our own Derek Bridges has convinced John McCain to support a Presidential debate in New Orleans!

ON VIDEO!

Good stuff!

And at these moments, I feel most empowered in our collective ability to make positive change happen for our city.

UPDATE: I am so so happy about DB getting this video. SO happy. GREAT JOB!

OH, SH*T!

It's happened in movies and at least once or twice in real life.

Imagine:

You're a teenager and your parents have decided to go away for a week on vacation leaving. You've got the place to yourself and your friend totally has a fake I.D. or an older brother.

Par-tay!

But then the morning after, you wake up to the phone ringing.

You immediately smell stale beer and vomit. You walk to the phone and your feet stick to the ground where someone spilled their jungle juice. You answer the phone.

"Hey sweetie!"

Ugh "Hi mom," yawning as you make a face seeing how many plastic cups and beer cans are strewn around the previously pristine living room. You hope that condom on the carpet leave a mark. And who put out their cigarette in the ficus pot?

"Well, your father is having problems with his allergies up here at the cabin so we've decided to come back a little early. See you in a few hours!"

--

Think about the look on that poor teenager's face.

--

"Um, Mr. Mayor, the Emir from Qatar is coming. Uh, I don't know how to tell you this... He wants to check up the $100,000,000 that he left for us."

"OH, SH*T! Get Francis on the phone, get him on the phone! When did he say he was coming? AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

--

I noticed the article really only explained $5 million for Xavier scholarships, $12.5 million for Xavier's new college of pharmacy, and some other vague allusions to scholarship programs at Tulane.

Where's the rest of it?

I hope the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani asked for receipts.

How many homes could one hundred million dollars have restored? Tulane has an endowment like Ron Jeremy. They can give away their own scholarships.

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You can't just throw away all the beer cans and mop the floors and expect mom not to realize that there was a party the night before.

McCain and the Trail of Tears

McCain was here in New Orleans yesterday on just one stop of a national tour designed to make him appear as though he isn't totally clueless about the reach of poverty in America.

It's a campaign tactic perfect for the Television Age of Politics:

Step 1: Show up near poor people.

Step - Well really there's only one step. The rest relies on the media to come on down and be "objective" in their coverage.

And the media will never fail you. They'll come take pretty pictures of you kissing babies and delivering speeches and ask their pundits how much the tour is helping your campaign.

Never mind that you haven't changed your policies. Looking at the broken promises of the Lower Ninth Ward did nothing. You didn't fact-find. This wasn't a listening tour. It was a farce.

John McCain wants to cut taxes for the super wealthy and for corporations. He wants government to do less to help ordinary Americans. That is his domestic agenda and that is the overarching philosophy of the Republican Party. He doesn't hide it either.

He stood there in the rubble of our city and explain to us that his strategy for boosting our lagging economy is to help create growth for the corporate elite of America - to extend the damage done by the Bush administration.

DSB Nola has been all over McCain and Hagee.

And so has Adrastos.

He also posted a sweet video showing the differences between McCain's words and McCain's actions related to Hurricane Katrina and the Crescent City:





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McCain said yesterday about New Orleans:

“That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is,” he said.

I thought that this was interesting for a couple of reasons. Obviously it is an outrage and an insult. See what Alan said in the link above.

But I also thought of it relative to how our own local government has treated the recovery process.

"Rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is."

In this city, "rebuilding" is "tearing down."

How can we expect the federal government to aid our rebuilding process when our local government seems to be just as interested in tearing things down as our national enemies?

Seriously, think about that.

If a Democratic candidate for President called up our local officials and asked them what the city needed, what kind of answer would he or she get?

That's scary.

Everyone Must Pay Attention to NORA

I have to admit that I don't know anything about these guys.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority seems like it will have an extremely significant role in helping us out with our empty lot problem.

Er, it would be nice to get some help with the empty lot problem.

(Note: Not the empty lot problem we create for ourselves by demolishing public housing and handing over that already-public land to private developers that determine that it is more profitable to leave stick us with the lots.)

I refer to the empty lot problem that the city has been creating 'on our behalf'. (Though without permission, basic disclosure, or transparency)

And the empty lot problem created by the federal flood.

Today, Mr. Frank Donze wrote a long piece that made the cover of the Times-Picayune.
Some interesting background that anecdotally provides insight into how pathetic this city and state are:

NORA, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority was an agency created by the state of Louisiana thirty some years ago and was originally called the Community Improvement Agency.

Though NORA was created by the State of Louisiana, it is run by appointees of the Mayor of New Orleans.

NORA's own website has predicted that Hurricane Katrina will swell the number of blighted properties in this city to well over 100,000.

Certainly, blight removal emerged as a pressing need for the rebuilding process.

Yet, according to the T-P:

Historically an underfinanced, low-production organization, NORA was effectively shut down after Hurricane Katrina. The agency has been rebuilt since the fall of 2006, when Nagin expanded its board and persuaded the Legislature to pass laws strengthening its authority to assemble land.

So it took about a year for the city to decide that the flooded-out NORA would be the lead agency for flipping blighted properties back into commerce. The Mayor chose a devastated agency but somehow was able to convince the State Legislature to give it the authority necessary to get anything done.

Then the Mayor castrated the agency's ability to move forward with the Mayor's own plans. The very next paragraph from the T-P article:

But the revival has been painfully slow, as the Nagin administration sparred with NORA over how much autonomy from City Hall the agency will have and how much money it needs to operate.

Now that's what I call good governance!

NORA spent 2006 and 2007 operating without a budget from the city, instead relying on charitable grants from non-profit organizations. This allowed NORA to triple it's pre-storm staff from a why-does-this-agency-even-exist-in-the-first-place five to a are-you-serious-this-is-the-agency-that-is-in-charge-of-getting-rid-of-the-blight fifteen. But when the money ran out over the summer, NORA had to put a freeze on hiring.

Additionally, from the T-P:

In the past, city waited until the end of the year to reimburse NORA for expenses incurred over the previous 12 months.

Wow, what a novel business model!

But this T-P article is largely hopeful because Nagin and NORA have come up with some sort of compromise that will allow the agency to really set things off in 2008...

After months of sometimes angry debate, Nagin and NORA board members settled their differences in December when the mayor signed an operating contract and a pair of agreements that assign NORA specific recovery-related tasks.

The contract will eliminate NORA's immediate cash-flow problems, allowing the agency to collect $1.2 million in reimbursements from City Hall for costs incurred in 2007. Once that money is in hand, Abbott said, the agency will resume hiring.

The city also has increased NORA's 2007 appropriation for its regular operating budget by $800,000, to $2 million, this year.
--
...The administration now is willing to repay NORA as expenses come due, a move that agency officials say will provide needed flexibility when it comes to hiring and purchases.

Nagin also has signed two documents that will funnel federal dollars to NORA for specific assignments, including:

--$5 million in Community Development Block Grant money to begin clearing pockets of blight in the city's 17 target recovery areas. Under the federal program, NORA will be reimbursed after it acquires a property.

--$2 million in Urban Development Action Grant money to acquire land around the footprint of the planned veterans hospital, just off Tulane Avenue. Under that agreement, land acquisition by NORA will be restricted to an area bounded by Poydras Street, Broad Street and Claiborne and Orleans avenues.

Now that sounds like progress. I hope there's nothing else to italicize...

All parties agree that the money allocated for the two land-assembly projects is too little to finish those jobs, but the city has agreed to seek additional financing. The amount of money needed for the tasks hasn't been determined.

Ah, damn it!

...And there's even more silliness:

The delicate budget picture became evident last week as the board authorized its staff to sign a contract to map the entire city using geographic information system technology, even though NORA lacks the money to pay for all but a fraction of the work. The entire project is expected to cost $400,000.

Abbott said NORA is negotiating with nonprofit organizations to pay for the mapping initiative but hasn't yet secured any money. Determined to get the project started, he told his staff to earmark just enough money for one month of work. If the grant money doesn't materialize, he said, NORA will pay only for work done and suspend the project.

Yup. The Mayor says 2008 is the tipping point. Can't you FEEL the optimism?!?

I don't feel completely helpless and crazy though because I know there are people organizing neighbors to keep up with what's going on...

Go here and make your questions and confusions and comments and rage and encouragement known. Get down. Put it on public record at thinknola!

We're Still Not Thinking About This

Okay. So now we're really getting stupid about this. We've got letters coming in from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. We've got condo threats and FBI and DHS. The Mayor thinks it's "interesting." The Times-Picayune bumped the Saints from the Sunday front cover.

All this because some people think it might be a good idea to reexamine how the affordable housing mechanisms work in this city.

Does this city have an affordable housing crisis?

The tents on Duncan Plaza tell me yes. The reports of 12,000 homeless tell me yes. The reports of rental shortages tell me yes.

HUD and HANO and the developers and the politicians tell me no.

Karen Gadbois says this:

In a recent Mid City neighborhood survey, the City of New Orleans was found to have a low accuracy rate for FEMA-funded hazard demolitions. Overall,the results of the MCNO survey contrasts greatly with Mayor Nagins claim of 99.9% accuracy. and his pledge that ” no home is demolished improperly”

MCNO undertook a review in August 2007 of properties placed on the demolition list and found a majority of the City’s proposed choices culled from the “Good Neighbor” list ranged from haphazard to absurd. Of the 160 properties surveyed, it found that 79 houses (49 percent) were undeserving of demolition,with situations ranging from renovations in progress to owners who had posted “do not demo” signs on their house,and less damaged homes that had been gutted and secured by owners. Only 18 houses(11%) were identifiably blighted and deserving of demolition asap. An additional 4 addresses (2.5%) were on the City’s public notification list were vacant lots where the properties have already been demolished. The remaining 59 houses (36.9%) fell into an unsure category of houses with moderate damage that needed closer examination.

The demolition and redevelopment plans were in place before Katrina. Some people say that that's the reason it's okay to just go ahead with the demolitions. People are so sick and tired of waiting for the city to "make progress" that they just want to see them do something, people want to their money get spent on something they can see. And the reasons they get seem logical:

"These projects were eyesores"
"These projects were cesspools"
"The redevelopment plans promise sustainable communities"

Wait. Just wait.

Doesn't it make sense to reexamine all of this?

You know what might be an eyesore, a cesspool, and an unsustainable community? The entire city of New Orleans once its reduced to empty lots and blighted homes once the demolition committee is finished tearing down salvageable properties and leaving behind ones that are not.

I give you Gadbois:

So here we are letting market forces do the job, and right now the market force is demolition. Let’s face it, it is easy..not cheap, so a fair number of folks are making a nice profit off it. And it sounds like progress to our Mayor. But it sounds like, looks like and feels like despair to those of us who do not live on Park Island.

Market forces. The economic buffet. Who can eat? Is it the outside agitators coming down here and living out of cars to defend public housing residents? Or is the outside agitators coming down here and showing Ray Nagin power point at the Yacht Club?

We need a plan for this city not just for the projects. Have any of you been to B.W. Cooper recently? What kind of "mixed-income community" do we expect that to look like?

Do they have gates in the budget? Because I don't know many white collar people who will be willing to buy a home or a condo in a neighborhood that looks like what surrounds B.W. Cooper. Not because of the people that live in that neighborhood, but because there really aren't a whole lot of people in that neighborhood. I did see stray dogs having sex and making more stray dogs.

So what are we talking about? Are we really talking about a sustainable urban community when we redevelop this land?

Or are we talking about a subdivision?

HUD and HANO argue that residents of public housing has a lot of input in the redevelopment plans when they were formulated before Katrina. Perhaps I should have highlighted the words 'before' and 'Katrina.' I don't know if anybody else noticed, but the city looks different before and after that thing that we had. We have different needs. New challenges. Our public housing situation outlook has changed. Let's study it before we tear down any more buildings! That's both public housing projects and private homes. Because it looks like we're doing both in an indiscriminate fashion without examining either our long term needs or our short term crises.

So before we go ahead and give away public land and public tax dollars to private developers and private contractors, don't we owe it to ourselves to have some of these questions answered?

Shouldn't we know exactly what we're getting before we sign our names on the dotted lines?

Shouldn't we know what's really going on?

Why can't we cancel these demolitions and come up with a real plan?

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.

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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.
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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.

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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