Who will be the accountability structure now?

Back in February 2007, Ed Blakely was throwing a small hissy fit to members of the Louisiana Legislature in which he threatened to quit if his office did not receive total control over all recovery funds coming into New Orleans. When questioned about how he saw his (as of this point unstaffed) office putting together a means of tracking and accounting for public dollars allocated for such a crucial purpose, Blakely was typically flippant. Claiming that his status as "one of only six people in the world" with the requisite disaster recovery experience should be enough to satisfy the public trust Blakely responed "I want to be your accountability structure."

This week, as he prepared to leave, Ed Blakely spoke to WDSU about the "accountability structure" now in place as New Orleans moves forward with the benefit of having basked in his wisdom these past few years.

He said keeping track of all the ongoing work will be a tough job for his successor. "We have over $1 billion worth of projects, 600-some projects coming on stream," he said. "At some point, we're going to have 200 or 300 projects going on at the same time with a city bureaucracy that's accustomed to doing two or three.

"So the oversight for this . . . will be on two or three people's shoulders. And that's going to be an enormous challenge."

We would like to take the opportunity to once again thank Dr. Blakely for his service and the concerned manner in which he hands off this "enormous challenge" he didn't seem to worry too much about creating. Nicely done.