Bucking the trend

Looks like we're still doing it.  But in a different direction this time.

About one out of every four workers in New Orleans is without a job because of the coronavirus pandemic and related stay-at-home orders, according to an analysis of unemployment claims by an economics professor.

Baton Rouge has a 21% unemployment rate, the second worst in the state, according to an analysis by Stephen Barnes, an associate professor and director of the University of Louisiana Lafayette’s Blanco Public Policy Center Director. Lafayette had the third-highest rate of any Louisiana metro area at 18.7%.

Those numbers compare to a 15% national unemployment rate reported Friday that analysts say actually is closer to 24% when additional jobless claims and unemployed workers are factored in since the numbers were tallied in mid-April.

The COVID depression is already hitting Louisiana especially hard.  The virus spread more intensely here than in many places.  It has been particularly hard on black and brown people generally.  It has been hard on black and brown people in Louisiana especially where acute poverty and air pollution are exacerbating factors.  We don't necessarily want to shed tears over the depressed demand for oil and gas and tourism given the destructive toll each of those extractive industries has taken on our land, air and spirit.  But they are our two most relied upon sources of jobs and revenue in normal times. They aren't producing much of that now.

So Americans need help. Louisiana, especially needs help. It's time like this when we look to our elected representatives to help us out.  So...   what do our senators think? 

The record $2.2 trillion pandemic bill signed into law March 27 mandated one-time payments of $1,200 for people making up to $75,000 a year, but most of the checks have already been distributed.

The White House and Democrats are signaling support for doing at least one more round of checks.

GOP senators, however, say they aren’t sold yet on the need for a second round, and several said they are strongly opposed to the idea.

“Well people in hell want ice water too,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), asked about another round of checks. “I mean, everybody has an idea and a bill, usually to spend more money. It’s like a Labor Day mattress sale around here.”

Well, okay, then. Thanks for that.

What do our sheriffs think we should do?

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards has filed a federal lawsuit against the People's Republic of China alleging that the new coronavirus originated in a lab in Hubei province and not in a local market, as most scientists have said.

Edwards, brother of Gov. John Bel Edwards, filed the suit in New Orleans on Friday, and asked the court to certify it as a class action on behalf of all 3,000 sheriffs in the country.

Oh god. Alright well that's just nuts.

What do our legislators think?

Rep. Dodie Horton (R-Haughton) was completely supportive of the measure, though she had a couple of questions for Miguez.

“I’m a healthy person, and I don’t wear a mask because I’m an American, and I can choose. I mean, have you ever known healthy people to be quarantined in the history of our country? Have you ever known our economy to be shut down? I mean, are we in Nazi Germany? Seriously, we should have opened May first!” Horton effused. “But what does this actually do? Will our hair salons and nail salons be able to open immediately if we pass this resolution? And can the Governor just ignore it?”

Nevermind.

Hey what about the mayor?  I know there's a lot on her plate but these garbage truck hoppers asked for help this week.  The temp agency subbed out by Metro Service Group has been putting them in harm's way.

NEW ORLEANS — Several New Orleans sanitation workers are on strike.

The workers, known as hoppers who work with the sanitation department through a group called PeopleReady, are demanding better pay and better protection while picking up trash.

The workers say they are exposed to the coronavirus and other health hazards every day and are not given the proper protective equipment.

The workers also say they should be getting hazard pay.

Metro holds one of the most lucrative contracts in all of city government.  They were also grandfathered in to the city's living wage ordinance which is why they can use day laborers and treat them like this.  Metro is owned by Jimmie Woods who happens to be one of the most influential political donors around.  When there is an election coming, everybody goes to Jimmie's house for the fundraiser.  Woods bought that house, by the way, from the Kailas family (of Hard Rock hotel fame) in 2016 for ten dollars.  So, typically, Woods gets a lot of respect and favor from a lot of important people.

But this thing with the hoppers seems kinda bad. I wonder what will happen this time.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued the following statement regarding the protests:

"The City of New Orleans is committed to following the requirements of its contract with Metro Services. Under the terms of the contract, Metro Services was paid over $10.7M in 2019 to provide garbage and recycling collections in their service area. Metro is responsible for providing workers with the necessary items for their safety. This would include masks, gloves, etc.

"We ask that citizens keep their garbage and recycling carts curbside today and, if necessary, until tomorrow. Metro has agreed to continue collections as late as possible today which may be beyond the normal end time of 8:00 p.m. They will resume collections on tomorrow for any remaining areas that may not be collected on today."

Well alright that's pretty encouraging. Just goes to show that.... oh wait.

Now, Livingston Parish work-release inmates are being used to pick up garbage in New Orleans East while the workers are on strike.

The workers on strike are employed by Metro Service Group and the number of them protesting has grown. Metro Service Group primarily services New Orleans East.

So there it is.  25 percent unemployment in New Orleans and rather than just give some day laborers some gloves, we are making prisoners pick up our trash.  The trend has never been so bucked.

Do the collapse

Turns out they have to blow more stuff up. Terrific way to ring in the New Year. Don't worry. The football and tourism related events will still happen, of course.

City officials presented a timeline for when the implosion of the failed Hard Rock Hotel construction site would happen shortly after they announced the demolition of the building would move forward at a press conference Tuesday evening.

Fire Superintendent Tim McConnell told media the building should be imploded in nine weeks, with recovery of the bodies of two still-missing workers and further investigation to follow. A three-month cleanup will also take place after the planned implosion.

The only factor that could move the demolition past the nine weeks is the College Football Playoffs and New Year's Eve events, McConnell said. "We will not let it interfere with CFP," McConnell said.

This also says they're going to stabilize the "Alpha" crane that has been dangling over Canal Street since the last time they set off explosions down there.  That one collapsed into the now-condemned building while the other broke in half and nose-dived into Rampart Street where it punctured a sewer line.

This result was different from the elegant "umbrella closing"  effect officials said they were going for beforehand. Nonetheless, we were all told immediately afterward that the crashing and dangling was, in fact, exactly what they meant.  McBride also noticed this discrepancy and points us to this video where the contractor continues to say that it happened just like they planned.  McConnell even said at the time that after the demolitions, the dangling Alpha crane was "very stable." It's weird though that the thing they did on purpose just left something that still needs to be stabilized hanging off the side of the building for a month. Sounds fishy to us. But it was good enough for the sages at Georges Media where the moral of the story was, as usual, everyone in charge is doing a great job.

For a different take on that, please see this month's Antigravity where Jules Bentley offers this counterpoint. 

It’s not surprising that Mayor Cantrell now wants to raze the whole structure to the ground, since this murder monument indicts her entire political class. What a towering tribute to its enablers the Hard Rock Hotel presents, a great slumping sundial whose gnomon points to their collective moral lodestar, unquenchable greed. It celebrates the greed not just of its developers but all who collaborated on, encouraged, profited from, and rubber-stamped this deathtrap. The list of the guilty is long, and every name on it is written with the blood of the building’s laborers—for Mammon, whose temple this is, desires human sacrifice.

Yeah you are going to want to read the rest of that. Jules is probably the only writer in town who can so, um, lovingly pull together the threads of New Orleans power, politics and exploitation that run through this story.  (Others who lack the patience and craft can only blurt stuff out into the void.)

I do feel compelled to add one bit, though.  In this passage, where Jules is describing one of the Kailas family's several scandalous entanglements with the corrupt polity, we learn what became of their Bayou St. John home.

Because the Kailas family is one of metro New Orleans’ biggest landowners and developers, almost everyone’s in bed with them, including former Governor Jindal, whose various campaigns they provided with tens of thousands of dollars of donations, monetary and in-kind.

In just one year under Jindal’s tenure (2011-2012), the Kailas-owned Lago Construction firm got more than $1.5 million of taxpayer money through state contracts—contracts which, thanks to the hard work of WWL’s investigative team and David Hammer, we now know were variously improper and fraudulent. On dates they charged taxpayers for long days of public service work, Lago employees were instead laboring on the Kailas family’s multi-million dollar Bayou St. John mansion. You won’t find them there now, alas. In 2016, they sold that property to Metro Disposal CEO Jimmie Woods for ten dollars.

Woods immediately put the Kailas house to use as a venue for political fundraising events. This one was for JP Morrell who was considering a run for mayor at the time.  Look at all the folks who showed up.

In addition to Gov. Edwards, the $250-per-person fundraiser at businessman Jimmie Woods’ home on the bank of Bayou St. John drew a host of other Democratic officials — U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond and Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who is running for U.S. Senate, as well as City Councilman Jared Brossett and current and former members of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration. The packed event suggested an unusually strong coalition around a term-limited state senator, and Morrell acknowledged there is widespread speculation around who will run in New Orleans’ upcoming mayoral race.

Not long after that Woods hosted a similar event for Karen Carter-Peterson.  She didn't run for mayor either. But that's not the point here so much as it is that, politically speaking, New Orleans is a small town where the money does seem to go around and around in a very tight circle. You can get a pretty good glimpse of it behind just about any building you knock over.