Sorry, no, you have to keep writing it down

Every time I put up a new post here, I end up griping that I need to post here more often. I do mean that. 

Last week, as we read about these legislative hearings on the state's COVID response, we once again had to remind ourselves of the importance of taking notes as things happen. Otherwise, when the details of events come up later in a different context, you might miss the point.  See, between the time that COVID arrived in Louisiana and the time when this committee took up its investigation, the state government has been taken over entirely by a paranoid anti-vax faction so whatever facts are brought to light now about the emergency response will, unfortunately, pass through that lens.  Here, for example, is a representative taste of that atmosphere. 

Dozens of anti-vaccine bills have died in the Louisiana Legislature since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but ultra-conservative lawmakers are gearing up for another fight.

In the process, truth has become a major casualty. 

In two days of hearings last week on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the House Select Committee on Homeland Security heard hours of testimony from doctors with fringe views on the COVID-19 virus. They included the state’s chief medical doctor, Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, who himself amplified misinformation. Abraham is a general practitioner who is also a veterinarian. 

“It’s been my observation that nearly every intervention attempted by government has been ineffective, counterproductive and antithetical to the core principles of a free society,” Abraham said last Thursday, citing mask use and vaccines as examples of ineffective measures. 

Abraham’s deputy surgeon general, ophthalmologist Dr. Wyche Coleman III, went a step further, touting the debunked theory that childhood vaccinations cause autism. 

“You could probably fill Tiger Stadium with moms who have kids that were normal one day, got a vaccine and were then autistic after,” Coleman told lawmakers. 

Experts agree the amplification and legitimization of COVID-19 misinformation by state officials can have a detrimental impact on public health. 

When asked if he was concerned the negative talk on vaccines could discourage people from getting vaccinated, committee chair Rep. Jay Gallé, R-Covington, replied, “So what if it does?”

So Baton Rouge is overrun with right wingers and this is the sort of thing we can expect to hear from them. It's interesting, though, that we get to hear a little bit of it from New Orleans Democrats like Alonzo Knox as well.

Knox is claiming no hospitals in Louisiana were overwhelmed during the pandemic, and said no media outlet reported that they were. Here’s a thread of reporting that disproves that. https://t.co/StC9FUFQZz

— Piper Hutchinson (@ByPiperHutch) September 26, 2024

Knox has become quite the character up there. Let's put a pin in that, actually. It's something we'll have to return to in more detail later.  For now, let's just note that he looks to be following the Neil Abramson playbook. Politics is never short on guys who will enable whatever atrocity they have to just so that they get to be "in the room" for a while with its perpetrators. 

But here is the thing. Just because the capitol is under the control of lunatics and the opportunists who flatter them, doesn't mean that these hearings won't stumble on a few unfortunate facts, in spite of all the nonsense drowning them out.  So let's return to this hearing now. It's a good example of what I'm talking about here.

Jacques Thibodeaux, director of Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told a panel of state lawmakers Wednesday that the agency received “an inquiry” in March from the "major fraud investigation unit" of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

The inquiry was “in direct relation to the medical monitoring station” at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans that was originally set up in early 2020 as a 1,000-bed field hospital to treat patients with COVID-19 and relieve strain on hospitals.

Several lawmakers were gathered at the State Capitol Wednesday for a meeting of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security to gather information for a future report on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The field hospital was set up through no-bid contracts under emergency circumstances.  Emergency circumstances tend to be closer to the norm in Louisiana than one would think is ideal.  Having seen first hand how that plays out a few times, I thought it prudent to mark some things out for future reference. COVID began to affect Louisiana in March of 2020. It wasn't until May that I had a chance to sort some things out.  This post is now a little bit of a time capsule, I guess.  

Here's what was going on then. 

Some local union leaders are angered that dozens of workers have been brought in from Texas to help convert the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center into a medical facility to deal with the coronavirus crisis, at a time when hundreds of their members are out of work.

The order to convert the convention center into a facility to provide up to 3,000 beds for spillover COVID-19 patients was made by Governor John Bel Edwards two weeks ago.

Two contracts for just over $76 million were quickly put out to bid. One for about $38 million, primarily to provide medical staff and services, went to BCFS Health and Human Services, a faith-based non-profit based in San Antonio, Texas that was formerly known as Baptist Child and Family Services.

According to an audit that December, BCFS ended up getting paid $89 million. We pointed out at the time that BCFS had recently taken in $179 million in federal contracts for its work on migrant detention facilities along the Texas-Mexico border. This was the so-called "kids in cages" operation. Remember when people cared about that? When the Trump Administration was spending money on contractors who put kids in cages?  Now we have a Democratic candidate for President promising to do a bigger and tougher kids in cages program so I guess that's all good money now. But at the time it seemed pretty bad! And our Governor was directing money to accomplices in that endeavor.

This is how fast the framing can change and it's why you have to remember to write everything down. Otherwise you might also forget the things, everyone else clearly has, or at least expects you to ignore.  Do we think, for example, that the current legislature in its pursuit of undiscovered fraud in the COVID resonpse is going to ask any questions about Mike Edmonson? 

Garner Environmental, a division of the Texas-based Ksolv group, counts former Louisiana State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson as a consultant. Edmonson resigned from the State Police amid a series of controversies at the agency in 2017.

The state paid Garner $9 million to establish and run a quarantine facility adjacent to the Convention Center, a project that lasted about a month. Nine patients stayed at the facility in all, according to Mike Steele, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

More about Edmonson's "series of controversies" here. The Advocate-Times-Pic should really link back to their own reporting when they reference it as context. There's a reason to write these things down, after all. In this case the reason is to remind ourselves that, while the political winds change, the essential corruption underlying it all remains universally intact. And unless you can see that for what it is, you're liable to get lost in the noise.

Whoops!

 Shot (September 10)

New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Director Ghassan Korban said Tuesday the city’s pumping and drainage system is in a “good place” ahead of Francine.

Ninety of 99 drainage pumps are working across its 24 pumping stations, he said, and the city has 70 megawatts available to power its drainage pumps, above the 44 needed to run the system at peak demand.

Korban said 70 megawatts “is probably one of the highest numbers we've seen in a long, long time ... Today, this is the best that we can all really count on.”

Chaser (September 11)

The large generators the Sewerage and Water Board uses to supplement its turbines and provide power to its drainage system went offline for about 15 minutes late Wednesday as Francine battered New Orleans, leading to widespread flooding.

Canals were high in Hollygrove, Lakeview, Gentilly, and New Orleans at 10 p.m., and over 30 locations in the city were flooded, according to Streetwise NOLA.

Nobody could have predicted... 

 

20.5 of those 70 megawatts are carried by overhead lines from four east bank frequency changers, which themselves are well over 50 years old.
12.5 MW come from EMDs which are wildly unreliable.
T4 (18 MW) failed in December and February when it was called upon. https://t.co/PuprII1ws5

— Matt McBride (@Matthew67052126) September 10, 2024

We'll know more tomorrow. But tonight there is widespread street flooding both in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. Right now I'm listening to Helena Moreno tell Channel 4 that Sewerage and Water Board had problems with the EMD generators and that it lost Entergy power a couple of times during the night.  She has used the phrase "whack-a-mole" several times.  She says there are Lakeview and Gentilly residents reporting flooding where there hasn't previously been flooding. 

Anyway, we'll see about all that later. Meanwhile, just keep in mind that Francine ended up being, basically, a direct hit on New Orleans. Here is a picture of the eyewall approaching a little after 7:30.  We're actually lucky that it was already being torn apart by wind shear at this point. If this had been a major hurricane there could have been catastrophic damage. 

 

As it stands, the damage looks to have been significantly annoying at the very least. (Approximately 350,000 without power, for example.)   Anyway, we'll know more about all that later.  One thing we can't say at this point is that we're in an especially "good place."

Not ideal

 Old Francine. 

Tropical Storm Francine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to further develop into a hurricane and impact Louisiana later this week, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Monday morning. 

The storm is expected to make landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday evening as a Category 1 storm, though forecasters say there is a bit of uncertainty as to Francine's exact track.

As of 1 p.m., Francine had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. The storm is expected to turn north-northwestward over the next day, turn more east and intensify before making landfall on the Gulf Coast as a hurricane.

Cat 1 predicted as of this afternoon but some of the weatherfolk are concerned at the accelerated pace of its organization. 

Not liking the look of things this afternoon. #Francine appears poised to strengthen even quicker than expected. Already seeing hints of an eye trying to clear out in visible satellite imagery. pic.twitter.com/NmSc1bRijW

— Steve Caparotta, Ph.D. (@SteveWAFB) September 9, 2024

That isn't great news given the path of the storm.  Drawing a bullseye bead on Lafayette is not great. Also it places SE Louisiana's highly vulnerable coastal marshes and heavy petro-chemical infrastructure on the "bad side" of the storm. If the intensity forecast gets any greater than it is this would be a very bad track.

 

 Anyway, let's hope this reasoning holds up. 

In a forecast discussion issued Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that models are showing a heightened possibility of rapid intensification Tuesday through Wednesday. Then, after the period of intensification, high vertical wind shear could cause the storms intensity to plateau before it makes landfall on Wednesday, according to the NHC.

Both those predictions influenced the NHC's forecast that the storm will hit Louisiana with Category 1 winds.

In addition to the shear, the storm is expected to pull in dry air from Texas, which could serve to as another check on the intensification process, Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes said.

Together, those two factors may prevent Francine from becoming a monster storm.

"I wouldn’t say its not on the table, but it seems to be fairly unlikely," Grymes said, though he cautioned that the storm will still bring dangerous conditions that residents need to prepare for.

 

 

There was an S&WB that swallowed a fly

See, they swallowed the ordinance to replace the ordinance to fix the billing errors...

The ordinance, which replaces one passed in 2022, matches laws passed in the spring legislative session. The rules are aimed at stabilizing billing, long a source of public outrage, while the S&WB replaces underground meters with new “smart” meters that track usage in real time. 

“We are hoping to have this issue resolved forever," Council Vice President JP Morrell said Thursday.

(Forever! Okay) 

That means they needed the "smart meters" to fix the "wonky software" that was supposed to fix the "human errors"... 

Utility officials say the smart meters will eliminate the need for estimates, reduce human errors and replace wonky software, which have all been blamed for inaccuracies. Half the city’s 144,000 meters are set to be replaced by the end of this year, and the rest by the end of 2025.

(The smart metering is a dubious solution, though) 

By the end of 2022, there will be over 124 million smart meters installed in 78% of U.S. households, according to data released in April by the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Innovation. But less than 3% of today’s smart meters fulfill 2009 promises of customer savings and that must be prevented in the coming Energy Department-funded deployment, according to a September analysis by Mission:data Coalition.

“Utilities used federal and state funds to deploy smart meters and many explicitly promised to empower customers” to lower bills and earn rewards for supporting system peak demand reductions, said Mission:data President and analysis lead author Michael Murray. “The public policy failure is that utilities benefited from returns on capital expenditures and reduced operational costs but did not deliver those customer benefits,” he said.

Which is why they needed the contractor to fix... well, I guess, the continuing billing errors.

HGI will see a significant boost in compensation with its new role, a reflection of the higher volume of work it will perform, said Council member Joe Giarrusso, who sponsored the ordinance with Morrell. Its current contract is for $600,000, and the council voted Thursday to extend the contract through the end of next year with maximum compensation of $3.4 million.

Giarrusso said the council opted not to put the contract out to bid so the new appeal procedure could get up and running as quickly as possible.

Yes, yes, of course. Oh, also, they need a second contractor to fix the... wait, I think I'm lost here. 

The new billing ordinance prohibits estimated meter readings starting next year, and offers customers the option of receiving fixed bill amounts. It also mandates a contractor to hear all appeals and make bill adjustments the contractor deems necessary. A separate contractor will be hired to ensure bills are correctly sent in the first place.

Is that the mail? They need to pay a company to mail things for them?

How many private contractors should it take for a public agency to fulfill its basic administrative functions? The answer should be zero, right? This is just absurd. Nobody's bill will improve here. But some consulting companies will make a chunk of change off of the deal.  Seems to be the only thing that matters.

I'm thinking of a number between zero rats and thousands of exploding rats

 Could be anything I guess.

 New Orleans City Hall officials are still trying to identify the cause of a bad smell inside the building.

According to a city spokesperson, an inspection of the building Friday has ruled out both gas leak and rat concerns. 

Portions of city hall remain closed as city officials continue to investigate the cause behind the smell.

The Bureaus of Revenue and Treasury, the Office of the Registrar of Voters, and the Department of Sanitation remain closed due to the smell.

 

 

Rat jokes

On most days, it's hardly surprising to learn that somebody might walk into City Hall and loudly proclaim that they smell a rat. It just isn't always quite so literal as this.

According to these sources, the city recently decided to exterminate the rodents in the hall. But while it may have succeeded in culling the rodent population, it also apparently left a lot of carcasses in its wake, which as they decomposed have apparently released a potent cloud of noxious fumes into the building.

According to one source, there could be thousands of rat corpses left behind in city hall and that some of the bodies may have "exploded," presumably due to the petrification process.

NOPD's stoner rats declined to comment.

That's Gambit's John Stanton sharing the scuttlebutt with us there. I think he means "putrefaction process" instead of petrification there. Don't worry. We'll get that cleaned up in copy editing before it goes to publish. 

I've been watching everyone's similarly labored attempts online to merge the previous popular rodent meme with the most recent one and I think I may have it. 

When you walk into City Hall and start to go woozy from the putrefied rat fumes, does that mean you are also high?

Right?

Folks?

Better?

Okay maybe not. 

Anyway, I'm sure it smells petty bad. But, as someone who has been around the block a few times, I should point out that this "thousands of dead rats in the walls" story is a common urban legend in New Orleans. (And probably in a lot of other cities too.) It's a tall tale I've heard a few times from different bosses or co-workers. There's always a story about a building downtown where so-and-so "used to work" when they opened up the walls for some reason and found the Khmer Rouge of rats in there. 

This doesn't mean there isn't some truth to it. Animals do die and rot in buildings sometimes and it is unpleasant.  I just think John's source on the "could be thousands of rat corpses" angle is probably repeating a version of the popular hearsay. 

Consider also that the culture at City Hall is very, well, anti-City Hall as a physical space.  In March, the city approved a land swap agreement with the state that should clear the way to construct a new building just across Perdido Street.  I don't think a construction timeline has been announced yet, though. And there are likely several steps remaining toward approving a budgetary allocation all of which will require continuing political pressure.  So any number of exploding rat carcasses can probably help with that. 

The more of those that can be conjured, the better. Which is another reason you are probably reading about "thousands" of them today.  Recall that dubious rat memes helped move NOPD into a suspicious deal for a new HQ this year. Might as well stick with what works.

Return to normalcy

Ha, see, you probably thought this was going to be about the Democratic national ticket. But, no, Wine Mom and Football Dad will have to wait. Even more normal things than that are happening in New Orleans. 

The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board issued a boil water advisory for the city's entire east bank and Algiers Point Tuesday night after a power outage at the Carrollton and Algiers water plants. 

The outages caused water pressure to drop across the city, prompting the advisory "out of an abundance of caution," S&WB said. The cause of the power outage is under investigation.

It's been a while since we've had a citywide boil advisory.  I can't begin to guess why the Boil Order Decade came to a pause, but I would start with assuming they just stopped reporting the minor outages.  When the pressure goes down everywhere at dinnertime, though, too many people notice. So they have to pretend to act. 

The initial press release raises several questions.  

The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO), in consultation with the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) has issued a precautionary boil water advisory (BWA) for the East Bank of New Orleans and Algiers Point. A map will be forthcoming.

Water pressures in thease areas fell below 20 pounds per square inch (psi) due to power failure at the Carrollton Water Treatment plant. The Algiers Water Treatment plant was also briefly affected by this power outage. The cause of the power failure is still being investigated. Water pressure to the New Orleans Eastbank and Algiers Point have been restored, but a precautionary boil water advisory is necessary until water samples can be collected and tested.

How long was the power to the pumps out? In 2019, SWB installed two "water hammer" towers that are supposed to maintain pressure in the event of a power outage for up to 40 minutes.  Entergy tells WWLTV that tonight's outage was a "brief power fluctuation."  Is and event that can be described in those terms, more than the "hammers" can handle?  If so, what good are they? 

How is it that the "brief power fluctuation" affected both the East and West bank treatment plants?  I didn't think they were connected. Also what is going on with Entergy in general?  Anecdotally, we've been experiencing little brown outs around here just about every evening this summer.  I haven't seen any explanation for this. 

In fact, it seems like they aren't even trying to communicate anymore.  Tonight, for example, when tasked with explaining the brief fluctuation that somehow overcame SWB's big expensive hazard mitigation system, they just went into their bag of standard excuses and pulled out...

BREAKING: A spokesperson with Entergy N.O. says a Mylar balloon is behind tonight's power outage that led to SWBNO losing power and the subsequent boil water advisory that is currently affecting almost all of the city. @WWLTV @CmGiarrusso

— Lily Cummings (@lilyrcummings) August 7, 2024

Balloon? On both sides of the river at once? That's enough to knock out the most critical public infrastructure in the city? Still? After so many rounds of this?  No way that makes sense. 

On the other hand, it's an extremely normal thing to hear from them.

How a bill becomes a law

Yeah sure, the legislature gets together and argues and writes some stuff up, passes something, or maybe doesn't pass anything. It doesn't matter. What really happens is Jeff Landry says such and such thing is a law so he gets to act like it is a law and therefore, it is one. 

Landry complained that public records had been “weaponized to stifle deliberative speech.” His Republican allies in the Legislature moved to carve out a “deliberative process” exemption to allow government officials to have candid conversations with one another about proposed laws and regulations without fear that those communications could become public.

Even as Landry campaigned for the change to the law – which legislators nixed amid public outcry – he already was citing “deliberative process” and “executive privilege” exemptions to deny some records to members of the public. His administration cited those exemptions even though neither of those phrases currently appear in Louisiana’s public records statute.

A review of Landry’s first five months as governor shows that in nearly a quarter of all public-records requests his office fielded, his attorneys withheld records by citing deliberative process or executive privilege. The documents they withheld for those reasons included records related to Landry’s attempts to expand the death penalty, records dealing with the Louisiana National Guard’s deployment to Mexico and records related to Landry’s travel.

Getting the feeling this is going to be sad 4 years. Lots of hand wringing about the Governor's bad behavior but little or no accountability for any of it.

Economic indicators

I did see the signs. I tried to tell you.

Hey it's August 1 and still no Halloween candy stocked in the Rouses? Must be a recession coming

— skooks (@skooks) August 1, 2024

And now, look. 

U.S. stocks saw their third-straight trading day of heavy declines as recession fears continued to mount and Wall Street abandoned a popular trade that had helped counter high interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down roughly 900 points or nearly 2.5% Monday morning, while the S&P 500 declined 2.3% and the tech-focused Nasdaq fell 2.5%.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported worse-than-expected jobs data, showing the U.S. unemployment rate had climbed to 4.3% and that the economy had added just 114,000 jobs

 Always trust financial advice from this website and its affiliated social media.

The incredible shrinking administration

The New Orleans Saints opened training camp last week.  And the question on everyone's mind is, who is paying for Mayor Cantrell's tickets?

At the National Urban League press conference, Cantrell was all smiles despite the legal troubles surrounding her. Once she was on stage, she stayed on the theme, pointing to the political moment the nation is in and the challenges that may arise.

Cantrell is also facing a federal investigation into her dealings with Randy Ferrell.

WWL Louisiana reporter Alyssa Curtis tried to ask Cantrell about the investigation as she hurried away.

"Mayor Cantrell, did you attend the 2019 NFC championship, and who paid for the ticket?" Curtis asked. 

Cantrell's team responded, "We’re not going to do that. I told you all that this morning. We’re going to keep moving." 

All credit to Alyssa Curtis, of course, for at least trying. But I do have to say that this is very similar to the question I said I wanted to ask the mayor at the budget townhall last Monday.  It turns out they cancelled that anyway. 

Mayor LaToya Cantrell's office has cancelled a town hall meeting scheduled for Monday night, citing the death over the weekend of longtime political consultant Bill Rouselle.

The meeting, where city officials were set to brief residents on the city's plans for its 2025 budget and take input on how tax dollars should be spent, was scheduled to take place at the University of New Orleans. The city cancelled the event late Sunday "due to the integral role" Rouselle's firm, Bright Moments, played in planning the budget presentation, a city spokesperson said.

The city will announce a new date for the town hall "in the near future," the spokesperson said.

No doubt, the passing of a monumental figure like Rouselle is worthy of remembrance. But it's difficult to understand why a basic public information function, like these budget sessions, would be so reliant on one private PR contractor. Or if we take that much for granted, does the unfortunate passing of the firm's founder leave its staff incapable of going ahead with what surely had to have been a fully prepared presentation by that time?  Or was Bright Moments always just Rouselle?  This really raises more questions than it answers. So why did they cancel the townhall? As that WWL story suggests, it probably has more to do with not wanting to face difficult questions from reporters and the public about various overlapping controversies surrounding the mayor right now.  

I have to say I'm at least a little sympathetic with the mayor about some of that. The celebrity gossip nature of the way local TV has handled the Vappie affair should be beneath all of us. And the way the media has made a hero out of this politically connected wealthy socialite who involved herself in it is regrettable as well. At the same time, though, the mayor's did react to her with the familiar clumsy and bullying abuse of power that has become one of the hallmarks of her time in office.

Remember, also, that if we look past the soap opera stuff, some of the allegations are actually serious. They just haven't been named in any indictment... yet.  But this story strongly suggests that the mayor moved to fire a city permits official in order to protect a crooked contractor. Yes, the one who gave her the football tickets. Even though he doesn't know how to spell her name. 

In a recording that WWL obtained of a meeting held Aug. 19, 2019, Chan complained to Cantrell that Cecil was “charging me with things” and creating a “hostile work environment.” Cantrell responded by praising Chan and asking, “Do you believe that we have what we need internally to fill leadership gaps should they become open? So, like running OneStop, that sort of thing?”

In an interview in March of this year, Cantrell denied having discussed Cecil with anyone else before firing her. She also denied that Cecil’s firing was a “favor” to anyone.

But Farrell claimed at least some credit. Last September, the TV station reported, Farrell wrote in an email to current Safety and Permits Director Tammie Jackson that “I had asked Mrs. Lotoya (sic) Cantrel (sic) to Look into Jennifer Cecil's Toxic environment at Safety and Permits and she chose to remove her.”

Adding to the intrigue is the appearance, once again, of controversial businessman Fouad Zeton who has shown up as a comic relief character in several Cantrell episodes. 

Farrell may have been introduced to Cantrell by Fouad Zeton, a friend and business partner of his who boasted of relationships to many politicians, including Cantrell. One of Zeton’s businesses was raided by the FBI in 2021; in addition to a series of paintings, the government seized his phone, which contained communications with Cantrell and others.

Zeton has pleaded guilty to falsely reporting a dozen or so paintings as stolen and then inflating their value – with the help of a New Orleans cop – in order to land a big insurance settlement. He is set to be sentenced Sept. 19.

Adding to the irony in this case is the fact that the tickets Farrell allegedly got for Cantrell were to the Saints-Rams NFC Championship game now infamous for its "no-call" pass interference ending which should remind us all that there really is no justice anywhere.  After all, the Supreme Court tells us that municipal bribery is basically legal now anyway. So maybe none of this matters. Still it sure would have been fun to go to the budget meeting and ask the mayor how many football tickets it would cost a person to be named the next Night Mayor.  But now we don't get to ask about that. Or about anything. Which is not good because, as it limps into the final year of its term, the Cantrell Administration looks to be falling apart. 

Take STR enforcement, for example. On second thought, maybe that's a bad example since there hasn't been a time when STR enforcement was actually functional. In any case, the regime such as it is, appears to be in complete disarray now.  The process for handling cases is toothless. The department doesn't want to assign lawyers to attend hearings. Oh and also the whole Zoning Department just up and quit for some reason. 

At the same time, Morrell told Mulligan in his July 17 letter that he was concerned Mulligan was now pushing hearings at a pace the understaffed STR office can’t handle.

Mulligan mentioned in his letter that the Zoning Division, which is supposed to be conducting STR hearings, hasn’t been able to have any “because its entire staff left earlier this year.” Mulligan doesn’t explain why the entire staff left.

As a result, Code Enforcement has been handling them in the meantime, while the Cantrell administration works to create a new office that handles hearings across nine city departments.

As of May 31, there were only 14 employees in the STR office, despite the office having a budget for 26 positions. According to Morrell, the 14 employees are now supposed to handle 40 hearings in two weeks.

Compare that with the 50 hearings per month previous memos estimated a staff of 23 employees could handle, and staffers now have more than twice that workload.

“When understaffed officers are forced to rush adjudications, mistakes are inevitable,” Morrell wrote. “There is a difference between quality and quantity of enforcement.”

Driving staff to quit en masse and overworking those who remain while refusing to fill the open positions sounds bad. But consider, also, that this phenomenon is hardly isolated to a single department. In June, we read about the similar (arguably far worse) situation at Public Works; the department responsible (for now, anyway) for keeping your streets un-flooded by clogged catch basins. You may think that's pretty essential work. The city, though, has purposefully made it less and less a priority.

It’s work that requires manpower, usually three to four to a crew. Two operate the equipment and at least one person for the manual labor that Casby was doing on a recent afternoon.

The problem for New Orleans is: There’s not many employees like Casby left.

An Algiers native, Casby, 58, joined the public works department in the late 1980s, when its maintenance yard on Norman C. Francis Parkway — then named for Confederate president Jefferson Davis — had more than 400 employees like him.

Today there are fewer than 30.

The city used to have its own rock crusher that ground asphalt that an army of frontline workers used to patch roadways. Now the city is down to just one pothole crew.

Because of the lack of staff, the city can only operate three of its four vacuum trucks full-time. In a good month, the in-house crews can only clear around two-thirds of the amount of catch basins needed to meet a benchmark previously set by the city.

“They just started cutting back,” Casby said about the late 1990s, when the city began outsourcing a lot of its work. “And everyone started moving out.”

Every story about the city's failing infrastructure can trace back to the 80s and 90s advent of austerity, privatization and outsourcing. This is not merely a New Orleans issue. Rather it is a long running policy regime that has emaciated public services in cities across the country. The turn against support for urban governance began with neoliberal technocrats in the 1970s and was put into practice by reactionary conservatives in the 1980s who passed billions of dollars worth of cuts in federal aid to cities. During the 1990s, cynical Democrats regained and held onto political power by fully adopting the reactionary rhetoric and consultant-driven policy grifts around notions of "reinventing government." 

It's worse now.  Over time, what might have once been dismissed as disingenuous Clintonite triangulation, metastasized into basic conventional wisdom. Anyone who had ambitions to become anyone in politics, especially at the local level in cities, had to learn to parrot tropes like "run government like a business," which was what our CEO Mayor Ray Nagin promised to do, or "do more with less," which became a frequent mantra during the Mitch Landrieu years. But those were just the poseurs.  

The current generation of politicians and administrators, like our Gen-X Mayor Cantrell, grew up as true believers in this stuff. The ideology was baked into the firmament of their careers before they even arrived.  It's the world they were trained for. No one in city administration actually believes in hiring people to do jobs. They're just looking to become conduits for outsourcing public funds to "private partners." And so it was inevitable that the Cantrell administration, from the first day it took office, could only have been ideologically opposed to governing. No one in charge there believes in the basic function of hiring staff to provide services to citizens. They don't think that is something a city should do.

There are real consequences for that. The understaffed and overwhelmed zoning and public works departments are just two examples of what happens when those who are charged with conducting the people's business do not take that task seriously. Even the things that they clearly want to do, such as, collect money from motorists via robotic cameras, can't get done in time to comply with new laws.  Last month, a key rental assistance program ran out of money because the administration didn't bother to request a renewal from the feds. 

Nor did they bother to answer reporters' questions about why. 

Monet Brignac-Sullivan, a spokesperson for council member JP Morrell, said the Cantrell administration didn't inform the council about the depleted funds or request more money in its mid-year budget adjustment.

"The Council is ready and willing to help solve problems when program administrators alert us there is one," wrote Brignac-Sullivan. "To date, there has been no communication from the program."

The Cantrell administration did not respond to a request for comment on why no additional funding was requested.

Nobody seems to be answering the phone at all over there anymore. According to this Axios story, that's a deliberate choice. We just hope the last whole department to resign remembers to turn out the lights before they go.

Selling the public

Judge Morgan is making noises like she's finally ready to release NOPD from the consent decree. 

The prospect of reduced monitoring, on the way to ending oversight, came into focus this week. U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who has tracked the reforms since their start, heard a positive report on officer bias, then bluntly requested a plan to launch the NOPD into a two-year "sustainment" phase under the 2012 reform pact known as a consent decree.

"We need to begin putting the framework in place," she said Wednesday.

I don't know enough about their "officer bias" metrics to speak with much authority. Having said that, it's clearly all bullshit that can mean whatever they want it to mean whenever they want it to mean that.  Anyway if NOPD says they're doing a better job, there are reasons to remain skeptical.  

For example, we know the consent decree places limits on high speed chases that pose an unreasonable danger to life and property such as this one that killed two teens in 2019. And yet just this week we saw officers racing through Uptown in pursuit of suspects. And in a separate incident only a few days later, an NOPD officer crashed into a utility pole on St. Charles Avenue knocking out power for approximately 1000 residents. In what way is this progress?

We can look also at the several law enforcement agencies currently operating in New Orleans outside of the federal mandates. This week the 5th Circuit is hearing a case about two private patrol officers who held a teenager at gunpoint after he asked them for help looking for his lost dog. And, of course, many concerns remain about the newly installed State Troop NOLA.

U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who oversees reforms to the New Orleans Police Department under a consent decree, has expressed concern over the new troop’s role in the city and LSP’s transparency about it, though she has no direct say over how troopers operate within city limits.

Landry insisted Tuesday that officials had consulted with the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI regarding its activities and that troopers in New Orleans have acted “in the most professional manner.”

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has been investigating the LSP to assess whether it uses excessive force or engages in racially discriminatory policing in the wake of the 2019 death of Ronald Greene.

All of which leads us to ask: if we have clear examples of police with no oversight behaving badly in New Orleans right now, why would we want to operate NOPD with no restrictions as well? The only answer we can come up with is politics. Morgan is a federal judge and certainly doesn't have to jump whenever the local electeds say jump. But, after a while, even the least credible bullying, like the Governor calling for her impeachment, starts to get the point across. Likely there is additional pressure from all business and political leaders in all corners wanting to get this all wrapped up now that the "Summer of Superbowl" is here.

The way the T-P writes it, you'd think the whole thing is just one big marketing challenge, anyway.

The contrast in tone, tenor and verbiage — optimism in the courtroom among deputy police chiefs, Morgan and the monitors, while community voices drip with skepticism — suggests a challenge in selling the public on the idea that the NOPD is ready to police itself.

"We want Black people to be acknowledged, because it was Black people who were maimed and murdered, who got the consent decree put in place," said Alicia Plummer, vice president of the New Orleans East Business Association.

"Who is speaking for us?...The police and federal monitors, they're in cahoots together."

Is NOPD "ready to police itself?" Not anywhere near as important as, "can we sell the public on the idea?"

That's how it's supposed to work

This is what is classically known as a perverse incentive. But is it, really? What if the incentives are actually doing what they were always meant to do?

That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas – in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rulesnew federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can receive.

The coup de grâce: Louisiana can authorize as many of these federally subsidized projects as it sees fit. The Environmental Protection Agency recently approved its quest to become only one of three states with regulatory “primacy” over such carbon storage wells.

Fossil fuel industry advocates are eager to get projects approved. “Louisiana has a chance with our geological structures to make a big splash in the pond for CO2 in the world,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, told a legislative task force in December 2023.

It's a familiar story.  The solution to the crisis is to make sure whoever created the crisis in the first place can keep getting rich. The reason this always makes sense to do is the crisis itself is a fait accompli. The climate is already screwed up. The sea is already rising. The Louisiana coast is already beyond saving. But that's all external to the purpose of politics. The purpose of politics is to make sure the resulting disaster doesn't upset the established hierarchy.  So whether you call it, "energy security" or "infrastructure investment" or even "climate mitigation" preserving the wealth of those currently at the top of the ladder is what these policies are actually designed to do.  It's all they can do. 

"Government approved protest"

 The best kind of protest, as everyone knows.

House Bill 127, sponsored by Rep. Mike Bayham, R-Chalmette, received final House concurrence in a 83-15 vote. The measure is now pending approval from Gov. Jeff Landry, who has called for harsh punishments against protestors. 

The proposal expands a state criminal statute that outlaws obstruction of a highway, road, railway, airport runway or navigable waterway by adding a conspiracy component.

Under current law, the crime is considered a misdemeanor punishable with a $250 fine, six months in prison or both. It applies to anyone who physically performs an act, such as protesting or placing an obstacle on a street, that makes it harder for vehicles to pass.

Bayham’s bill increases the fine to $750 for the misdemeanor act of obstructing a road. It adds a new provision to specifically go after protest organizers by applying the statute to anyone who conspires or assists others in a demonstration that blocks or slows down traffic. 

There was no debate ahead of final passage for the bill on the House floor Tuesday.

In a previous floor debate, Bayham said his bill would still allow people to lawfully assemble for a government-approved protest, and he added it would protect public safety by preventing protests from slowing down emergency vehicles.

I dunno. All this seems bad to me.  Can't really say what to do about it. All the options appear to have become illegal. 

The larger context of all of this is we're entering a period of greater austerity. This will be on a level not recently experienced by the middle class American kids who were raised to think they had some sort of stake in the greater societal project and therefore a credible say in how it is directed. But the line separating the circle of people who matter from the larger number of people who do not is being drawn in tighter than it has been in a long while.  You can't ask this many previously comfortable people to go quietly into that. The only way to enforce it is through stepping up the capacity for state surveillance and state violence.   

Didn't happen overnight, I know. For a while, it was possible to paper over the erosion of the social infrastructure by buying off strategically significant segments of the population with pretty stories and hollow treats. But we're getting the part where there's enough pain deliberately dealt out to enough people that we have to change the strategy from carrots to sticks. And so that's where we are.

Seems bad

Another one of those things where there isn't much to say. They're basically making every form of organized political dissent a major felony.  Once you open the box that allows you to start categorizing types of organizing as "terrorism," this is inevitably where you wind up. So it's not like no one could see it coming a mile away. It's just that this is where we are now.

House Bill 205, which adds rioting to crimes that can result in racketeering charges, also passed the Senate last week, with one significant amendment.

Originally, the bill, by Rep. Brian Glorioso, R-Slidell, added 10 crimes to that list, but an amendment by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, added seven more crimes to that tally, bringing the total to 17.

If the law passes, those who riot, vandalize historic buildings, block highways and or commit other offenses, and those who organize events where such crimes occur, could face up to 50 years in prison and a $1 million fine. The crimes would have to take place on more than one occasion to be covered under the statute.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, argue the bill would allow police to roundup protesters — including those who were not complicit in any crimes that occurred during an event — and to charge them as they would organized criminals.

Seems bad. Not sure what anyone is gonna do about it. Especially since it's the supposedly liberal party that's pushing the envelope on repression at the moment.

What has this all been about?

I still don't know if the constitutional convention is happening for real.  But those of you who wrote in, "Make the state subsidize petrochemical industries, private schools, and rich people in general by raising taxes on the poor" as your answer, you were correct.  

Two of Gov. Jeff Landry’s allies in his effort to overhaul the state constitution would personally support weakening protections around popular state sales tax breaks for residential utilities, prescription drugs and food purchased for home consumption. 

State Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, and former Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker, a Republican, on Friday said they would not personally want to lift those sales tax exemptions, but they don’t think such granular tax policy belongs in the state’s foundational governing document.

Beaullieu and Tucker support moving those types of tax items from the constitution to state statute during a constitutional convention proposed for this summer. The two men spoke during an online webinar sponsored by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.

Beaullieu said he also thought cigarette tax restrictions should be shifted from the constitution to statute as well. Louisiana cannot tax cigarettes below their 2012 rate because of a constitutional mandate.

Mayor Hecht

It's an appointed position, apparently

Landry's office said Wednesday that the details and title of the role were still being worked out and they expect to make a formal announcement on June 5 at a press conference in New Orleans when the governor will detail the state's Super Bowl efforts.

But Landry spokesperson Kate Kelly said Wednesday that Hecht will primarily be concerned with coordinating the disparate state and city organizations to ensure that a "punch list" of tasks like road and sidewalk repairs, lighting upgrades, and homeless mitigation efforts are addressed.

The Governor just hands over responsibility for municipal services and "homeless mitigation" (?) to the business lobby sometimes. You know, in the case of emergencies. Like when the Superbowl is happening.  

Some of these are so easy, it's stupid

All one has to do is refer to any point in the past when Mayor Cantrell's administration acted to expand the intrusive police surveillance apparatus deployed against New Orleans residents during her term in office.

At the request of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, the New Orleans City Council introduced an ordinance on Thursday to severely roll back local restrictions on law enforcement surveillance that were put in place only 14 months ago.

The proposed ordinance, if passed, would largely reverse the council’s blanket bans on the use facial recognition and characteristic tracking software, which is similar to facial recognition but for identifying race, gender, outfits, vehicles, walking gait and other attributes. One provision also appears to walk back the city’s ban on predictive policing and cell-site simulators — which intercept and spy on cell phone calls — to locate people suspected of certain serious crimes. 

That provision could, for the first time, give the city explicit permission to use a whole host of surveillance technology in certain circumstances, including voice recognition, x-ray vans, “through the wall radar,” social media monitoring software, “tools used to gain unauthorized access to a computer,” and more.

And then follow that up with her reaction to having those kinds of tools turned back on her.  

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell filed for a temporary protective order Friday against a woman she says has stalked her for two years by taking photos and videos of her, according to Orleans Parish Civil District Court records. 

Cantrell accuses the woman, Anne Breaud, of "aggressively" taking photos and videos of her on multiple occasions, including on April 7 as she dined on a restaurant balcony.

Breaud's actions over the last two years, she wrote, "have placed me and my family in greater risk of being harmed, jeopardizing my safety especially at places I frequent."

Breaud declined to comment Friday night, and the mayor's office could not be immediately reached.

Okay maybe it's not that easy.  It is stupid but some things need clarification. The photographs she's referring to in the second story connect to a tabloid saga regarding the mayor's personal life that I don't have any interest in discussing.  The local TV stations have enjoyed it very much because it is salacious in nature which gets a lot of attention while also having zero relevant news or political content which means they don't have to think too hard about anything while presenting it. 

If the reporters did want to talk about this with any sort of seriousness, these stories would focus less on the sensationalist aspects and more on the implications of who gets to point cameras at who and to what purpose. Because as it stands currently, the cops and the mayors have so many cameras poking into our daily lives that there's scarcely a step one takes without feeling like some sort of suspect. And yet the moment we might ask the slightest question about the work our public officials are doing, or the moment we point a camera at the police, well now there's the line that can't be crossed.

Not to put too fine a point on it but...

 They're messing with you. 

GOP donors Lane Grigsby and Boysie Bollinger aren't concerned about the restrictions placed on the constitutional convention in the enabling legislation passed by the House.

They don't think they're enforceable, per @LaPoliticsNow. #lalege #lagov pic.twitter.com/yUoG9J87nC

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) May 10, 2024

Again, they are just messing with you

They just passed new laws that say insurance companies don't actually have to, you know, provide insurance. 

Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday signed a series of bills that make it easier for insurance companies to drop policyholders, raise rates and have more time to pay claims after a storm, a controversial plan that aims to attract more companies to the state.

Hilariously, they say this is supposed to make it easier for you to buy insurance. It won't.  But more importantly, they don't actually believe that anyway.  What they do believe in is holding a big public signing ceremony for this farcical legislation just to rub it in everyone's face. In addition to ripping you off and putting your home in danger, they are also messing with you. Seems bad.

Seems bad

Not really sure why anyone is wasting their time and energy under the delusion that the reactionaries in the legislature can be stopped or even reasoned with.  At some point you have to recognize that there's no reason to play in these sandboxes with them. 

State Rep. Jerome “Zee” Zeringue, R-Houma, flashed a thumbs-down Wednesday while away from the voting machine on his desk, indicating to the House speaker he was voting no on a controversial bill restricting union activities among government workers. The speaker acknowledged his vote, and his name lit up in red on the tally board. 

Moments later, it flashed to green. The bill passed 53-39, barely clearing the 53-vote threshold to pass the House. 

House Bill 571 by Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, prohibits public sector union members, except for police and firefighter unions, from discussing or organizing union activities while working or on paid leave. It also nullifies any employment contracts that provide compensation, including paid leave, for the performance of such activities. 

Crews’ bill is opposed by several labor organizations, who have raised concerns that the bill violates the First Amendment. The bill would allow citizens to sue and be awarded costs for catching violations of the prohibition. The attorney general or a district attorney could also bring enforcement action. 

“Taking away the voices of thousands — tens of thousands — of workers, their rights to assemble and their freedom of speech is very alarming,” Matt Wood, a lobbyist for the Louisiana AFL-CIO said in an interview with the Illuminator. 

Zeringue was not the only member to have their vote changed. 

Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, had stepped outside the chamber at the time of the vote. Although didn’t give any other member permission to vote for him on Crews’ bill, he was recorded as a “yes” on the proposal. The final tally should have shown him as absent.

All of these outcomes are pre-determined. Why even bother with it? Why waste your time, your breath, your sanity? Nobody is listening. All they are doing is messing with you. 

During the convention, Landry and Beaullieu have also said no laws would be immediately changed. Instead, the governor has proposed only moving language out of the constitution and into what he has called a “super statute” in regular state law. 

“We are not rewriting the constitution. This is a refresh of the constitution,” Beaullieu said.

While relegating language from the constitution into statute won’t immediately change any law, it will make it easier for legislators to eliminate or change those provisions at a later date.

Constitutional language can only be removed with approval of two-thirds of the Louisiana House and Senate and approval from voters on a statewide ballot. A “super statute” would only need approval from lawmakers to eliminate or alter. 

In spite of Beaullieu’s assurances on protecting certain areas from constitutional cuts, legal experts have questioned whether that is possible. 

Several lawmakers and attorneys believe state law doesn’t allow for a “limited” constitutional convention, where certain items are declared off limits. If a convention is held, delegates could open up any portion of the constitution for alterations if they wanted, they said.

Bullying, "gaslighting" whatever you want to call it, they're gonna do whatever they want.  This is a fight that was lost a long time ago. Seems bad. What else is there to say?

Someone should stop the crime that is in progress

 I'd call the police but it looks like they are in on it.

The NOPD has lobbied for new space for years, and Kirkpatrick has made it a top priority since taking over the department in October. Initial lease terms were agreed to in January, but some council members said they had been blindsided when it was unveiled to them in March.

Now a revised lease, up for council consideration in a special meeting on Wednesday, would add significantly more space at a higher cost per square foot. The latest draft adds a third floor to the space at 1615 Poydras Street and increases the total square footage from about 45,000 to 69,000.

The lease rate increases from an average of $170 to $180 per square foot over a decade.

If the New Orleans Police Department occupies the space at 1615 Poydras for all 10 years, the city will pay a total of $12.4 million, an increase from $7.7 million under the initial deal for the smaller space earlier this year. 

Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration did not immediately respond to questions on Tuesday as to why it wants to add more space and agreed to pay a higher rate.

Good luck getting an answer out of them. Maybe it will be on the next podcast. Otherwise maybe FOIA some emails. You know, while that is still legal. 

Anyway... previously on Flip This Office Tower we learned the city had been in talks over this lease for at least six months before Frank Stewart sold the building.  Not sure where this sudden escalator clause came in.  We keep hearing that downtown office space is a soft market. What happened?

Nobody asked about a rollback?

Good news! Sewerage and Water Board is about to fix your billing problems. You know, the problem everyone is having where there bill is too small every month.

The vast majority of customers should expect to see cost increases of about 10%, while a handful could see their bills go up as much as 25%, S&WB Project Manager Rebecca Johnsey told a City Council committee Monday. That's because the manual readers being replaced don’t actually capture the entirety of a customer's water usage. 

“Our meters in the ground are mechanical meters, and that means they have pieces on the inside that physically move. So over time, they get gunked up and they slow down, and it actually takes more and more water on the front end to start the movement,” Johnsey said.

About 10,000 "smart meters" have already been installed under a $67 million contract with California-based Aqua-Metric signed in December 2022, and the first bills will begin going out next week, S&WB executive director Ghassan Korban said Tuesday.

The initial round of bills will be no more than 120% of a customer's annual average, he said. After that, bills will reflect the precise reading of the smart meters.

Pretty neat the way they get super interested in the "precise" amount of water used once it gets past the point in the line where you have to pay for it.  How much gets dumped out into the ground before it arrives there, is anybody's guess. Sunk cost, right? 

Anyway, this article doesn't tell us how Aqua-Metric's "smart" meters work.  But, one assumes, they also have "pieces on the inside" that must do something.  Hopefully it isn't what any of the various smart meter vendors who ran roughshod over the state of Mississippi have been doing. 

From 2009 to 2017, at least 10 Mississippi cities signed contracts with the companies to install smart meters or other new technology. All but one have reported problems, and at least four have sued to recoup money they paid to Siemens, McNeil Rhoads or Mueller. Three of those suits are still pending.

Siemens and McNeil Rhoads, competitors that pitched the projects and acted as project managers, hired contractors who installed many meters improperly, according to officials in Jackson, McComb and Moss Point. In some cities, the two companies also struggled to link meters to the home office or to merge a new billing system with an old one.

Officials in at least eight Mississippi cities said they had problems with Mueller’s smart meters, which sometimes didn’t measure accurately because of faulty parts or batteries that died sooner than promised. Water departments in other states, including California and Missouri, have reported similar problems with Mueller meters over the past decade.

McComb, a city of 12,000 people south of Jackson, signed the first Siemens water meter contract in Mississippi. Mayor Quordiniah N. Lockley, city manager at the time, said McComb agreed to pay the company $10 million to install 6,000 smart Master Meters.

But contract workers hired by Siemens put them in backward and missed deadlines to install the antennas that the meters needed to communicate with a central office, Mr. Lockley said. Then some customers saw their water bills hit as much as $1,000 per month, with no obvious explanation.

At least S&WB is trying to get out in front with an "obvious explanation" before the bills start to go up. Or at least that's what City Council is urging them to do. 

Council members urged water board officials to “overdo” a campaign to inform the public about how the new meters will impact bills. Council member Eugene Green also asked the agency to hold community meetings in every council district.

“On the one hand, we can't not have people pay for service they're receiving, but on the other hand there will be sticker shock,” said Council member Joe Giarrusso.

Notice that none of your elected representatives has anything to say about the possibility that your bill is already too damn high.  They're not here to help with that so much as they are here to manage your expectations.  When property tax assessments threaten homeowners with "sticker shock" we at least get some effort at rolling back the millage rates in order to keep things under control.  But here we aren't so motivated. Did no one ask about rolling back the water rates? It's different when the revenue windfall comes off the back of a regressive user fee, I guess.  Poor people always pay their "fair share" first.

Speaking of Draculas...

The other day I saw this sign on the Napoleon Ave neutral ground advertising an upcoming production of the New Orleans Ballet. For a second, though, I thought Dracula (who we have already established lives at Charity Hospital) was running for office.

I am pretty sure the Charity Dracula Castle is in Alonzo Knox's house district. In which case, I'm not sure this wouldn't be an improvement. 

Anyway, there's something about people in the local political scene who just keep coming back from the dead. Take Charles Rice for example. 

Mayor LaToya Cantrell wants the City Council to approve a contract with the firm of former Entergy New Orleans (ENO) CEO Charles Rice, who in 2018 stepped down after it was discovered the company had used paid actors to appear at city council hearings in support of a proposed new power plant.

According to a draft of the contract, the administration wants to hire the Rice Group LLC to help in ongoing litigation between the city and the Municipal Police Employees Retirement System, which handles the NOPD’s pension.

Of course, Rice didn't actually step all the way down from Entergy after the "actors" scandal. Remember, the paid actors gambit basically worked.  The plant the actors were hired to advocate for got built. The fact that the ploy got exposed resulted in a moment of bad press and nominal fine but that's all well worth it. And Rice was happy to take the fall anyway. No big loss to him.  He just got kicked down from CEO to legal consultant. Also his wife continued to work for and with the company. (She also continues to serve on public boards.)  Like Dracula, people operating at this level of privilege basically go on forever. They really aren't allowed to fail the way most of us mere mortals might be. I mean the Rices were doing kickbacks to their brothers-in-law over public contracts way back before a lot of you kids were even born. These are ancient powers we are dealing with here.  

Meanwhile, at Dracula's castle

Nothing is happening and no one is getting paid. 

More than six months after a new development team was brought in to help jumpstart the stalled redevelopment of the former Charity Hospital building in downtown New Orleans, the project remains in limbo with unpaid bills to its architect, contractor and other vendors that total at least $5.7 million.

Public documents show three liens and a lawsuit have been filed against 1532 Tulane Partners, a consortium led by local apartment developer Joseph Stebbins and Israeli financier Yoel Shargian that was awarded the rights to the Tulane Avenue building in 2018. 

The article goes on to itemize the liens but can't get any comments from the firms filing them. The paper did manage to get in touch with ex-NOPD Marlon Defillo who is suing over $190,000 he says the project owes him for "security consulting." He offers up some famous last words here. 

“Each time we would ask for payment, they would say, it’s coming,” said Defillo, a former assistant chief with the New Orleans Police Department. “Believing this is a state-owned building, I thought, how could things go wrong?” 

Anyway, on the last episode of Dracula's Castle back in January, we learned that Tulane had brought in The Domain Companies as a partner. Presumably the object there was to re-jigger the "state-owned building" in a way that placed even more emphasis on private profits from luxury condos and short term rentals than had already crept in. Which is weird since a few blocks away on Poydras, they're moving public entities like the police department into a privately owned building over there. Whatever you gotta do to shake the money out, I guess.

We've got all the star stuff at home

Probably you devoted at least a little bit of your time on Monday to experiencing the solar eclipse. Maybe you scored a pair of free glasses before the stampeding hordes got them all. In New Orleans, it didn't matter anyway. Most of us here just tried to get a brief frustrated glimpse through the cloud cover. At least, that's what I did. I kind of saw it a little. Here, I got a picture. Would you like to see?

 

Maybe you managed to get a better view than this. Maybe you made elaborate  plans in advance to take a trip into the "path of totality" so that it could "touch your soul."

On April 8, the Stones will host a dozen-plus visitors from as far away as Sweden to experience this year’s event.

“It’s such an emotional event,” Stone said. “It touches your soul, it really does. Any time you realize there’s something bigger than you, it gives you perspective. Surely that power has a purpose.”

In Buffalo, Horowitz said the eclipse, an obvious reminder of nature’s beauty, offers a chance to reflect on nature’s fragility and to find hope amid worldly chaos and personal challenges.

“You can sometimes be clouded by all that darkness,” he said. “The natural world is trying to tell us that beyond the darkness, there is light.”

If this is you, then, that's great. The human mind's capacity to perceive its surroundings and color it in feeling is infinite in its variation.  Contemplation of the heavens is a popular vector for this.  So I get it. But it's just not where I get my good vibes.  The universe may be unfathomably vast. But most of it is also distant from and indifferent to us.  The way I see it, if we really are made of star stuff, then we've got all of it we need down here. And besides, we're the ones doing all the interesting shit with it. 

The music of the spheres is great and all but what really touches my soul is "truck stuck in flooded underpass appears to have Sewerage and Water Board logos." There is where we find the true face of God.

There is a white truck with what appears to be a Sewerage & Water Board logo stuck in a flooded Franklin Ave underpass.@WWLTV pic.twitter.com/WIvNQGUXx9

— Rachel Handley (@RachelHandleyTV) April 10, 2024

Not everyone is as impressed, of course. 

But as life in many parts of the city returned to normal, business owners there were still knee-deep in clean-up work — again. Krivjanick's business has been flooded during storms in December, January, February and again on Wednesday, she said.

She's had enough. 

"I love the city of New Orleans," said Krivjanick. "I love the culture. I love everything that we have. But I don't feel like I'm being respected as a property owner, as a taxpayer. I don't feel like I'm being heard."

Look I don't want to be here rooting for crumbling infrastructure and corrupt government. Not every time, anyway. But, "won't somebody respect the property owners for a change," isn't engendering a tremendous amount of sympathy.  On the other hand, neither is this, "help us find the real killers," bit. 

But in an update on Thursday, S&WB spokesperson Grace Birch said that the power supply was further hobbled while the rain pounded down. All three of the S&WB's available backup generators tripped offline, she said, and officials suspect vandalism to an electrical feeder was the cause. The New Orleans Police Department has been asked to investigate. Two other backup generators were already out of service because of mechanical issues.

The S&WB said more details would be forthcoming in an after-action report on its pumping, power and staffing levels during the storm, which is required by state law within 48 hours of National Weather Service advisories.

I don't think there's an update on the "investigation" but we do know there were multiple power supply issues in play that day and that they can't all have been the work of imaginary terrorists.  

The utility confronted a second major issue at about the same time, when it attempted to send power from another of its turbines — Turbine 6 — to Pump Station 6 as well as a series of stations along Broad Street.

Because that turbine is relatively new, installed after Hurricane Katrina, the power it produces needs to be converted by a frequency changer for use by the older pumps. 

But the frequency changer tripped offline, rendering that power source useless, too.

The utility finally began using Entergy power to bring the frequency changers back online, allowing the pumping stations to begin using power from the changers between 10:15 a.m. and 11:25 a.m.

Without all of the necessary power, the Sewerage & Water Board was forced to leave some pumps off during the storm.

So to bring this back to the original point, there are more engrossing mysteries in the affairs of humanity on Earth than there are, even in the unfathomable expanse of outer space. And anyway, space is boring. For example, we already know exactly when the next total solar eclipse will be visible over US territory. In 2045, you can drive right over to Pensacola and see it. Hang around until 2078 and you can take a boat out to where New Orleans used to be and see it there too. It's all very predictable. Like a clock, I think someone once said. 

But try and figure out when Turbine 4 is coming back online... well now there is a genuine challenge to demand every power of philosophy ever dreamed of. 

The S&WB says it needs 44 megawatts of 25-hz power to run the pumps during the heaviest storms, but has been forced to operate with a little more than 40 megawatts since T-4 went down.

That turbine is not expected to return until next month.

We can peg the exact position of the moon for the next.. well for millennia into the future. Turbines, though, are unknowable. All we can say right now is check back sometime in May.  Really puts things in perspective, doesn't it.