Overboarded

Meet your new "Infrastructure Advisory Board" 

A new seven member board has been appointed to oversee spending of an influx of cash to the Sewerage & Water Board, the result of a deal cut with the state and hospitality industry during this year's legislative session, city officials announced Wednesday.

The deal, which involves a $50-million infusion to the S&WB and $26 million a year that will largely come from new taxes on hotels, was a major priority of Mayor LaToya Cantrell. It included an agreement that a board be assembled to oversee how the money is spent.

These are the guys who are supposed to.. um.. oversee (?) how the new but insufficient revenue from the "fair (but not really) share" deal is spent. It's the board that does, um, something with the money before the Sewerage and Water Board does whatever it will do with it. Looks like, write reports every now and then, mostly.  Anyway Neil Abramson is here so that's something.

Here's who else is in this club?

Chairing the Infrastructure Advisory Board will be Woodward Design and Build CEO Paul Flower, who was appointed by Edwards.

Yeah okay so a major contractor. Here is a story about how Flower conquered the engineering challenge of installing a new swimming pool at his Garden District home in 2012.  That's one. Who else?

Casey Tingle is the Governor's emergency preparedness guy so, okay, check. Bill Hammack owns restaurants so, who knows. Lewis Stirling lords over a massive commercial real estate empire and was therefore a S&WB member until his term expired this year.  Looks like the mayor found something else for him to do. Karen Raymond is, I am pretty sure this Karen Raymond  who currently works at Laitram, in which case, lol.  Elisa Speranza is an independent, um, resilience consultant, I guess? That's the best way I can summarize this.

I help purpose-driven organizations succeed so that people, communities, and ecosystems can thrive and prosper. I am passionate about improving the human condition through environmental stewardship and organizational excellence. I am a strategist, advisor, facilitator, writer, teacher, board member and water geek.

I don't really know what any of that means but the other "water geeks" vouch for her ability to do it. So, okay.  But I did want to point out that her bio is very heavy in CH2M experience which probably doesn't raise red flags immediately with everybody but maybe it should.  Neil is, of course, himself.

Anyway, that's your board over the board.  Hope they have fun signing all the checks or whatever.

The robot cops we needed

Have you ever parked without paying the meter? Have you paid but gone over the time by a few minutes?  What was the reason? Maybe you stopped in front of a meter to run and drop something in the mailbox across the street. Maybe you left the car somewhere for a brief moment to pick up a friend. Maybe you were stuck in a meeting a few minutes longer than you expected.   Sometimes, if you are unlucky that day, the attendant will happen by at exactly the wrong moment and you end up with a ticket. But on most days you get away with it.  Does that seem fair to you?  Most of us would probably say so.

After all, the purpose of metered parking is to dis-incentivize the hoarding of a scarce resource. In highly trafficked areas, such as an urban commercial corridor, there are often too many cars and too little space to put them all at once.  In order to keep things moving, we make it expensive for any one vehicle to occupy a space indefinitely. A parking fine is like a library fine in that its primary function is to encourage people to share a scarce resource. If you've parked your car at a meter for a minute or two without paying, or if you've gone over the limit a smidge, you really aren't violating the spirit of the law.  Technically you can still be ticketed.  But it's probably fair that you aren't always ticketed.

Of course some people have a different understanding of what the law is for.  Certain city officials, for example Ramsey Green and Jay Banks here, want to use it to punish bicyclists for violating traffic laws originally written to apply to motor vehicles. It's difficult to know how much of that comes from the ever-expanding quest for new ways of shaking money out of people vs how much of it is just general hostility.

There's less confusion over what motivates  LaToya Cantrell's decision to fiddle with the school zone cameras.  Emails and memos uncovered by the Daily Georges show that the primary motivation was to grab as much revenue from unsuspecting motorists as possible. The hostility came as a bonus reaction from the mayor once people started to notice.  

Digging in her heels despite public uproar, Mayor LaToya Cantrell this week defended her surprise move to reduce the speeds that prompt traffic camera tickets in New Orleans, saying her goal was to increase safety.  In a 30-minute interview with her own staffers posted online late Wednesday, the mayor said that dropping the allowable speed for cameras in school zones and elsewhere was a way to protect children. She didn't address why drivers weren't told about the change beforehand.

That article does an okay job of relaying the mayor's comments. But you really have to watch the video to get the full experience of her bullying belligerent style. The main thrust of her message that day was New Orleanians are a bunch of slackers and she is not going to tolerate that anymore.

Letting people take a laissez-faire approach to following the rules often leads to larger problems, she added.

"We have to shake this image of being 'the Big Easy' where you can do whatever you want to in the city of New Orleans," Cantrell said.

This isn't the first time a mayor has lectured us about our insufficiently submissive attitude toward the rules. Mitch Landrieu once argued that we should close all the bars in town at 3 because our "culture of permissiveness" was what was causing all the murders. Our mayors love to tell us our problems can be traced to some inherent character flaw. It's almost as if there's something in their culture of authority that drives them to this. Whatever it is, LaToya has certainly taken to it well.

If a motorist enters a school zone and happens to slow down to 25 mph instead of 24 before the camera tags them, well "that's illegal!" Cantrell shrieks in the video. "We can't pick and choose" how we handle something like that. "Cyclists will be ticketed!" she says, pounding the table. Discretionary enforcement in order to uphold the spirit of the law while accounting for the human elements that might lead to its technical violation from time to time has no place here.

Which brings us back to the parking meters. This week we learned they are getting "more efficient."

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans is testing out a high-tech system to write parking tickets, without you ever seeing a parking enforcement officer. Placed at two different spots downtown, new meters monitoring parking electronically are currently gathering information the city will study.

"There's always room for improvement on trying to make things more efficient," Deputy Director of Operations Josh Hartley said. "We're looking at the vehicle types that park here, looking at the violations that come in, how long people are actually parking here."

So how does it work? After you park your car, you find your spot number and put your money in the meter. If your time runs out, a sensor in the spot will tell a camera nearby to take a picture of your plate and you could get a ticket.

"There's potential with this technology that if there's a violation activated, this system could automatically generate a ticket," Hartley said. "Versus having staff actually have to come walk to this site and issue a paper ticket you'd normally see on a windshield."

The meters are expected to make enforcement easier by adding extra lenses, instead of eyes, to the street.

"We are wanting to make things more efficient," he said. "This does not eliminate jobs, what it actually does is it would allow us to utilize our resources better in other parts of the city that we normally are not monitoring."

Well at least it does not eliminate jobs. We like that.



It's this "holding people accountable for their parking" bit that is concerning.  For all of the reasons stated above, it seems to us we're already doing that well enough without adding robots. But, hey, it's a free trial offer so...  

And if all goes well, installation around town could be put into drive, holding people accountable for their parking. The trial is free for the city, it's unclear how much the system would cost if implemented. It's already being used in other cities in the United States.  If the city of New Orleans moves forward with the meters, it's expected they'll first be put into the busy parts of downtown and then into other areas.

Speaking of which, how did the free trial come about? According to a press release this week, the vendor is something called Municipal Parking Services Inc.  The product is called a "Sentry SafetyStick" As the WWLTV article says, it is being used in other cities.  Here is a story from Bridgeport, CT where they were removed last year because people were already tired of being "threatened" by them.

As previously reported, a year after installing the high-tech meters, Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration has cried “uncle” in response to complaints the equipment was too aggressive and hard to operate, poorly publicized, and hurting the local economy.

The meters will be replaced with a different model that offers the same conveniences — like accepting credit cards — without the cameras that caught violations and helped to issue tickets-by-mail.

Ricci and Nkwo on Thursday offered members of the council’s contracts committee additional details about the overhaul.

Ricci said the existing meters, built and installed by Municipal Parking Services out of Minnesota, will be replaced with less “threatening” ones supplied by IPS Group of California and already in use in other municipalities.

As usual, though, New Orleans is jumping on board with a scheme that's already failed elsewhere and calling it a "best practice."  Where do they get these ideas?  Well here is one possibility. About a month ago the mayor attended the US Conference of Mayors get together in Hawaii. There was some grousing on talk radio about that but mayors go to these things all the time.  Mitch was actually the President of the USCM for a time.

Basically, it's a trade show.  The mayors get together and congratulate one another on the fantastic and visionary jobs they are all doing. And, of course, there is ample opportunity for them to receive further flattery from potential "corporate partners" who are there to sell them things. Sponsors and presenters at this year's conference include Verizon, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, AT&T, Interise, Google, Facebook, and our very favorite friend of urban policymakers everywhere, Airbnb. I didn't find Municipal Parking Solutions on the agenda, but it's a fair bet they had a rep or two in the room at one or another discussion on "Smart Cities" or "Intelligent Transit Solutions" and whatnot.

Not that this mayor needs much convincing that her citizens and their "Big Easy" attitudes need to be watched more carefully.  But it's nice to know the market may have provided just the robot cop product she needed.

Try to make me go to prehab

A day in the life of Terron Armstead. We begin in the morning with a story about how Terron is rested and ready.  Nothing broken. No sauce necessary.

With a full offseason under his belt, Armstead has put the injury behind him and is happy to be healthy as training camp kicks off.

“I feel good,” Armstead said on the first day of training camp. “Great to be out there with the guys. Every offseason I’m just learning more about prehabilitation and injury prevention, but there’s no secret sauce.”

Armstead is about three fifths of a great player.  When he's playing, he's an elite athlete; quick, agile, straight up fast, even. He'd be an ideal left tackle if he ever lasted a whole season at close to full strength. He's never played a full schedule, though, so it's expected that he's going to miss time. The Saints need to plan for that every season.  But this roster looks especially thin along the offensive line so it would help matters greatly if Terron were able to make it the whole way through. So it's good to see he's learning... "prehabilitation".. whatever that is.

Anyway, he probably needs to learn faster because here we are later in the very same day.

ARMSTEAD SCARE

The Saints had a scare late in practice when starting left tackle Terron Armstead limped off to the side with an apparent injury during an 11-on-11 drill. He went to the ground after getting behind the line of players and trainers immediately surrounded him as he lay on the ground. After a few minutes, Armstead eventually got up without assistance and appeared to walk without a noticeable limp. He eventually returned to the main group.

Nobody could have prehabbed for that.  

Concrete plans

Huh, well, it's at the bottom of Tyler Bridges's article but I think this is a good place to start with this story.

The terminal was supposed to open in May 2018, in time for Landrieu to inaugurate it just before he left office. The cost initially was $650 million.

Airport officials announced the latest delay in April, pushing back the latest planned opening from May to the fall. It was the fourth announced delay. The terminal and new roadways are projected to cost $1.3 billion. Airline passengers and state and federal funds are paying most of the tab.

Landrieu and the Aviation Board went forward with the new terminal without concrete plans on how people would get there from New Orleans.

Yeah see the airport is still not open. But I don't think the problem with the roadways, or the airport itself, is lack of concrete.  In fact, it might be they're trying to pour too much of it. In a big swamp. Which is an engineering challenge even when you aren't cutting corners to get the thing up and running in time for a photo op. This isn't to say that's what's wrong here. Or at least, it doesn't have to be the only thing wrong.  But when you get stuff like this happening, you have to wonder a little bit.

Spann said rapid sinking of the soil caused a massive sewage main to shift a year ago, leaving it inoperable. That added more than $7 million to the cost of the project, admittedly, a small fraction of the total building cost, but it was the reason officials pushed back the grand opening to last February. It was later delayed again to May and now, to an unspecified date this fall.

In June, the airport released a promotional video on its website highlighting the work that was being done to get the project across the finish line.

“It's really a lot of the finishes, testing. Getting a lot of the systems testing. Getting the fire alarm to go through,” said the project’s Construction Manager Charlie Prewitt in the video. But the promotion didn’t mention the continued problems with the plumbing. The smaller, lateral pipes that connect the toilets, for example, to the newly-repaired sewage main had broken in at least a hundred places.

To try and find the root of the problem, multiple sources working on the construction at the airport said large, exploratory holes have been carved into the concrete foundation of the new terminal building so that crews can access the sewage pipes. The main contractor, a powerhouse joint venture of four large companies, Hunt-Gibbs-Boh-Metro, ran video inspections through the sewage laterals to try and find all of the breaks.

“It's more of an annoyance than it is a serious situation,” Spann said.

They're not saying at the moment that the "annoyance" will cause any new delays.  But then, since there's no opening date set at the moment, how would we even know?

Keeping the housing crisis bad by any mean necessary

Imagine caring this much about keeping the poors out of your neighborhood.

Members of the Touro Bouligny Neighborhood Association have filed a lawsuit challenging the proposed swap of McDonogh 7. If that effort fails, they want to be involved in decisions about the housing development's design, they said Tuesday. 

"We want the building to remain a school, but if litigation proves unsuccessful, we are focused on preventing the over 100-year-old building from being demolished, as well as keeping the density of any potential development in scale with the neighborhood," said Rella Zapletal, the association's president.

We're going to hear a lot over the next couple of weeks about things the city is and is not doing about housing. When the mayor and councilmembers say things about this, remember there is a well established constituency out there who are pressuring them not to do anything at all about it.

NORF

I remember noticing this thing gearing up some months ago around the time the Trump Administration was rolling out its new Opportunity Zone rules.

New Orleans Redevelopment Fund has launched its latest real estate investment initiative designed to provide tax benefits to investors with capital gains while helping fight blight in the area. The NORF 3 Opportunity Zone Fund wants to raise $30 million, a news release said. It would be the largest fund to date for NORF, a private real estate developer founded in 2013 that specializes in the adaptive re-use of historic buildings and urban infill.

The Opportunity Zone program provides tax incentives for investors to re-invest capital gains into funds that promote development in economically distressed areas of the United States. The program offers deferral of the original capital gains tax until 2026 if gains are invested within 180 days of sale; reduction of 15 percent for the original capital gains tax if gains reinvested in an Opportunity Fund are held for seven years; and permanent exclusion of capital gains for gains accrued after investing in an Opportunity Fund if the investment is held for 10 years.

Key details of the NORF fund include sponsor commitment of 15 percent of the fund up to $4.5 million. Investors must be accredited and must have capital gains in need of deferral. NORF has identified properties in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Houston and San Antonio, Texas and is eyeing other areas of the Gulf South, the news release said. The sites will be mostly multi-family, mixed-use commercial and hotel/hospitality.

All I can find today is that short description from City Business in March which appears to be sourced to a press release. But I also remember there being a more glowing profile of the firm itself, probably in the Advocate, but I can't find exactly the article I'm thinking of now.  I think they're still having trouble with archives and link rot at the Daily Georges.

I noticed them again in May when it was becoming clearer that the Trump rules were likely to be conducive to parked money and/or land flipping schemes. The rush to figure out an angle was described by investors as being "like the Wild West." This NORF group continued to show up in several articles as a prime angler.  Already they specialized in converting government tax incentives into real estate profits. So this was really just the next evolution of that business.

The initiative by The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund aims to take advantage of opportunities created by last year's federal tax cuts as well as the Historic Tax Credits program, and represents a big leap for the local developers, who currently have a portfolio of about $40 million in properties. The new investment round is targeting $30 million in equity from existing and new investors, as well as $70 million in debt financing.

The group has plans for two commercial developments in New Orleans, said Cullan Maumus, director of development. One will be a conversion of a warehouse in the Tulane/Gravier area into retail space catering to the medical district. The second development, which the group expects to finalize in the second quarter of the year, would be a hospitality development in the Central Business District.

Most of the group's 37 projects to date have been residential, though it has had some larger conversions including a warehouse at 2740 St. Louis along the Lafitte Greenway, where the firm is relocating its main office from Tulane Avenue.

Among those 37 residential projects was this Mid-City condo development sold to the public as "affordable housing for teachers and nurses" garnering much well-deserved ridicule this spring. I can't confirm this is the same building they "evicted dozens of tenants" from, but it seems to fit.

Anyway, all of this is just background. Today we learn that the "hospitality development" referenced above is the Warwick Hotel on Duncan Plaza.

The former Warwick Hotel, a derelict building that faces City Hall across Duncan Plaza, is set for a $60 million makeover, the latest in a series of recent moves by real estate firms to redevelop properties on once-neglected blocks of the Central Business District.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Fund, a private investment group focused on property rehabilitation, purchased the 130,000-square-foot building in June for $8 million.

We learn also that,as expected, the project is funded the old fashioned way. On the backs of great big taxpayer subsidies geared especially toward helping rich people make more money. 

The Warwick building is eligible for historic tax credits, as well as the "opportunity zone" tax breaks that were part of 2017 tax package passed by the Trump Administration. These and other public incentives have been key to attracting developers for many of the properties in the CBD, Ragas said.

Indeed, NORF began a new fund in March to attract investors looking to take advantage of the opportunity zone tax breaks, which allow investors to put off and potentially sharply cut their capital gains taxes if they invest in designated areas.

Meanwhile, there is a major housing crisis in the City of New Orleans. You might have heard about it.  Errol Williams says there's not much our tax policy can do about that.

Errol Williams, Orleans Parish Assessor, attended the meeting to help clarify any concerns. Many people came to the front to ask questions.

“We applied the formulas equitably among everybody,” Williams said. Williams said if someone has an assessment increase that they feel is wrong, to bring it to his office. When asked about Smith's large assessment estimate, for example, though, Williams said he didn’t think the value increase was extreme.

“In the past four years there's been substantial increase in values in perspective neighborhoods.”

Williams said while people fear they are being pushed out of their homes this way, gentrification is “happening all over the country.”

“Gentrification is happening not just in New Orleans but all over the country and what you're seeing is people are buying in neighborhoods, renovating their properties and selling it for substantial more. So we can't ignore that. I can't treat them separately,” Williams said. Williams called said it is “a tough situation.” He also said it’s important for property owners to bring their issues to the Assessor's attention.

Not much tax relief for homeowners or the people they rent to who will surely see their costs go up as well.  Not unless they all go out and start their own investment funds first.

The police reform racket

Matthew Nesvet spent a year in New Orleans working as an auditor with the consulting team monitoring the NOPD consent decree.  He shares his experiences and observations in this article.

I watched as police officials and the third-party contractors overseeing court-ordered changes worked together to obstruct real change. I observed how selective metrics, scapegoating low-level officers to deflect blame from high-ranking officials, suppressing unfavorable audit reports, coaching officers scheduled to undergo third-party audits, and ignoring obvious conflicts of interest and wrongdoing by officials allowed misconduct to remain unchecked.

Thanks to Kamala Harris, there's been a lot of discussion this week about neoliberal policies that create vast complicated systems for addressing or working on serious problems but not actually fixing them. The surest path to success in politics, and in most things, really, is to make sure your career agenda aligns with that of existing institutional power.  This is how we end up with so much "reform" that doesn't actually change anything. We address the housing crisis by "incentivizing" luxury development. We combat climate change by trading carbon credits. We provide "access to" health care through a Rube Goldberg nightmare of shifting plans, premiums, and subsidies all meant to protect the profits of insurers above all else.

As it turns out, criminal justice reform is no different.  Why should it be?  According to Nesvet, in fact, it is big business. 

Police consent decrees are overseen by court-appointed criminal justice experts, including former police chiefs, private attorneys, and academics. These experts audit compliance with reform agreements and advise police on how to make changes. Consent decree monitoring is big business. Teams of expert monitors, often based outside the cities where they oversee police, bid for what can be multimillion-dollar contracts. In New Orleans, where the cost of the consent decree is approximately $55 million and rising, a joint committee of city and federal officials chose a monitoring team led by Jonathan Aronie, a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the corporate law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. 

These monitoring teams work with officials like former New Orleans police commissioner Murphy and his boss Harrison to develop metrics that assess the department’s progress. But as Murphy liked to say, quoting a member of the Sheppard Mullin team, “you manage what you measure.” In New Orleans, Murphy and Harrison teamed up with compliance auditors and the Sheppard Mullin experts to focus on quantitative metrics. The compliance “scorecards” Murphy created report the percentage of police districts and units fulfilling audit standards constructed from the terms of the decree.

But the design of many of the metrics allowed police to check boxes rather than demonstrate real improvement.

In other words, the name of the game here is grade inflation.  Kind of reminds you of another "reform" racket in the news lately. 

The non-serious "serious" candidate

My theory as to why Kamala is dropping all of these obviously bad policy proposals this week is that she's not actually serious about them.  You could say this for any candidate's "plans," really.   Electing a person President doesn't automatically enact that person's campaign platform into law.  Most people understand this. (Ok, maybe not every people.. ahem.. Warren voters.. but most people.) 

What the policy pages on a candidate's website are supposed to do, however, is communicate something about the campaign's values.  Sure, some of it can actually be earnest thoughts on the governing agenda. But that's a secondary purpose at best. These are campaign websites. Everything that appears on them should be considered a campaign ad.  The policy sesctions say, "Here are the things this campaign believes in."  Or, at least, these are the things we would like to be perceived as believing in at the moment.  Of course all of that demands further interpretation and context but that's not important right now. Suffice to say these proposals are political messages that may or may not have anything to do with actual policy down the road.

It's quite possible Kamala Harris really is okay with these untennable, unhelpful, plans to not really forgive anyone's student loans and boost the privatized section of Medicare.  But the only reason to publicize these bad ideas during a campaign is to show right wing voters and/or Democrats who believe the only way to win an election is by making right wing voters happy that you are someone they should take seriously. 

Right now those people take Joe Biden seriously.  Harris's strategy is to be the next choice once Joe Biden drops out, which is still what most people expect to happen even if they arent' saying it out loud.

Guess Ryan Pace wins this round

So long Cameron Meredith. We really truly hardly knew you.

The Saints won't save much cash or salary-cap space by releasing Meredith, who had already agreed to a pay cut of $2.1 million to stay with the team in March. He was due to receive $1.3 million in base salary, with $500,000 fully guaranteed.

Meredith, 26, originally signed a two-year, $9.5 million deal with the Saints as a restricted free agent in 2018, and the Bears decided not to match their offer.

The Bears' decision raised eyebrows at the time, since Meredith had 66 catches for 888 yards and four touchdowns with Chicago in 2016. But Bears general manager Ryan Pace explained that the input from Chicago's medical and training staff led to the team's decision after Meredith tore his ACL and other ligaments during the 2017 preseason.

Unfortunately for both Meredith and the Saints, the Bears' outlook proved to be prescient.

The Saints have only one guy on the roster people think of as a top-line NFL receiver and he's (quite rightly) holding out right now. It's okay, though, because the reporters are all tweeting that this one undrafted rookie looks good to them.  That only happens every year so you know it's solid.

What ever happened to that new City Hall idea?

It's been a while since we've heard anything there. I think the last thing I remember was they were looking at the Municipal Auditorium and even there was some noise about the abandoned Naval Support building. That was last November. The most significant update since then is it looks like the Charity Hospital redevelopment is finally off the board.  Anyway, it sounds like it's time for an update even if this is an awkward moment budgetwise.

It's not too awkward for NOPD, though. They're eager to break ground on a new HQ.

The New Orleans Police Department is asking city leaders to budget $37 million to replace the department’s headquarters, authorities said Wednesday morning.

“We know we need a new building, and we need it fast,” said NOPD Deputy Superintendent Christopher Goodly in a budget meeting with city planning officials. “It’s basically time to consider looking at a new headquarters instead of spending the resources to repair a dilapidated building.”


Goodly said the aging building has developed numerous issues. Officers and staff regularly complain about the air quality in the building, and the elevators frequently need repair. The adjacent parking garage is also developing structural issues, he said.

As security standards have increased, the department has struggled to retrofit the building to meet prevent unauthorized entry, Goodly said. One security breach recently led to an intruder being subdued with a Taser, Goodly said.

“It’s not designed to handle all the post-9/11, post-Katrina safety mandates that we have,” Goodly said.

It says they think they would also need a new site,  "in the same general area of Mid-City with the other criminal-justice buildings such as the jail and the courthouse." So if you have any leads on hot real estate in the area speak up. Hopefully nothing too radioactive, though.

Little Jazzland

A few months ago, the mayor kind of sort of talked about the possibility of demolishing the Six Flags site in East New Orleans. She said she was "running numbers" on it anyway.  Since then, the numbers may or may not have run back we don't have any info on that. What we do know is there was  a consultant's report that recommends we build a "resiliency" theme park there.

The assessment referenced by the mayor's office was commissioned by the New Orleans Business Alliance for the city and released in June. It envisions turning the site into a destination for learning about climate change, resiliency and water issues, and for family-friendly activities such as excursions to the nearby Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge or zip line courses. The analysis also points out the looming threat of coastal land loss that the region faces from the encroaching waters of the Gulf.

Zip line courses!  Look, I know that's no monorail but surely it has to be the next best thing. Good luck figuring out how to develop it, though. We only have the whole fourteen year history of stops, starts, and Scurlocks to show you how much fun that can be.

But enough about the old Jazzland. Say hello to the new.. Jazzland. 

The Cleveland company that recently scooped up two key jazz landmarks in the 400 block of South Rampart Street, a cradle of New Orleans’ most distinctive art form, has acquired a third: The Little Gem Saloon.

The GBX Group now owns the nearby Iroqouis Theater and the Karnofsky tailor shop – both of them important locations in Louis Armstrong’s young life, plus much of the rest of the block bounded by Loyola Avenue and Poydras, South Rampart and Perdido streets.

I'm so old I remember when the Jazz landmarks were going to be redeveloped by Opryland.  Whatever happened to that? It was going to be part of the downtown Disney experience.  Maybe GBX can give us something similar to that. Oh look Drew Brees is an investor.  He really knows how to pick a diamond in the rough so that's encouraging. 

Sparacia has said the hope of the investors – who include New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees – is to rebuild and restore the block in a way that reflects its unique history. For instance, the jazz landmarks could be opened as venues that feature jazz and other music, along the lines of the Little Gem, which was restored and reopened by the Bazan family beginning in 2012.

Sparacia has said GBX will probably also do some “infill” construction along the block, much of which is now occupied by surface parking lots. He said whatever is built will be in sync with the style and scale of the landmarks.

"Infill" construction "in the style of" the landmarks. Sounds like they really are going to build some DisneyNOLA type stuff.  I don't know if that's necessary but anything is better than empty parking lots.  Did they consider connecting the buildings with a zip line, though?

Not even supposed to be here today

Pretty sure Drew Brees wanted to go out on top and call it quits last year. And the only reason he's back now is because the Saints came soooo close to getting him there.  But then that thing happened and nobody wants to leave it at that so here we are.  It might work out really badly this season.  We could be in for a months long exercise in frustration this year. The Saints offense could easily take several steps backwards if the line never stabilizes, or they can't adequately replace Mark Ingram, or they keep going through life with only one receiver on the roster. It could get ugly. But after what happened it's hard to blame Drew for showing back up. Even if he's not really supposed to.

This whole court is out of order

Or so says this lawsuit.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A civil rights organization has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the maps used to elect Louisiana's seven state Supreme Court justices as discriminatory against African American voters.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Baton Rouge, seeks a declaration that the districts violate the federal Voting Rights Act. It also seeks an order that the district boundaries be re-drawn.

The Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and two black voters.

The Louisiana Supreme Court says it doesn't comment on pending litigation. A statement from the Secretary of State's office, which oversees elections, said the office had not yet been served with the lawsuit "but will thoroughly and vigorously review any litigation at the appropriate time."

Just a couple of notes here. The Secretary of State is up for reelection himself this year which could affect any decisions made with regard to this lawsuit.

Also one of these state Supreme Court seats under dispute is now open thanks to the departure of Greg Guidry who was recently appointed to a seat the Eastern District of Louisiana Federal Court. The "heavily Republican district," according to this article, has drawn at least three candidates that I can count so far.  That article names Jefferson Parish judge Scott Schlegel as well as Covington attorney Richard Ducote. According to this, State Appellate Judge Will Crain has also announced he is running.

Don't know how the lawsuit affects these elections this year yet. But it's something to keep an eye on.

Someone is keeping your prize from you

The core of Rispone's message here is this. There is a "boom" happening. You might not feel it where you are but it is happening. And someone is keeping it from you.

While Edwards is trying to bring former Gov. Bobby Jindal to the forefront of the governor's race, the Republicans – especially Rispone – are trumpeting Trump. The Republican Governors Association went on TV shortly after Edwards with an ad claiming Louisiana is being left behind from a Trump-fueled economic boom.

Trump is trying to give you things but John Bel is performing some secret conspiracy to give it to somebody else.  You might not actually see those people very often but they are there. And they have what's yours.

Rispone's ad also represents the latest diatribe from the Rispone campaign on immigration, which has traditionally not been a campaign issue in a state where only 4% of residents are foreign born, and even fewer are unauthorized. Last week, Rispone's campaign put out a newspaper ad that said if elected, "Louisiana will stand with President Trump" to "build the wall," and called New Orleans a "sanctuary city." The ad also said he would not "put up with ANTIFA lawlessness," referring to the left-wing activists, or "tolerate replacing the American flag at government buildings with Mexican ones," an apparent reference to an Aurora, Colorado immigration detention facility. 

In the TV ad, Rispone says, "as governor, I will work with President Trump to protect our constitutional rights, to ban sanctuary cities, and end taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants in Louisiana."

Pretty ugly stuff.  Meanwhile John Bel's message is, "Hey let's give $3 million plus a ton of tax breaks to Methanex!"  Can't imagine that might backfire....

Transdev isn't in charge anymore so here are some Transdev people to be in charge of things

Reshuffling at RTA under the new "hybrid" management system.

But under a new contract that will be inked by Sept. 1, Transdev will handle maintenance and operations of the agency’s buses, ferries and streetcars, but not the agency’s administrative and leadership functions. That will fall to Wiggins and former interim Executive Director Jared Munster, now the agency’s chief administrative officer.

Also part of the cabinet is Mark Major, a veteran transit official who will serve as the RTA’s chief financial officer, the role most recently held by Ronald Baptiste of Transdev. Major was a finalist for Wiggins’ job and a former chief investment officer for Transdev. Baptiste, another transit veteran, will move into a separate role on Transdev’s smaller New Orleans team, which will be led by Darryll Simpson.

Wiggins also aims to hire a chief operating officer in the coming weeks.

Good to see Major landed on his feet.  As for the rest of the new management scheme, I've never seen the point of a slightly less privatized structure if the operation is still by and large privatized.

Wiggins says he hopes to expand service but isn't ready to talk about how just yet. There's
"low hanging fruit," he says but looks like he's still asking where.

“Being new to the organization, I know that there is some low-hanging fruit, and we will talk about things we will address in very short order,” Wiggins said to the RTA’s board.

“How do we provide better services to the New Orleans East? To Algiers? How do we really put the ‘R’ back in regionalization when it comes to the RTA?”

This month, RTA has been paying a consultant to run a series of meetings designed to provide the appearance of public input.  I'd ask what they hope to learn if I thought they really wanted to learn anything.  We need more routes, greater frequency, and later hours with fares as close to zero as possible. How hard is that to figure out?

Anyway, a couple of the meetings got postponed by Barry but there are a few still planned for this week.  Here is the schedule in case you feel like shouting into the void.

It's a big business

Despite what its lobbyists have claimed over the course of interminable public meetings and ad campaigns, the short term rental industry in New Orleans were always going to become a big commercial enterprise very quickly.  A market analysis site called AirDNA finds 8,585 active STRs in New Orleans. 87% of those are whole home rentals. Nobody actually lives here.

Sometimes the dirt just has a lot of radiation in it

There still isn't a definitive explanation for how the radioactive whatever got under the street. Wilma Subra's explanation sounds pretty solid, though.

Another possibility, according to Wilma Subra, a chemist and lead technical adviser for the advocacy group Louisiana Environmental Action Network, is that road fill may have contained some source of radioactivity.

“That entire area, including the university, is a (former) low-lying swampy area,” said Subra, referring to Xavier, which is just a few blocks from the site of the radiation. “That whole area is nothing but fill. That could have been a load someone brought in there and dumped in that spot."

Another theory is that someone lost a "tool" near the site with has leaked radiation since.  So maybe Thor's hammer is buried around there somewhere.

Another point to gather from this is that the radioactive hot spot is not actually on the site of the Thompson-Hayward plant but a few blocks away. It's still possible the two are related, or at least it's possible that the radiation is related to the industrial activity and/or subsequent remediation of hazardous materials in the area.  But it may be a separate matter altogether. 

Either way, a lot of people got cancer.

In testimony from a class-action lawsuit filed in 1989 against corporations that owned the plant over the years, residents said the vats overflowed and produced noxious-smelling fumes and dust. 

The suit was settled in 1996 for $51.6 million, with the money distributed among 3,800 residents and their lawyers. The money was divided based on how close a plaintiff lived to the plant and how sick they were. Cancer patients got the most money. Liver and kidney disease came next. People with afflictions like allergies and immune system issues were awarded the least.

Dorothy Travis was part of that lawsuit, as was her neighbor, Patricia Lassair, 55, who was born and raised on Lowerline Street. Lassair’s brother developed leukemia. A neighbor who she said is like a sister to her had four miscarriages. “Almost everyone around here died of cancer,” said Travis, looking out at her neighborhood from her front porch.

Summer reading

It is time to catch up on this project where we try to do a better job of keeping track of what we've been reading in case anyone is interested in some recommendations.  Anyway here's what we've got this month.

• The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation by Brenda Wineapple (2019)
  
  Following upon President Trump's latest episode of being a horrifying racist grandma, U.S. Rep Al Green (D-Texas) filed articles of impeachment this week. 137 Democrats voted it down. Throughout the course of the administration there has been no shortage of possible causes for impeachment but Democratic party leadership continues to #resist the impulse. First, they wanted to wait for Robert Mueller to finish whatever he was up to.  Then they got bogged down in arguments over who they could or could not compel to testify.  At one point we were told they were waiting for the President to impeach himself.  This week Pelosi says they're waiting on.. some facts or something.
  

  We have six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of power, obstruction of justice and the rest that the president may have engaged in.

  But there's no need for any of that. You really can just impeach the President whenever you are ready. Pick a thing, draw up the articles, and go with it.  Al Green just showed you how.  What Pelosi et al are really trying to do here is run out the clock.  Already there is talk of just waiting for the 2020 election to take care of the problem.  And, since we're getting set for the second round of Democratic Primary debates next week, it might feel as though we're already there.  But there is plenty time left. While it only manifests as a hint in the mind of the reader, Brenda Wineapple's study of the Johnson impeachment is clearly conscious of its relevance to our present day politics. Not every circumstance is analogous but there are comparisons we are invited to consider.
  
  Impeachment happened very late in Johnson's term. Congressional radicals brought articles against Johnson in late February of 1868, several months later than where we currently are in our election cycle. Of course, ours is a much different (and longer) process from what was in practice at the time but even then its implications were beginning to loom.  In any case the Radicals weren't expecting an election to solve this problem for them.
  
  The specific offense named in the impeachment wasn't all that important. Most of the articles centered on a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. It had been passed only a year prior specifically to prevent Johnson from firing cabinet members. Nobody liked the law. It was probably unconstitutional and was repealed within a decade. Its only real purpose was to serve as a line in the sand for Johnson to cross.  In other words it was a technicality, a manufactured technicality, even.  They found a thing and ran with it. But the House's constitutional power of impeachment is much broader than that. And the actual reasons for bringing the impeachment were deeper and more serious.
  
  Johnson, both through policy and rhetoric, was undermining congressional reconstruction and restoring the antebellum status quo in the south. He pardoned scores of ex-Confederate leaders. He countermanded the military reconstruction acts and set overly generous terms for readmission of states to the union in defiance of congressional policy. He was deliberately negligent and permissive of  white supremacist violence. The New Orleans massacre of 1866 that broke out at the Louisiana Constitutional Convention plays a pivotal role in Wineapple's account of Johnson's failures. Special attention is given also to Johnson's "Swing Around The Circle" whistle-stop tour of increasingly unhinged, resentful, off-the-cuff speeches. The reader is obviously intended to pick up on its current resonance as well.
  
  Is impeachment a legal matter? Is it political? Is it a mechanism to punish a President just for being an asshole? In Federalist 65, Hamilton suggests the answer is yes.
  

  The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

  The scope of the matter is broad and the House's power to bring it to bear comes with a great deal of discretion. And this is not the first time it will have grappled with that.



• Revolutionaries by Joshua Furst (2019)
  
  This is a fictionalized version of the life and times of a fictionalized version of Abbie Hoffman. The story is told to us through the point of view of his neglected and disillusioned son.  So this is really a story about the disintegration and failure of the radical movements of the 1960s. Several real life celebrities of the era appear; Bobby Seale, Allen Ginsberg, and most important to the story, Phil Ochs, whose self-destruction Furst suggests is the result of a fatal lack of cynicism. Furst's narrator explains a bit in this passage. 
  

  The problem with causes, though, is that they derive their meaning from what they achieve. The foot soldiers, those people whose aggregate passion fuels the change, might find satisfaction -- or regret -- after the fact in the roles they played affecting this change, but they'd be wise to beware building their identities around the communal spirit in which the cause thrives. They might find themselves trapped, alone, in a movement that's vanished, wondering where everyone else has gone. Some people recognize this danger from the start. They ride the spirit of the age for all it's worth, taking what they can for their own gain.  And by the time everybody else realizes it's over, they're already done and gone.

  Inevitably everything breaks down. Solidarity gives way to isolation and suspicion as splintered interests prefer to seek power rather than equality.  Ultimately power can only be gained through selfishness. And only the selfish survive.
  
  It's a fatalistic view of things, to be sure. But, like The Impeachers, it's a book to consider as echoes of the era it describes manifest in our present politics. I'm not entirely sure Furst understands this, however.  In the acknowledgements, he says of Hoffman, “We need your spirit in the world more than ever.”  Do we?  Everything in this book suggests perhaps not.



• Road Tripped by Pete Hautman (2019)
  
  In this YA novel, a high school senior in Minnesota has difficulty coping after his father's suicide. So he steals his mom's credit card and takes off in his dad's old Mustang down the Great River Road.  Along the way he interacts with strippers in diners, hitchhiking drifters, a couple of meth heads who make him buy Sudafed for them, and some rail kids "taking a gap year" from art school. So it's not exactly a glamorous experience. The structure here is your basic brooding-kid-learns-to-be-more-human type plot. But Hautman makes some choices that keep that from feeling rote and his main character is a compelling and witty narrator. So it all works quite well. The book is recommended for ages 12 and up which sounds right to me although some of the situations and topics (sexual assault, abortion, the aforementioned suicide, among others) might be on the heavy side for some.



• Halal If You Hear Me: The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 3 Edited by Fatimah Asghar and Safia Elhillo Contributors... too many to name. (2019)
  
  The BreakBeat Poets is a Haymarket series that describes itself as an, "anthology and publishing series exploring the innovation of hip-hop generation(s) poets."  Volume 3 in the series, Halal If You Hear Me,  explores notions of Muslim identity. Elhillo writes in her foreword about growing up shy and isolated from any sense of what her own identity, let alone community might actually be like. For her, this collection could provide a remedy for that.
  
  "The poems and essays in this anthology are the Muslim community I didn't know I was allowed to dream of. The Muslim community in which my child-self could have blossomed - proof of the fact that there are as many ways to be Muslim as there are Muslims. That my way was one of those ways, was a way of being Muslim that did count."

And that's where we are at the moment.  Next month's summary could be considerably shorter. This just arrived the other day and I might want to take a little more time with it. 

The #LAGOV road show

There will be three gubernatorial debates this year.

September 19 in Baton Rouge, September 26 in Lafayette, and October 9 in Shreveport.

None of them will be held in New Orleans.  What's wrong? Does Eddie Rispone not want to come here for some reason?

Piece of the pie

Here's a hint at what they're giving away to the nostalgia company so it can make fried beef tallow and sugar mounds again.

To secure the project, the state of Louisiana offered Hubig’s a competitive incentive package that includes the comprehensive workforce solutions of LED FastStart– the nation’s No. 1 state workforce development program. Hubig’s also will participate in LED’s Small Business Loan and Guaranty Program, and is expected to utilize the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption and Enterprise Zone programs.

“Hubig’s has been a staple in greater New Orleans for generations,” Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni said. “The Parish Council and administration stand at the ready to support the Hubig’s team as they continue to make strides toward their relaunch.”

“JEDCO is pleased to play a role in bringing this iconic regional brand back into commerce,”said Jerry Bologna, the president and CEO of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission. “Through financing opportunities, we are doing our part to help Hubig’s commence production as soon as possible. This project will further advance the vibrant food manufacturing industry in Jefferson Parish, which is an area of focus for JEDCO.”

Congratulations to all those about to be fattened. 

Is that a lot?

I don't know, really. But it sounds like a lot.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - Gert Town residents faced exposure to high levels of radiation due to material lying underneath their street, according to an EPA memo uncovered by FOX 8.

The memo, dated May 17, 2019 -- just 11 days before crews dug up radioactive material from beneath a Gert Town road and placed it into bins. In it, the federal government stated the site on Lowerline Street was a threat to public health, welfare and the environment, and removal would be the appropriate action, due to the actual or potential exposure to humans, animals and the food chain from hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants

.......

The memo also states the Radium-226 exposure rate was several times higher than the EPA acceptable exposure limit, reporting:

“In fact, the annual dose allowable for the general public can be exceeded at levels at the street or adjacent areas in less than one hour per day.”

It says that memo was issued in May but, remember, also, the city was made aware of the problem (by federal security inspectors) at least six years before. How long was the stuff there before then? Nobody knows.

Please define the scope of "our legal system"

In my mind that sounds like it applies to the system of laws and lawmaking and law enforcement and the vast array of institutions and individuals who study, uphold, and practice within that system.  So it's a lot of things and people to "call into question" at once which would make a statement like this sound pretty serious.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris bemoaned the influence of the powerful and connected elite last Tuesday when she called on top Justice Department officials to recuse themselves from any matter related to Jeffrey Epstein. She said their former law firm’s work on behalf of the financier accused of sexual abuse “calls into question the integrity of our legal system.”

Wow. A US Senator and former Attorney General of our largest state says the integrity of the whole dang system is under question now.  Okay. Let's clean house, then. Where do you suggest we begin?

Yet the same day, Harris’ husband headlined a Chicago fundraiser for her presidential campaign that was hosted by six partners of that firm — Kirkland and Ellis, according to an invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

Oh man. How do we even get a grip on the deteriorating integrity of the system when we can't even make it through this one node without hitting a feedback loop? That's got to be a problem right there.

Ian Sams, a Harris spokesman, said there wasn’t a problem with accepting the campaign contributions because the firm is big and the partners who hosted the fundraiser didn’t work on Epstein’s plea agreement.

Okay well. It's a big firm. Systems within systems, I guess.

Free Ray

It's time to let Ray Nagin out of jail.

A federal judge on Monday denied former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s appeal of his conviction and 10-year sentence for corruption charges.

U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo said that none of a litany of complaints Nagin raised about prosecutors and his own defense attorney, in a brief he wrote from a federal prison camp in Texas, justified overturning the first conviction of a New Orleans mayor for public corruption.

The 63-year-old Nagin is due to stay behind bars until May 25, 2023, according to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate database.

Not saying he never should have been prosecuted.  Ray definitely did the petty crimes he's in jail for. But he was always more of patsy than anything else.  I'm sure from his point of view, he did everything right.  Pleased all the important people. Said all the right "let's run government like a business" things. Nagin just wanted to be another successful guy in the politics herd. 

That's why after Katrina, when it mattered the most, Ray did the "safe" thing and let the pro-gentrification crowd have whatever they wanted from him. That's his real crime but it's not the one he's in prison for.  And there are plenty of his erstwhile friends running free now who have done worse and fared better by it than he has.  Either way, the dude has suffered enough.

What are the chances of lightning striking twice?

About the same as getting a 1 in in 100 year flood every year, I guess.

Lightning strikes and other electrical issues took several pumps out of service during the July 10 sudden rainstorm in New Orleans and a pair of canals were pushed near, or over, the brink, Sewerage & Water Board officials said Tuesday.

The problems, however, did not significantly impact the drainage system’s operations or significantly worsen the flooding New Orleans saw as a major thunderstorm struck the city in advance of Hurricane Barry, S&WB Executive Director Ghassan Korban said at a City Council hearing.

Did it make the street flooding caused by an 8.5 inches in three hours freak rain event that seems to happen all the time now any worse than it would have been otherwise?  S&WB swears up and down that it was past the point of mattering but it can't have helped.

Also it's not really an acceptable answer. City officials have come to rely on snarky drainsplaining as a standard response to any questions about the pumps during any flooding event. If people depend on a piece of public infrastructure to function, they're going to ask about it. They deserve a better answer than, "Well #actually..." even during events when the system is actually functioning perfectly which, remind me when the last time that happened was anyway.  It's not that we aren't willing to consider or aren't capable of understanding the complex challenges of water management in New Orleans. It's just that we shouldn't have to wade through a thick soup of condescension and defensiveness from the people in charge before we get to that explanation.

Flood control is one of the better examples of the divide between elitist and populist approaches to politics you will find in New Orleans. Credentialed experts aren't entitled to exclusive purview over public information and decision making. Meanwhile, just because you don't have all the facts about what's happening to you doesn't mean you don't have the right to shout rudely until you get them.  More often than not it's the only tool most of us have.  Looking around during one of these crises at who is shouting vs who is shaming them for it is a pretty good way to figure out which side everyone is really on.

Liz was the Ken Feinberg of Dow Chemical

The reason these claims clearinghouse operations is to limit the financial damages and liability incurred by the offending party. Probably the most familiar case of this for us would be the Gulf Coast Claims Facility set up by Kenneth Feinberg in the wake of the BP disaster of 2010.  For those unfamiliar with how that played out, there are archives here and here and, yeah, here too. 

In this case it's Dow Chemical looking to limit the size of its payout after having put a thousands of people's health at risk.  Liz was there to help them put out the fires.

When Dow Corning faced thousands of lawsuits in the 1990s from women saying they’d become sick from the company’s silicone gel breast implants, its parent firm, Dow Chemical, turned to one of the country’s leading experts in corporate bankruptcies: Professor Elizabeth Warren.

Warren, now a Democratic presidential candidate, has never publicly discussed her role in the case. Her campaign said she was “a consultant to ensure adequate compensation for women who claimed injury” from the implants and that a $2.3 billion fund for the women was started “thanks in part to Elizabeth’s efforts.”

But participants on both sides of the matter say that description mischaracterizes Warren’s work, in which she advised a company intent on limiting payments to the women.

“She was on the wrong side of the table,” said Sybil Goldrich, who co-founded a support group for women with implants and battled the companies for years. Goldrich said Dow Corning and its parent “used every trick in the book” to limit the size of payouts to women. The companies, she added, “were not easy to deal with at all.”

Who is afraid of racist grandma

This is not "3-D chess" or whatever. It is just stuff that racist grandmas say.

Although he did not specify to whom he was referring, the president appeared to be referencing the group of four freshmen women of color known as "the squad," which includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

"So sad to see the Democrats sticking up for people who speak so badly of our Country and who, in addition, hate Israel with a true and unbridled passion. Whenever confronted, they call their adversaries, including Nancy Pelosi, 'RACIST.' Their disgusting language and the many terrible things they say about the United States must not be allowed to go unchallenged. If the Democrat Party wants to continue to condone such disgraceful behavior, then we look even more forward to seeing you at the ballot box in 2020!" Trump wrote in a pair of tweets on Sunday evening.

He literally just watches FOX News and yells racist grandma bullshit back at it.  There's no strategy. It is just rage. Maybe there is something to be said for paying less attention to it... much as one would tune out a racist grandma. But the Grandma Administration is also running baby cage camps so you can't ignore it altogether.

The problem with Democratic leadership is Trump says this stuff and they all think, "Oh no now we will lose the racist grandma vote!" Which is why, instead of filing impeachment articles, they are performatively lecturing their own members for getting yelled at by Grandma in the first place.

No opportunity wasted

The city had an excuse to get out and confiscate some tents and stuff from homeless people and they took it.

But just outside of the New Orleans Mission, there were some homeless residents that weren’t too happy with the city’s approach to encampment sweeps.  “We just got wiped out,” one woman, who lives under the Pontchartrain Expressway overpass, told The Lens. “They took our tent and everything.”

The woman asked to remain anonymous, saying that some of her family didn’t know about her current situation. Her husband, who said he worked as a dishwasher in a nearby restaurant, also asked to remain anonymous because he didn’t want his employer to find out that he is homeless.

As part of its preparations, the city conducted sweeps all along Claiborne and Calliope streets, Babcock said. During the sweeps, city employees removed debris that could be thrown by strong winds while homeless outreach workers spread the word about the extra capacity at the shelters.  But like any encampment sweep, city officials also took “unclaimed” property, including tents. Some of the items confiscated during sweeps are stored by the city until their owners can come get them.

However, at a City Council Quality of Life Committee meeting in March, the city’s Director of Housing Tyra Johnson Brown told city council members that only four people had come to retrieve their belongings over the last five years.  Some large items, such as tents and mattresses, aren’t stored and are simply thrown away, Avegno told The Lens in May.

“I wasn’t even here for it,” the woman who said her property was removed told The Lens. “I was at a meal. All I know is when I came back my home was gone. I lost my tent, my bed, my blankets, everything. Now we got a tropical storm coming.”

 Well, at least we can't say they aren't being "intentional."  We know they like to do that. 

Still, the woman living under the overpass said she made her decision, and wished she still had a tent to provide at least some protection.

“I think it’s cruel and intentional to come out here and steal our tent like that,” she said

"Pretty confident"

When you think about it that's pretty much all you can hope for.

Flood protection officials have said they are confident they can hold back the river at that height, or even a bit higher.

That rise is coming more quickly than expected. The Mississippi is now just below 17 feet -- the height the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uses as the the upper limit it tries to keep the river below -- and rising. It is now expected to briefly crest about 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., about six hours earlier than expected, said Jeff Graschel, a hydrologist with the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center.

"We'll still have the same crest for all locations, it'll maybe just be coming in a little sooner," Graschel said.

"We're pretty confident we're not looking any higher than 19 feet," he added.

Yeah okay fine.  Frankly, it looks like everything is going to be okay in New Orleans. The latest advisory this afternoon has hints that the rainfall totals won't be all that bad here.  Another thing I would add to that is, with tropical storms, the rain tends to come in drips and drabs.  It might rain a lot over the course of the storm. But it doesn't usually dump all at once the way it did Wednesday.  Which is to say, under most circumstances, the rainfall is something the drainage system can handle.

So chill out, everybody.   Looking at you, in particular, City Of New Orleans. Stop lashing out at all the "fake news." It makes you look like you are the one panicking.

Your headline is not factual and there are multiple inaccuracies in this reporting. Follow authorized city accounts for up to date information on #Barry https://t.co/g4KJ0bpSvk

— The City Of New Orleans (@CityOfNOLA) July 12, 2019

 

Today we did a short impromptu pre-storm bar crawl. We can report everything is pretty normal. Folks are milling about in the gentle breeze. The hotels on St. Charles are putting out little sandbags.



Probably won't be necessary but it's something to do, I guess.

Nobody knows nuthin

Barry. It's a thing that exists now.

Tropical Storm Barry's potential impacts are coming into sharper focus as the National Weather Service said Thursday that it now expects total rain accumulations of 10-20 inches over a swath of southeast Louisiana, with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches through the weekend.

The pockets of heaviest rain, the National Weather Service predicts, would occur in areas around Baton Rouge and south to the coast.

That's pretty good news for New Orleans, relatively speaking.  But it's a few days away still so we'll see. 

Already by yesterday we had arrived at the point where everyone asks the mayor if or when she is going to call for evacuations. Sometimes I think they're almost daring her to do it. But, as LaToya pointed out, you're always free to leave at any point if you really want to go. Nobody is going to stop you.

Though she declared a state of emergency, Cantrell said it was too soon to say Wednesday whether the city would call a voluntary or mandatory evacuation ahead of the storm’s arrival.

“We will make those calls once we feel they need to be made,” Cantrell said. “As it relates to residents leaving, people can make up their own mind based on conditions now. That’s something that they can always do.”

Today she added to that saying "We look (for) a Category 3" before calling for evacuations. That sounds informally correct. But also it sounds new in the sense that there is or ever was a hard and fast policy. Often it seems like LaToya is making it up as she goes along.  There are good and bad things about that.

In a sense, there is a "voluntary" evacuation on right now. Really, all evacuations are voluntary. Even a "mandatory" evacuation order doesn't mean police are going door to door and pulling people out of their homes.  They don't have time for that during an emergency. The critical decision from the mayor's point of view is whether or not to kick the city assisted evacuation procedures into action. That involves mobilizing buses and police and volunteers and staging venues and all sorts of stuff. It's not a decision to pull the trigger on unless you think it's definitely going to be necessary.

Meanwhile from an individual's perspective, there are all sorts of factors that go into deciding whether or not to evacuate. If you have a place to go and the means to get there then you might consider it.  But evacuating may be more of a risk for some than staying put.  Not everyone is mobile enough to just up and go at a moment's notice. Not everyone can afford to miss a few days of work. Not everyone's boss or landlord is going to be cooperative. Then there is the fact that evacuating is expensive as hell. Not everyone has money put away for emergencies. And there are other costs to leaving beyond just the money spent on the act. Sometimes after a storm has passed, the city might decide to drag its feet on allowing people to come home. Evacuees might find themselves stuck out on the road longer than they had planned with compounding consequences for their lives when or if they ever get back. So, by all means go if you can or want to. But it's hardly ever the right decision for everybody. "Mandatory" evacuations should be called sparingly if at all.

Also it sucks to be stuck in some shelter hundreds of miles away when you could be at home managing the situation.  Maybe you can mitigate damage by being on hand to patch a broken window or move some of your belongings out of harms way if the water comes up. Or what if it turns out your car wasn't parked in the safest spot?  Maybe you can get it moved before the water gets high enough to damage the engine... even if you don't quite make it in time to keep it out of the cab. Still, at least you can get to work cleaning it up right away. Can't do that from some gym floor in Alabama or whatever.



Anyway we're probably not going to call any sort of evacuation for Orleans Parish. It's not usually something that happens when a yet-to-be-organized storm is still expected to become a category one hurricane at worst.  The main reason it's being taken a little bit more seriously today is because people are freaked out about this river situation.

Storm surge accompanying potential Category 1 Hurricane Barry may cause overtopping Saturday of much of the Mississippi river levee in the Lower 9th Ward, Algiers and St. Bernard Parish, according to Army Corps of Engineers levee data.

The National Weather Service's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell expects the surge will add between 3 and 5 feet to the unusually high river in New Orleans and locations to the south, reaching as high as 20 feet at the Carrollton Gauge in New Orleans.

Basically what's happening is, as the storm surge piles in from the Gulf, the river can't discharge at its mouth as fast as it ordinarily would which causes the water level to rise a bit more in its channel. The predicted spike is only expected to last about a day. And, in most spots, they're saying it won't go above the height at which the levees are designed to hold it.

Maybe.

But a map of levee heights in the New Orleans area that's part of the Corps' National Levee Database shows that the top of large segments of river levees along the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish on the east bank, and some locations in Algiers on the West Bank, were between 18 and 19.99 feet.

Thus, a 20-foot river height could cause overtopping at those locations, something that has never happened in New Orleans' modern history, and only rarely in St. Bernard.

So there is some discussion as to how serious this actually is.  To begin with "overtopping" is not necessarily a disaster unless it becomes serious enough to scour out and undermine the levee itself. At that point, well, look out.  But the Corps says, #actually that list of levee heights may not be the list that counts. 

Late Wednesday, a spokesman for the Corps,  which oversees construction and repair of the river levees,  said officials in its New Orleans District office discounted the data in the agency's database.

"They show the levee elevations for the 9th Ward between 20 and 21 feet," said spokesman Ricky Boyett. "Our modeling does not show overtopping of the levees in the 9th."

According to this they're still worried about overtopping becoming an issue in Violet and in several spots in Plaquemines but the supposedly vulnerable places in New Orleans probably won't be as bad as the maps suggest. There are some confusing reasons for this. But it sounds like the Corps is saying it depends on how you measure water. 

And Boyett said there's a good chance that the way the water in the river is measured, compared to the height of levees, could provide about 8/10 of a foot of additional protection.

The river gauge on which the water levels are measured uses a 1929 datum measurement to determine its height, while the corps uses 1988 datum for levees, resulting in the height difference, he said.

I think what they're saying is that in 1988 they found out the water wasn't as wet as it used to be so it's okay for it to go higher now.   McBride actually explains it here reminding us that the "datums" discrepancy was a key factor in the design flaws that led to the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina.

Literally finding #1 in the Corps' own wide-ranging "IPET" investigation of their own failures which caused the levee failures after Katrina passed New Orleans was that the Corps' use of different bases, or "datums," for measuring heights was a serious contributor to the failures. Doing so allowed shorter structures to be built without anyone realizing it until it was too late. Some levees or floodwalls ended up multiple feet shorter than intended.

So maybe that's not very reassuring.  But this might be. 

Forecasters have lowered by a foot their predictions for how high the Mississippi River will get once Tropical Storm Barry's comes ashore this weekend, giving the New Orleans-area levees a bit more breathing room.

The Mississippi is now expected top out "near" 19 feet above sea level at the Carrollton Gauge in New Orleans on Saturday due to the storm surge from Barry, which is expected to come ashore as a hurricane, according to a National Weather Service alert sent out Thursday morning. Forecasters had previously predicted the river would reach 20 feet during the storm, potentially matching or exceeding the height of the Mississippi River levees.

Of course 20 is still "near" 19. That's good or bad depending on your particular datum orientation. And, of course, the surge forecast can change again or be entirely wrong anyway. At the very least this shows us that even the most precise measurements and models employed by the professionals in charge of managing critical infrastructure still boil down to guesswork.  In other words, nobody knows nuthin.' But we already knew that.

Case in point, here is Alli endeavoring to "untangle the knot" of everything we know and don't know about what caused yesterday's street flooding. It's a lot of things. From the basic philosophy underpinning our water management strategy, to the design and engineering of its components, to the maintenance of the infrastructure, to the politics that chooses what gets emphasized, there are so many unknown knowns.  We would like to think the trick is to at least separate out the bullshit. But how do we even start?

Untangling this knot will take time, but it has to start with everyone telling the truth. After an event like today, the public outcry for SWBNO to fix the pumps will continue. But I think it’s almost more important for them to be clear about what they do know and don’t know about the system that we have, rather than throw more money at repairs in the short term. At least then we can start on a path of actual public information about risk, and what it would take to change our approach to water management. Right now, we aren’t even sure what’s broken, besides “everything.”

What's actually broken? Nobody knows!  So what do we do now? There are all sorts of ideas people have about who they'd like to see benefit and who they'd like to see suffer in the meantime. The politics is going to happen even whether we're ready to say what we know or not.

Is it becoming too dangerous or "unsustainable" to live in South Louisiana? Or are there sincere actions we could take to save what's left before it's too late?  Nobody knows. But oil and gas and shipping still want their infrastructure protected. The tourism cabal still wants to host parties in New Orleans. It's fine with them if everyone else is a "climate refugee"

This, again, is why I don't expect we're ever going to fix these things.  Climate change isn't a "game changing" existential problem politically speaking. Politics is always about who wins and who loses and the interests of concentrated wealth run contrary to the concerns of the "99 percent." Guess who usually wins.  In New Orleans, we might not know precisely what's "broken" about our storm management infrastructure. But we still have to act based on our most honest appraisal of the guesswork we have now, or cede every decision to actors who have none of our interests in mind. Even in full view of this the best we can hope to do is to watch the shitty politicians  muddle on through a slog of concessions and compromises.  Unfortunately muddling through is going to have disastrous consequences for the great majority of people while the rich continue to make themselves richer.  But that's what always happens.

The flood before the storm

There was some rain or something this morning.

Severe thunderstorms were moving through New Orleans early Wednesday morning (July 10), causing street flooding and prompting tornado warnings.

Yeah. Street flooding. A little bit.  Tune in to your local social media station for photos and videos from everybody. That Daily Georges post has collected quite a bit of them.   Here is one I did on the walk back down St. Charles after I moved my car during the height of the thunderstorm. The middle of the street was the only high ground and all the cross streets were flooded I've never seen it flood this much up here.


That's when the water really started rushing in. I've lived on Third Street for twenty years and I've never seen it do this. 



Also, yes, there was trash floating down the street. However, I can speak as an eyewitness to the fact that sanitation was definitely out emptying garbage cans this morning during the very heaviest of the rain, by the way.  So somebody gets their #CityOfYes badge today, anyway.

I just saw Ghassan Korban on TV say that we got about 8 inches over a period of three hours which is a "100 year" rain event.  The last one of those was two years ago. OH BY THE WAY that's not even the actual storm. It's not even expected to form in the Gulf until later today or tomorrow. It could actually become a hurricane by the weekend and the track is bad.  If New Orleans is on the west side of a tropical storm, we're going to get a lot more rain.  Hopefully not more like today, exactly.