How not to maximize recovery funding

Just prior to the Labor Day weekend, Governor Edwards submitted a request to the President and Congress for supplemental flood relief aid.  

Edwards asks that Congress this month approve $2 billion in federal aid for Louisiana for housing, economic development and infrastructure. He says it's a "very reasonable request," adding to other federal programs assisting in Louisiana's flood recovery.

This week the Governor is in Washington pushing his plan in meetings with congressional leaders and Obama Administration officials.  (UPDATE: Already successful in receiving a greater federal cost share of disaster response) I wonder, though, if  he should be aiming a little higher than "very reasonable" in his initial ask.   Much has already been written about the extreme difficulty of Louisiana's shitty congressional delegation getting much sympathy out of the shitty Congress this year.  When you know going in that you're going to see a large chunk of what you're asking for compromised away in the process, it's a good idea to ask for more than you will actually need. Ideally we would start by asking for way too much and then let them whittle it down to "reasonable."

(UPPERDATE: And here we see the President has already whittled out a mysterious $200 million for whatever reason.  So we're going the wrong direction.)

Instead it looks like the Governor may have opened negotiations asking for less than will actually be needed. For one thing, we still don't have a solid estimate of the damage. This article says, "at least $8.7 billion."  But it also says the number of homes documented as damaged "could double" from 55,000 to 110,000.  Does "at least $8.7 billion" then mean AS MUCH as $17 billion?  I have to suppose that can't be what they mean. But it is a logical interpretation of what is written.

Anyway when you've got so many uninsured properties in the mix (80 percent of the documented damaged homes now) you have to expect you'll need extra help.  Last week, again with incomplete and unclear numbers available, we tried to sketch out an estimate of how much a new "Road Home" style program where homeowners are compensated for the difference between the cost of repairs vs the amount paid out by insurance might cost.  Our high end guess at that time was $6.4 billion. That was based on an average grant in the amount of $70,000 going to 63% of 145,000 homeowners.

Let's adjust that math to fit the estimates printed along with the Governor's request.  That's 80% of something between 55,000 and 110,000 damaged homes at an average of $70,000 per grant. That comes out to roughly $3 billion at the low end and as much as $6.2 billion at the high end.   Again, these are very rough guesses but if they're even remotely in the ballpark they suggest that the Governor is asking for maybe a billion dollars or possibly many billions less than what flood victims will actually need.

Governor Edwards is a mild mannered guy. But there are situations where "reasonable" doesn't necessarily cut it.  We've got some experience with disaster recovery in New Orleans. Maybe we can offer some advice.  For starters, has Edwards even read former New Orleans Sanitation Director Veronica White's book?

Does that say, "How to Ask For a Reasonable Amount Of FEMA Funding After a Natural Disaster"? No it does not say that. We're setting our sights on a Maximized recovery here.  And since it doesn't look like Ed Blakely is coming through that door any time soon, I suppose it falls to us to give the John Bel a few pointers.  What follows, then, is a brief sketch of our five point recovery plan for South Louisiana based on our decade's long experience.

One:  Mitch Landrieu told us the key to rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina was that we not just build everything back the way it was, but instead, build "the city we've always wanted to be."   So here is how you do that. First, look around and see if you have any land that might be made for valuable for development if you can move the poor people living there off of it.  Next, move those poor people out of the way.  Like Pres says, they're a "drag on the economy. We've talked many times about how this strategy took off in New Orleans. Make it work for you too.

B: Do you have any public services laying around that might be ripe for a little "public-private partnering" or other such cutting edge innovation? Take a look at your schools. Farming out public education to semi-privatized management has been a pet cause of the best and brightest policy wonks for decades now.  It's made careers for people in politics and people just out of politics.  Most importantly, it has focused attention on communities willing to turn their disasters into "blank slate" opportunities.  This is the kind of thing that gets your mayor invited to Aspen, which, as we know, is at least halfway to getting yourself a bonafide recovery.

III: Say brah, do you like apps? If you're really trying to take your grifting innovation recovery to the next level, you've got to get you some tech savvy entrepreneurs to come in and disrupt your whole situation for you. We can see you've already got a head start on this. Still looking for ways to hack it into high gear, though?  Well what about your....

(4): Culture and "authenticity."  Are you famous for quaint folkways that people with disposable income find entertaining on a self-satisfying pseudo-intellectual level? Yes? Great, you can sell that shit by the truckload! Put it all out there. See if David Simon wants to dramatize the struggles of the unique people St. Amant for premium cable. Do you have music and food festivals that "only the locals" know about? Make sure you rebuild your home in an Airbnb friendly aesthetic because you're gonna have some customers. How about a Disney-friendly gumbo recipe? Yes, definitely do that. 

v: Resilience. What is it? Who knows! You want it, though. Take as much as they offer.

Lagniappe: Do you happen to have a guy who can block punts?  Some people think that helps too.

"Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no job is too big, no fee is too big! "

After years of squabbling with the two largest garbage contractors over the number of addresses each should be compensated for servicing, the city has finally agreed to just accept their numbers. The ingenious reasoning is, well maybe they'll grow into it.

The administration is betting the city’s population will continue to grow while the cost of trash pickup — still more than the mayor would like — will remain almost flat, representing a relatively stable figure in a budget that has otherwise been under assault from ballooning and sometimes unpredictable expenses.

The garbage contracts are among the city’s biggest, taking up about 5 percent of the annual operating budget.

“As long as New Orleans continues to be the fastest growing city in America, which it has been for the past few years, and we fix those house counts, this is a very favorable agreement,” Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin said in presenting the details Tuesday to the City Council’s Sanitation Committee.

Maybe that will work out for them eventually.  It might be interesting to note, though, that despite the growing population, usage of another major city service has only just exceeded half its pre-Katrina numbers.

Public transportation in New Orleans has steadily expanded since Hurricane Katrina decimated the network in 2005. While the number of riders every year is nowhere near the 34 million who took a bus or streetcar trip in 2004, the system could provide as many as 18 million rides by year's end, said Stefan Marks, Veolia's director of planning and scheduling for the RTA. The RTA has logged 13.9 million riders through September, a 12-percent jump over the 12.5 million passengers that used the RTA during the first nine months of 2012.

 Naturally they're asking for a fare increase.

But back to the disposal companies.  What might account for the supposed padding in their contracts are the unique challenges  New Orleans presents. Recall, for example, the ugliness that erupted when Veronica White's sanitation department introduced suburban style trash bins to the narrow French Quarter streets.

The anger over the issue clashes with general delight with the performance of the Quarter's new trash collection service. But many French Quarter residents say the free 32-gallon, wheeled, lidded "carts" -- although just a third the size of those the city is requiring in most other neighborhoods -- are too big to store on their small lots or in narrow side alleys.

The commission fears that bins left on sidewalks for many hours after garbage trucks have passed will be eyesores and will hinder pedestrian traffic.

Mayor Ray Nagin has promised "Disney-like" cleanliness in the French Quarter and Central Business District, with twice-daily trash collection and continuous sidewalk cleaning, as a way to promote tourism and economic development.

Leaders of the two principal organizations of Quarter residents recently took their complaints about the bins to the mayor, but Nagin and Sanitation Director Veronica White remained adamant.

A frustrated Ralph Lupin, the Vieux Carre Commission's tough-talking chairman, told the commission Tuesday, "I don't understand Ms. White's obstinance other than that she's a bitch."

Then there was the time when the Nagin administration spent half a million dollars on "bomb-proof" trash cans and then decided they didn't want them after all. 

New Orleanians, it appears, will never get to find out whether the "bombproof" trash cans the city bought for $750 a pop three years ago were worthy of the title.

That's because all 600, purchased for a steep $450,000, have been junked.

Now Mayor Ray Nagin's administration, which staunchly defended the original trash can purchase, has begun replacing them with a different model. Unlike the old ones, the new ones do not feature advertisements -- nor do they claim to frustrate terrorists.

In a recent interview, Nagin said he was never a fan of the squatty cans, bought with a no-bid contract at the direction of former Chief Administrative Officer Charles Rice. Rice left city government in 2005, a few months before Hurricane Katrina.

"Those little munchkin trash cans? We got rid of those," Nagin said, referring to the trash can deal as "a Charles Rice special."

The mayor's chief beef, apparently, was that the receptacles, known as "Jazzy Cans," were too small.

"I said to Charles, 'Where'd you find these trash cans?'" Nagin recounted. "They're about this tall," he added, holding his hand at the level of a table top. "I had to bend over to put stuff in 'em."

Nagin's backaches likely would have been in vain anyway. Earlier this year the city experienced a brief period of hysteria over the frequent appearance of various "suspicious packages" none of which ever was actually placed inside a trash receptacle where the supposed "bomb-proofing" might have provided some benefit. 

But it's not only bombs that require careful attention. There's also the matter of spectral decontamination which, can be a tricky issue on some lawns.





This morning, in the first day of budget hearings, the City Council considered a proposal to shut off residents' water service should they become delinquent in paying the sanitation fee attached to their bill.  Stacy Head seems like she wants to punt the decision on this enforcement policy back to the Mayor.

CM Head: "Neither the city charter nor state law ... require any ordinance passage" to do water shutoffs for failure to pay trash bills.
— Charles Maldonado (@CMaldonadoLens) October 23, 2013

CM Head: "It could be done merely through a CEA ... and we would only have to approve the CEA." #nolabudget
— Charles Maldonado (@CMaldonadoLens) October 23, 2013

Kopplin says the city attorney and the SWB don't agree. They recommend an ordinance. #nolabudget
— Charles Maldonado (@CMaldonadoLens) October 23, 2013

Head: "This is a difficult policy decision an I'm sure you'd love to pass that hot potato to us, but the charter is clear." #NolaBudget
— Charles Maldonado (@CMaldonadoLens) October 23, 2013

Some may wonder why the sanitation fee appears on the city water bills in the first place.  But, as we demonstrated the other day, some of these specialized pick-up jobs have been known to emerge from the sewers anyway.




The city estimates that it can raise an extra $1.6 million in trash fees simply by adding the water shutoff threat.  That seems unlikely to me.  But if it turns out they can't wring out that last bit, and they absolutely need help fulfilling these sanitation service obligations, they can always go out and find a new contractor. 

Getting the band back together

It's not quite been 24 hours after landfall but already some of our old friends are offering their critiques of Hurricane Sandy and the federal response.

Here is Arabian Horse enthusiast, former FEMA Director, and best selling author, Michael Brown speaking to the Denver Westword  (link via Gambit)

Brown expects that in the coming days, there will also be comparisons between Obama's quick response to Hurricane Sandy and his slower response to the attacks in Benghazi, which has become a challenging campaign issue for the president.

"One thing he's gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in...Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?" Brown says. "Why was this so quick?... At some point, somebody's going to ask that question.... This is like the inverse of Benghazi."

 Yes, the response was too quick. Hard to believe Obama had them mobilized on an empty stomach.

Ray Nagin has been tweeting some benign well wishes to the victims. Most of us think that's nice. But at the same time, his name has been unfairly drawn into the spat between New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Atlantic City Mayor  Lorenzo Langford. We are not often quick to defend Ray Nagin but here's Jarvis DeBerry explaining that these comparisons are based on persistent and damaging myths about the evacuation of New Orleans prior to Katrina.

Those criticizing Langford accuse him of encouraging people to hang around, which they say makes him like our former mayor. Nagin's failures are myriad, legendary even, but those accusing him of not properly warning New Orleanians of Katrina's danger are either misinformed or lying on purpose.

Given that the city is largely poor, that no storm had struck in 40 years, that it has only one interstate highway and that a 2004 evacuation nightmare had led many to say "never again," you might consider it a marvel that on the Monday morning Katrina arrived the overwhelming majority of New Orleanians were gone. We hadn't even given the storm a thought till late in the day Friday.

Now maybe later when Langford inevitably tells us rebuilding Atlantic City will depend on getting some casinos up and running, there might be something to this. But for now leave C. Ray alooone. He's got enough to worry about.

Also, the dangling crane on the NYC skyline has brought forth Ed Blakely like some sort of ill-advised bat signal. But if Blakely is angling for a job this time, it looks like he's going for political pundit rather than disaster consultant.

US political legend holds that there will be an incident, a surprise in late October in a presidential election year, which will separate the candidates at a point where one moves so far ahead that he wins by more votes than anyone anticipates. Is Hurricane Sandy the 2012 October surprise for Obama?

Given the close race, it will take a deciding deed or moment for Barack Obama or Mitt Romney to pull away in the last dash to victory. There is no doubt Sandy is a political storm and not just a weather event.

Ugh. Well, the good news is when he sucks at this stuff, nobody suffers.. I mean, unless they read it.

Anyway, if the citizens of New Orleans could offer the people affected by Sandy at least one bit of our own advice, it would probably be, whatever you do, do not hire Ed Blakely.  A few years ago, as he was preparing to leave us, I put together a helpful timeline of his tenure here just in case someone might need that information for later.

Meanwhile, is Veronica White's book still in print? This seems like the moment it was written for.

Random Book-related items

• A few years ago (back in the fading pre-flood times) a colleague of mine and I were enduring a particularly heavy day on the circulation desk. During one short moment of quiet where we tried to make up for lost time checking in a large pile of returned items, my partner stopped, took a breath, looked over at me and sighed, "I hate books." Still cracks me up to this day.


• It was also about that time that the daily bookdrop became fodder for a running blog item I used to call "Awful Book of the Morning" I am reminded of that feature due to my recent discovery of the "Awful Library Books" blog.


• Former Saints quarterback Aaron Brooks enjoyed a short career as a Literacy Advocate which he later parlayed into Children's Author. One year, Brooks held a press conference at the (now destroyed) East New Orleans library to announce the start of his "Read to Pass" program. After the event, a discarded page of notes was discovered which had been prepared for Brooks by one of his handlers. It was full of sympathetic words of encouragement along the lines of, "I know you hate this but it's good for your image," and so forth. Copies were made and distributed amongst the staff to keep as souvenirs. His book, Rise Above features a photograph of the back of the head of the colleague of mine who once claimed to "hate books."


• Ray Nagin once gave a short speech to a group of middle-school children whom he applauded for being in the library as opposed to "shooting each other in the head, neck and shoulders." It was interesting that the Mayor chose to specify areas of the body which were not being shot that day.


• Today, while reading the The Gambit blog, I discovered that popular entertainer, and now author, Kanye West is, himself, "not a fan of books."


• In a related matter, recovery expert Veronica White will be signing How to Maximize FEMA Funding After a Natural Disaster tomorrow at Dillard University. Click here for details.

Update: I completely missed this Len Paquarelli column on Brooks who, although out of football, is apparently still participating in his literacy program.

Excellence in Recovery Bookshelf

Stephanie Grace's column this morning attempts to trace what she sees as similarities between New Orleans's buffoonish Mayor and its buffoonologist outgoing Recovery Czar. There's some fun to be had there but, as I have said for some time now, the proper analog for Ray Nagin is George W Bush.

Besides, Grace's column overlooks one crucial commonality between her subjects. Each one is an aspiring author. Blakely has been talking openly about the his plans to share his part-time experiences in New Orleans with a publishing house for some time now. And similarly City Hall watchers are familiar with the repeated references to "the book" emanating from Nagin staffers.

In anticipation of these forthcoming works... and in the interest of preserving any and all "lessons learned" from our time without the cranes... I'm setting aside a special place in my home to display the Excellence in Recovery Collection. It would be a single bookshelf holding copies of Nagin's and Blakely's works along with How to Maximize FEMA Funding After a Natural Disaster by Veronica White and of course multiple copies of One Dead in the Attic (whose author, I should mention, is comparing Nagin to Paris Hilton in his most recent column; the latest effort in his quest to shoehorn our understanding of the world into the idiom of tired celebrity gossip).

I'm moving some things around so that I can raise the bookshelf above base flood elevation. Ideally I'd like to have it set atop a framed "Recovery in Progress" sign but I haven't decided which one I'd most like to steal. Also, does anyone have an extra Bernardo award or two laying around? I'm looking for an appropriately insubstantial bookend.

I get it

It's obviously a parody. Grow a sense of humor, people. Geez

Lending his worldwide renown to White's tome is New Orleans Recovery Director Ed Blakely, who in a blurb calls the book "the most valuable tool" for cities facing natural disasters.

"FEMA is not the problem; you are, if you fail to buy this book, " the quote states.

"Worldwide renown" That's another good one.

Not sure what part of this is funniest

I really want to spoil only one of the fun facts Red clues us in on in the post I'm about to link to but there are just so many..... Ok ok how's this?

Veronica White's attorney: Ralph Capitelli.

Lifeboats: A week in Naginville

Eli has a made a cute joke this morning. In case you missed the context, at the end of the day yesterday, the City announced that it was suing six contractors it found to have kept insufficient records of a little more than $200,000.00 paid to them through NOAH. (If you need more NOAH context at this point, I really don't have the time.)

However, according to Eli, the amount the city is seeking to recover here is a small fraction of the amount of money not accounted for by NOAH and NOAH contractors... although he admits, "the records kept on the city's end were so atrocious, I just don't see any real way to evaluate who did what and who got paid for what." But, regardless of the actual amount of money in dispute, it remains a reasonable assumption that the city is not likely to be investigating itself in good faith.

Eli suggests that the timing of this announcement is calculated to draw attention away from yesterday's embarrassing judgment in which the Mayor and the City Attorney were found in “flagrant violation of the law they have sworn to uphold” when they stonewalled WWLTV's public records requests and even went so far as to "lose" a year's worth of emails relevant to those requests. Which brings us back to Eli's cute little joke. The kid writes,

We've just witnessed the Mayor voluntarily putting NOAH back into the news to deflect attention from his various other controversies.

He's in such bad shape that he's looking to NOAH for a lifeboat.

Now, personally, I think it would have been funnier if he had called it a "life-ark" but maybe not. (Also, I'm a little shaky on the concept of using a boat to "deflect" something. Not that that wouldn't work provided that one raised the "lifeboat"... which I am assuming is a dingy or canoe or something... over one's head. But surely a boat is more commonly used as a means of escape than defense.) Plus I don't think it's a correct read to say that Nagin is "putting NOAH back into the news" since it's likely that the disputed records... which we may actually see before this is all over with... could be NOAH-related (although I'd bet the crime camera issue may also be a heavy topic there). But the "lifeboat" strategy (despite the complexity of the metaphor) is probably dead-on. In fact, over the past week, the Mayor has managed to deploy a veritable flotilla of "lifeboats" with which he has... um... deflected criticism on several fronts. Observe.

Boat 1: Early last week, we were treated to the seemingly embarrassing news for the administration that Sanitation Director Veronica White had inappropriately released three years worth of email communications to and from City Council members.

I say "seemingly embarrassing" because, at the time, one was tempted to think 1) White seems to have ignored her responsibility to forward public records requests to the City Attorney's office and 2) WTF, Why are the Council's emails come by so easily while the Mayor's remain out of reach? But if that's all you got from the episode, then you had missed the boat... so to speak. As it turned out, the release of the Council emails ended up working in the Mayor's favor. It allowed him to convincingly reprise his politically comfortable role as the victim of overzealous, racially motivated critcs.

Although this was later revised to include all council members, the initial accounts of the email release stated that only emails belonging to the white councilpersons had been made available. Framing the story in this way immediately opened the records controversy to scrutiny under the racial lens. Highlighting the Council's 4-3 white majority, as well as its frequent moments of friction with Veronica White (As the T-P is fond of printing repeatedly and I think not without humor, "White is black") effectively cast the Council as the "White" participant in a suddenly highly subjective discussion over what should be simple facts. Once the council sued to prevent their emails from being released, we were fast on our way to a "transparency-for-some-but-not-for-me" type of argument in which they had compromised their own credibility.

By the end of the week, Jarvis DeBerry described defenders of either the Council or the Mayor as inattentive to "principle".

Can't decide if you're a person of principle or just another run-of-the-mill partisan hack? Here's an easy test: Did you take one position when WWL-TV sought Mayor Ray Nagin's e-mails and the opposite position when lawyer Tracie Washington was handed over e-mails from the white members of the New Orleans City Council?

Did you insist that Nagin's the target of a witch hunt but argue that those council members deserve every bit of scrutiny they get? Did you say that Nagin should have turned over his e-mails but that the council members are good folks and ought to be left alone? No matter which position you took regarding Nagin, if it doesn't jibe with the position you have toward the council, you're not to be listened to.

Now I think that's a bit simplistic. Technically speaking, those aren't exactly the two positions available for a person to take on the situation. One could say, for example, that the disappearance of the mayor's emails is suspicious AND that the circumstances by which the council's emails were produced are just as suspicious and still argue that all of these public documents should be available for public scrutiny. But, by this point, the boat has sailed. Days before the Mayor was set to receive a stern judgment regarding the disappearance of his emails, the counter-argument that a double-standard was being applied was already afloat.

Boat 2: In a lesser noticed flare-up last week, City Buisness published a rather weak hit piece in the finest Dragonslaying tradition which accused the Mayor's office of "expenditures other government officials generally consider unusual and inappropriate." I won't dwell on it too much except to point you to the Mayor's response here. What's more interesting to me is that a competing (and equally silly) report on the City Council's travel expenses was released the very same week reintroducing the comparison narrative.

Boat 3: On the same day that the Council email thing blew up, the Inspector General's office released a long-awaited report on alleged waste associated with the City's notoriously ineffective and ill-conceived crime camera program. You can read the whole report here if you like... or at least read the executive summary here. But to truly explore the depths of this chicanery, you should be reading Dambala. Suffice to say, there's a lot going on there and this report certainly merits wider discussion. But it didn't ripple very far upon impact thanks to the timing of the its release.

Plus, the Mayor made sure to further disturb the waters during this remarkable appearance on WVUE.




Eli transcribes key bits here and provides analysis. I'd like to piggy back off of Eli's work here and quote a bit from his transcription as I think it is an exemplary sample of Nagin at his best.

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.

There's a lot more in the passage and that interview so be sure to watch the whole thing. [Spoilers] Nagin goes on to take a hilarious swipe at the IG, "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". And I'm always pleased to see anyone go after a twat like Raphael Goyeneche, "Well, Raphael is not really a crime expert so, I mean, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt." [/Spoilers]

But please do watch the video and then tell me if you agree with Eli's characterization of Nagin's second interruption as "agitated". I'd believe "mocking" or perhaps "smug" even, but I don't think Nagin is agitated there. I think he's quite comfortable. He knows his interviewers aren't in his league and he's all too happy to mock and intimidate them. I know we all have a lot of fun shaking our heads at his erratic behavior, but believe me when I say this. Years from now, when Ray Nagin is long gone, he's going to be remembered as one of the all-time masters.

Regardless of what you think about the mayor's willingness to address facts or even make sense, in this interview he DID manage to needle and intimidate his questioners in a way that left the casual impression that (1) he knew what he was talking about and they didn't and (2) that he is the victim of ulterior motives on the part of his critics. The man is a genius at this. Plus it works because... statements (1) and (2) are true to some degree. It's kind of beautiful to watch, actually.

And it's not the first time. Nagin does this all the time. Here is a classic Nagin moment I noted during one of the several massively entertaining Mayoral debates in 2006.

The classic moment of the campaign came later when Rev. Tom Watson challenged Nagin to explain his "double talk" meaning his tendency to contradict his own statements depending upon the make up (race) of his audience. Watson admonished Nagin not to "apologize for being a black man." Watson also challenged Nagin's assertion that the state is "holding up" reconstruction funds and let fly at Nagin with all of the fire and brimstone he could muster here declaring, "Ray Nagin is the problem! Ray you are lying! You are a liar!" At one point in this exchange Watson actually used the words "I rebuke you." Nagin's response to all of this was even better. During the reverend's tirade Nagin affected to bless Watson making the sign of the cross and shouting, "Pastor! God bless you!"

Nagin is a master at capitalizing on the shrill ridiculousness of his indignant accusers regardless of whose side the facts are on. He meets overwrought righteous pomposity with cool sarcasm. Stylistically, at least, he's always got a point and you almost find yourself rooting for him. Almost.

Oh by the way, that Mayor Daley story? Total bullshit... but who can keep up?

There's a way to combat Nagin's antics, but it takes patience, perspective, and a decent sense of humor... qualities in chronic short supply amongst the Dragonslaying crowd who, unfortunately, seem to be on the right side of most of this. (Here's a quick hint. I love Schroeder but typing, "SUBPOENA THE HARD DRIVES!!!" in all caps like that? Not helping. I wondered for a minute if he was spoofing a NOLA.com comment. Go read his post anyway. He's absolutely right.)

Meanwhile Nagin's boat deflection strategy seems to be paying off for him in the public relations department. Case in point: Amidst all of this, it was revealed this week that the City has been sitting on millions of dollars in HUD funding despite its massive deficit of affordable housing. WWL dispatched its ace reporter Lee Zurik whose report basically nailed Ed Blakely to the wall for offering the amazing explanation that "The contractors were not able to spend (the HUD money)." Ordinarily, a story like this is big news. Ordinarily, it's the sort of thing that makes all the talk shows. Some blogger gives it a nickname. And then we all spend the next three months ripping on it. But this made almost no waves at all. It showed up on WCBF but otherwise got drowned out by all the other nonsense. Can we say it got caught in the wake of one of the Mayor's lifeboats?

Question

How many local Obama supporters agree with the argument that "the executive's appointments don't matter" and yet have signed that Fire Veronica White petition?

Alternatives to calling someone a bitch

Lolis Eric Elie has been after Sanitation Director Veronica White lately.. and much more cleverly so than was VCC Chair Ralph Lupin in a recent infamous episode. Lolis has been stonewalled trying to find out if the city has any plans to institute a recycling program ("Disneylike" or otherwise) any time soon. Today he has taken the liberty of answering Ms White's correspondence for her.. since she hasn't the time to do it herself.

To whom it may concern:

It has come to my attention that many of you have been trying to reach Veronica White, the New Orleans sanitation director, to discuss recycling.

Ms. White is busy. She is too busy to come to the phone and tell you how busy she is. She is too busy to even think about calling you back. So stop calling her.

Read the rest