ACOE Responsibility To New Orleans

New Orleans still at risk:

Despite ongoing levee improvements, the New Orleans area still faces a life-threatening risk of flooding from hurricanes, and it's the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers to make that risk clear to the public, an American Society of Civil Engineers panel said.

The panel also recommended that the corps use its bully pulpit to ensure that local evacuation and emergency planning equals or exceeds similar planning elsewhere in the nation.

Planning in New Orleans should exceed planning elsewhere. We do not want a repeat of hurricane Katrina.

Do The Feds Have Anything On Marc Morial?

Although it as been almost six years since former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial has been out of office, there seems to be speculation that the federal probe, into his administration, is not over.

This news has everyone in a wait and see mode as to whether or not the former Mayor will face charges. Whether he is ever prosecuted, there will always be that doubt as to his innocence doing and possibly after his reign as Mayor. What we are definitely sure of at this point is that his cohorts, who received lucrative contacts doing his administration, have caused the City of New Orleans great harm that has everlasting effects.

Where "New Orleans" Stands Today

This New York Times excerpt gives us a glance into the progress made in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina:

Many of the hardest-hit neighborhoods remain stuck where they have been for months, with a few houses on a block occupied and the rest in varying stages of abandonment or repair. In Broadmoor, one block might appear carefully restored by residents, while another will seem derelict. Vacant grassy lots newly pepper the city, ambiguous signs of progress: blighted houses recently sat on them, but construction has often not followed demolition.

And they wonder why people are so frustrated.

Move Back To New Orleans Or Else

To Displaced Residents Of New Orleans:

Make it back by April 1, 2010, if you want to be counted as a resident in the population numbers that determine congressional seats, federal allocations and other issues for the next decade. Those who arrive on April 2, 2010, or later will be counted as a resident of Atlanta, Houston or wherever they landed after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in Louisiana.

It's time to pack up and head home!!!

Insurance Adjusters To Appeal Dismissal

According to the Times Picayune, a group of former insurance adjusters who filed a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging that insurers have been systematically shifting the cost of hurricane damage onto the National Flood Insurance Program have asked the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out a lower court ruling dismissing their case.

The appeal by the group of unidentified insurance adjusters known as Branch Consultants LLC was filed less than two weeks after Mississippi lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who had a competing whistle-blower suit over hurricane insurance issues, pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiring to bribe a judge.

Allan Kanner, an attorney representing Branch Consultants, said an appeal was forthcoming anyway, but the stunning downfall of Scruggs, a famed tobacco attorney, underscores why taxpayers shouldn't have to pin their hopes on one suit to pursue claims of fraud against the federal government.

Legal Aid Bill For "Road Home" Applicants Goes Kaput!!!

Thanks to Kathleen Blanco:

Three days before then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco agreed to pay the Road Home contractor an additional $156 million, her administration said it couldn't come up with less than $500,000 to continue legal services to help low-income Louisiana homeowners get their grants.

The program helps needy homeowners whose applications are complicated, such as those who have homes that have been in families for generations even though the resident at the time of Hurricane Katrina often had not established clear title through succession.

Who will be conducting the investigation?

Katrina Relief Network To Close

A network of private relief workers that helped thousands of battered families put their lives together after Hurricane Katrina has begun unraveling with thousands of families still on waiting lists, even as its managers cast about for new sources of money to keep it going at a reduced level.

As the network shrinks, about 4,600 families will have to wait longer for help, officials of the network said. Some might become entangled in more red tape -- and face longer waits -- as their files are shifted from laid-off workers into new hands.

Members of the network are sorting through their cases, trying to prioritize which families need immediate help before the program shuts down March 31 and their cases are transferred, said Tom Costanza, a local Catholic Charities relief executive who leads the board of the Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership, a coalition of private relief groups.

New Orleans Homeless Rate

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appealed to federal lawmakers this past week to provide funds and housing vouchers to help the city's homeless problem.

The percentage of New Orleans' homeless is one of the highest recorded since U.S. housing officials began tracking homelessness in the mid-1980s, said Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied homeless trends for more than 20 years.

Many of the homeless are Katrina evacuees who returned to unaffordable rents or who slipped through the cracks of the federal system designed to provide temporary housing after the storm, said Mike Miller, UNITY's director of supportive housing placement.

There are also out-of-state workers who came for the post-Katrina rebuilding boom but lost their jobs, and mentally ill residents in need of services and medication, he said. Many of the city's outreach homeless centers and public mental health services have been closed since Katrina.

Nagin has suggested reinstating a city ordinance that would make it illegal to sleep in public places. Homeless advocates say the law would just crowd the jails.

New Orleans Jazz Fest

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is back in full swing with the first appearance of the Neville Brothers since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. New Orleans' first family of funk closes out the festival on May 4 at the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course.

This year's jazz fest also returns to its pre-Katrina seven-day schedule.

The 39th annual festival's opening weekend is April 25-27. The traditional laid-back Thursday, May 1, kicks off the second weekend of performances, ending May 4. Besides the Nevilles, other May 4 acts include Santana, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, the Derek Trucks Band, Keb Mo and a Tribute to Mahalia Jackson featuring Irma Thomas (the subject of this year's beautiful jazz fest poster). Thomas headlines her own R&B revue on April 27.

Stevie Wonder makes his jazz fest debut May 2. Also on May 2, Michael Franti and Spearhead are sure to deliver a spiritually uplifting show and Chicago's John Prine will take the stage. Don't miss Aaron Neville's Gospel Soul on May 3, the same day Parrothead nation takes over the fairgrounds with the appearance of Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band.

Bill Clinton: On Green Building In New Orleans

Former President Bill Clinton said energy efficient, green building can be a key part of New Orleans' comeback from Hurricane Katrina.

Clinton, here for a gathering of college students as part of his Clinton Global Initiative University, said the city's history and culture, combined with a commitment to a sustainable economic future, would allow for "the complete ascendancy, its return, as the most unique city in the country."

Mayor Ray Nagin said Clinton — who in 2006 named the New Orleans metro area as part of his Clinton Climate Initiative focused on addressing global warming — has been providing advice on how best to move forward from the August 2005 storm. He called Clinton a friend and "wonderful man."

The city has pledged to follow what Nagin in January called a "greening road map," a 10-year plan that he said would, among other things, incorporate so-called green technology and building techniques into the repairs of city buildings damaged by Katrina. Nagin also has said he has committed to green living in his personal life, taking steps including having solar panels installed at his home.

New Orleans Going 'More Green'

The American Society of Interior Designers is meeting at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center this weekend. The group has just unveiled its ReGreen guidelines, a manual intended to reshape thinking about home renovations developed in partnership with the United States Green Building Council.

Linda Sorrento, manager of the ReGreen program, said the new guidelines are the first comprehensive national directives for green renovations, as opposed to new construction.

N.O. Ambassadors On The Move

After what they described as a highly successful first year, the founders of the Fleur-de-lis Ambassadors Program said Friday that the initiative to tell the story of New Orleans' recovery to the rest of the nation will continue in 2008.

Tulane University President Scott Cowen and City Council President Arnie Fielkow, joined by Entergy New Orleans Chief Executive Officer Rod West and lawyer Kim Boyle, created the program in March 2007.

Their aim was to combat misperceptions, convey the importance of New Orleans' economic and cultural revitalization, and offer a positive view of the city's post-Katrina status to media, business, civic and political leaders in other major U.S. cities. |Read on|

Black Mayors To Meet In New Orleans

The National Conference of Black Mayors will bring its annual convention to New Orleans in June after deciding to relocate it from Detroit in the wake of a scandal involving that city's mayor, the group's president said last week.

St. Gabriel Mayor George Grace, who also serves as the mayors association president, said the convention will be held in New Orleans June 4-8. The event initially had been scheduled to take place in Detroit in April.

George said the group was concerned that the controversy surrounding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick would distract from the event.

Since uncovering it in January, the Detroit Free Press has been reporting on an alleged affair between Kilpatrick and his now former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

HUD Criticized Over Hurricane Katrina Response

A United Nations treaty committee ruled Friday that the United States' response to Hurricane Katrina has had a greater negative impact on displaced black residents and called on the federal government to do more to guarantee that they can return to affordable housing in their hometowns.

The U.N. committee also ruled Friday that the U.S. government must make sure displaced residents have a greater say in plans that affect their return.

Housing advocates in New Orleans proclaimed the decision as a victory in their protracted battle with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, saying the U.N. finding proved that HUD failed to consider alternatives to its plans to demolish four large public housing complexes and replace them with a mixed-income model with fewer total units.

Crime & Safety In N.O.

Some New Orleans residents have been ripped off by shady contractors during their rebuilding efforts.

What should those residents do when a former New Orleanian returns with the hope of continuing to rip them off?

N.O. Mayor "Homeless Plan" Hits A Snag

The mayor's plan to empty the Claiborne-Canal tent city by the end of February has been delayed by about a week, according to mayoral spokesman Ceeon Quiett, who said that mental health services and the space at the New Orleans Mission needed last-minute adjustments.

Thursday, inside the 140-person tent behind the mission, staff loaded mattresses onto bunkbeds to prepare for new occupants. But hopes of housing the city's homeless there by Friday were dashed by the state fire marshal, who asked the shelter to correct a few additional "electrical and mechanical" problems, spokeswoman Kim Thompson said.

New Orleans Public Housing Demolition Criticized By Experts

United Nations experts weighed in Thursday on the debate over public housing in New Orleans, accusing the U.S. federal government and local authorities of forcing predominantly black residents into homelessness.

The experts said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and local governments will violate the human rights of thousands of New Orleans residents by demolishing public housing units.

Mayor Nagin Wants Homeless To Move To Barrack

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin vowed to use health and safety codes to move the men and women living underneath the stretch of Interstate 10 known as the Claiborne Avenue bridge to the tarp-covered facility that was awaiting fire inspections. Aware of the camp's proximity to the French Quarter and other tourist destinations, the mayor wants the move done by the end of the week.

The barrack, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide, is air-conditioned, filled with double-decker bunk beds, and stands on the grounds of a mission in the city's Central Business District that has worked with the homeless for 20 years.

But even its administrator said he is unsure the facility that offers only meals and overnight stays to about 120 people can really help a homeless population that has doubled to 12,000 since Katrina struck in August 2005.

Two Louisiana Insurance Lawsuits To Be Heard

The state's high court will hear its first Hurricane Katrina insurance payment case Tuesday, and later in the day, will hear its first Hurricane Rita insurance case. And if the Supreme Court rules in favor of policyholders in either case, it would trump federal court rulings in similar cases that have gone in favor of insurance companies.

The most significant case for New Orleans area residents is Joseph Sher's lawsuit against Lafayette Insurance Co. The 92-year-old Holocaust survivor claims Lafayette's homeowner's insurance policy -- along with most others used by the industry -- should have covered the water that flowed into his Uptown fourplex because of the failure of man-made flood-control structures.

The other case originated with southwest Louisiana residents Mark and Barbara Landry, who claim the 108-year-old "valued policy" law forces Citizens Property Insurance Corp., which covered them for wind but not flood, to pay the full value of their totaled home, even though storm surge was responsible for some of the damage.

'America's Most Wanted' comes to New Orleans

Cops Helping Cops was established in 2006. The organization has helped to raise money, collect materials and recruit volunteers to build homes for New Orleans police officers.

On this week’s episode of America’s Most Wanted, AMW will team up with Cops Helping Cops. The show and the organization will offer one deserving New Orleans officer a chance to rebuild a life left in ruin after Hurricane Katrina.

Also, America’s Most Wanted will help to hunt down fugitives in the New Orleans area. The New Orleans Special Edition episode of America’s Most Wanted airs on Saturday, February 23 from 9 PM to 10 PM ET/PT on FOX.