What did the mayor know and when did he know it?

Well, if he read the reports...

A consultant found 17 Sewerage & Water Board pumps and two power turbines out of service last May, months before heavy rains in July and August caused widespread flooding in New Orleans. Outlined in a draft report presented Wednesday (March 14), the inspectors' findings reinforce the notion that agency officials had recourse to be aware of startling problems facing the utility's drainage system prior to the summer floods.

Maybe they didn't put it in bold face on the front page or something.  Or maybe he wasn't at the meeting that day.   There's a bill in the legislature that is supposed to address that problem. 

If passed, the bill would return a City Council member to the board, require either New Orleans' mayor or the city's chief administrative officer to attend board meetings and tighten rules on quarterly reports submitted by the utility to the council. Its author, state Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, says it's high time for more accountability over Sewerage & Water Board's top ranks after flooding last summer revealed severe deficiencies in the utility's power and drainage systems.

Ok but you do have to wonder how they enforce that. Maybe it involves the threat of house arrest. 

Also it's worth pointing out that this is a partial walk back of the very S&WB reforms Morrell and the New Orleans delegation pushed through only a few years ago at the Mayor's urging. Last year, those reforms were called into question in The Lens by Jacques Morial which prompted a response from Morrell defending them.

So this new bill indicates J.P. agrees something needs to change, at least.  It doesn't go far enough unless it takes the damn university presidents out of the selection process. To this day, I still have no idea why these professional fundraisers get a say in so many local governance issues.  In any case, there's more than one S&WB issue that needs to be addressed.

The utility has previously said the drainage system is short more than $50 million in projected brick-and-mortar costs, while an estimated $80 million in emergency work is rapidly drawing down cash reserves. Black & Veatch's report accounts for a roughly $82 million shortfall by 2021. To help mend the gap, the utility's board of directors last month began the process to secure a bond sale to finance $27 million for drainage improvements.

Not sure what sort of reform the next mayor might put forward to deal with that.  Maybe we should ask the co-chair of her transition's infrastructure committee. 

Troy Henry and Bruce Thompson co-chair an infrastructure committee made up of four subcommittees: a subsurface committee looking at Sewerage & Water Board systems, a surface committee looking at roads and bridge, and committees looking at transportation and the implementation of a citywide water management plan.

Certainly Troy has all sorts of interesting ideas. 

Nevertheless, Troy Henry, the southern regional manager of United Water, is convinced that private water providers can do a better job than public utilities. He readily admits that his company and Atlanta city managers have had problems “dealing with the complexities of the system” in Atlanta and says the company is spending “multiple millions of dollars [to] win back the citizens’ and mayor’s confidence.” A biomedical and electrical engineer and former manager at IBM, Henry argues that private companies can do for water delivery what Big Blue did for computing — revolutionize technology and attract “the best and the brightest and most talented people.”