Do do do do do do

Well now there's a lawsuit.  Surprised it took this long.

The suit, filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court by Algiers resident Skip Gallagher, claims the Regional Transit Authority shirked its duty when it ignored Gallagher's requests for more information on what's been keeping the boats from service on the Mississippi River.

I like that the person suing over the seaworthiness of the boats is named Skip. Anyway, assuming most people reading this already know enough of the Metal Shark background saga now. So let's skip to the end of this story where we see Skip is actually asking about the part that's been missing from that so far.

Gallagher wanted to know more about the whole ordeal, including what RTA and Transdev executives were saying to each other about the boats via email.

He also wanted to know who was responsible for selecting Metal Shark and whether that team had any expertise in boat construction management.

We've learned a lot about why what Metal Shark built can't pass inspection. But what we haven't heard enough about yet is why was that faulty product ordered in the first place? We did note back in May a pair of stories about RTA board member Al Herrara, who was forced to resign over a conflict of interest wherein a company he owned sold parts to Metal Shark.  Herrara went on to allege “questionable bidding and billing practices" at RTA in response.  I don't know if anything else has been learned since then.  Maybe Skip's lawsuit will find some emails about it or something.

Meanwhile, the city says they are looking at ways they might be able to compensate Algiers business owners affected by the ferry outage. No one has any idea what can be done for transit riders who may have once relied on these ferries.