Pothole-weary drivers in New Orleans to get break as city hires firms for repairs
By Jeff Duncan - Times Picayune/NOLA.com 6/28/06
Staff writer
Good news for road-weary New Orleans commuters: Relief is on the way.
The City of New Orleans is hiring two companies to assist its undermanned crews in repairing the miles of crumbling, pothole-marked streets in the city that have mostly sat neglected since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area nearly 10 months ago.
The City’s Public Works Department announced Wednesday it has awarded a $2,636,415 contract to Boh Bros. Construction Co. to maintain and repair asphalt roads and a $911,545 contract to Hard Rock Construction Company to conduct the same work on concrete roads. Both contractors, the lowest bidders in each deal, are getting one year contracts with an option to renew for an additional year, the city said.
Director of Public works Robert Mendoza said the new crews will handle major repair work like fixing streets after drain line repairs, large asphalt and concrete patch work, and asphalt overlays. That will free his staff to take care of smaller tasks like filling potholes, maintaining storm drains and cleaning catch basins.
“The work performed by the maintenance contractors supplements the City’s own forces and are an essential part of our ability to respond to complaints,” Mendoza said. “Bringing these contractors on board allows us to address our backlog of work and is a significant step in restoring our street maintenance service levels.”
Contractor crews are expected to being work in approximately 60 days but Mendoza said one crew has already started an emergency repair job on General de Gaulle Drive on the West Bank.
The new crews will not perform restoration work on streets cuts caused by utility companies trying to restore their services. However, Mendoza said the extra help will allow his staff to monitor the work of the utility companies and hold them more accountable for speedy repairs.
“Utility companies, such as Entergy and the Sewerage and Water Board (of New Orleans), have cut streets to repair their underground lines, and they are still responsible for repairing the streets they cut,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza said his department has re-established its online pothole reporting service at the city’s Web site, http://www.cityofno.com.
“We’ve been limited in what we could do since Katrina,” he said. “We’re finally getting the tools in place to move forward.”
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Bald eagle released in St. Charles Parish
By Matt Scallan 6/28/06 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
River Parishes bureau
When Lt. Pamela Schmitt of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office heard reports of a downed eagle along U.S. 90 in Des Allemands last month, she wasn’t sure she believed it.
“But when I got there, I was pretty sure what that’s what it was,” she said. “People were saying it was lying in a ditch for two days.”
Schmitt initially couldn’t find anyone who knew what to do with the bird, which couldn’t fly because of a broken wing.
“Wildlife and Fisheries doesn’t deal with that kind of thing,” she said, and people were afraid to approach the bird for fear that it might be diseased.
But nearly two months later, the healthy female Bald Eagle cautiously peered out of its cage Wednesday, strutted past its rescuers, then took wing for home.
“It was a wonderful thing to see,” said Schmitt, who normally investigates animal cruelty cases for the Sheriff’s Office.
After discovering the injured eagle May 2, she called Dan Maloney, curator of the Audubon Zoo, who happened to have someone affiliated with LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine nearby.
The bird was taken to the vet school, which runs the Louisiana Wildlife Hospital, a non-profit group that treats some 1,800 animals a year, said Mark Mitchell, associate professor of zoological medicine at the school.
“We think it was a young bird that had not fledged out. It didn’t know how to fly,” Mitchell said.
The eagle, later dubbed Wilhelmena, “Willie” for short, after singer Willie Nelson, was taught to fly and hunt in a flight cage by animal rehabilitator Leslie Lattimore.
“That’s where we built up her endurance,” Mitchell said.
After making sure that Willie could hunt on her own, she was brought back to where she was found, near the intersection of U.S. 90 and Levee Road in Des Allemands, and released.
Eagle enthusiast Keith Clark of Hammond, a regular donor to the Wildlife Hospital, did the honors of opening the cage.
“It was a beautiful thing to see her fly,” he said.
Bald Eagles, once an endangered species, have recovered somewhat, but are still classified as a threatened species.
Mitchell said Louisiana hosts an estimated 200 nesting pairs of eagles concentrated in the southwestern part of the state, and the center sees up to a dozen injured eagles a year.
“Those are just the ones that get to us,” he said.
By Matt Scallan 6/28/06 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
River Parishes bureau
When Lt. Pamela Schmitt of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office heard reports of a downed eagle along U.S. 90 in Des Allemands last month, she wasn’t sure she believed it.
“But when I got there, I was pretty sure what that’s what it was,” she said. “People were saying it was lying in a ditch for two days.”
Schmitt initially couldn’t find anyone who knew what to do with the bird, which couldn’t fly because of a broken wing.
“Wildlife and Fisheries doesn’t deal with that kind of thing,” she said, and people were afraid to approach the bird for fear that it might be diseased.
But nearly two months later, the healthy female Bald Eagle cautiously peered out of its cage Wednesday, strutted past its rescuers, then took wing for home.
“It was a wonderful thing to see,” said Schmitt, who normally investigates animal cruelty cases for the Sheriff’s Office.
After discovering the injured eagle May 2, she called Dan Maloney, curator of the Audubon Zoo, who happened to have someone affiliated with LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine nearby.
The bird was taken to the vet school, which runs the Louisiana Wildlife Hospital, a non-profit group that treats some 1,800 animals a year, said Mark Mitchell, associate professor of zoological medicine at the school.
“We think it was a young bird that had not fledged out. It didn’t know how to fly,” Mitchell said.
The eagle, later dubbed Wilhelmena, “Willie” for short, after singer Willie Nelson, was taught to fly and hunt in a flight cage by animal rehabilitator Leslie Lattimore.
“That’s where we built up her endurance,” Mitchell said.
After making sure that Willie could hunt on her own, she was brought back to where she was found, near the intersection of U.S. 90 and Levee Road in Des Allemands, and released.
Eagle enthusiast Keith Clark of Hammond, a regular donor to the Wildlife Hospital, did the honors of opening the cage.
“It was a beautiful thing to see her fly,” he said.
Bald Eagles, once an endangered species, have recovered somewhat, but are still classified as a threatened species.
Mitchell said Louisiana hosts an estimated 200 nesting pairs of eagles concentrated in the southwestern part of the state, and the center sees up to a dozen injured eagles a year.
“Those are just the ones that get to us,” he said.
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Audrey2Katrina
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New Medicaid routine addresses citizenship
Act could affect people whose records are lost
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
By Jan Moller Times Picayune/NOLA.com
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Beginning Saturday, Americans who get their health insurance through Medicaid, including more than 1 million poor, elderly and disabled Louisianians, will have to present proof of citizenship when they renew their health benefits.
The changes were mandated by Congress as part of the Deficit Reduction Act, which includes provisions designed to block undocumented immigrants from receiving taxpayer-paid health benefits. President Bush signed the legislation in February.
But state health officials said the law is a solution in search of a problem that will impose new bureaucratic burdens on all Medicaid recipients, and that could prove uniquely troublesome to people who lost vital records during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"It certainly exacerbates the problem in Louisiana for those people who did lose their documents (in the storms)," said J. Ruth Kennedy, deputy director of the state's Medicaid program. "But we believe there's going to be problems for persons who did not lose their documents due to the flooding."
All current Medicaid beneficiaries will be required to give proof of citizenship when their enrollment comes up for renewal. But the people most immediately affected will be the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people who apply for benefits every month and will have to provide documentation proving their citizenship before they can qualify.
No questions asked
Current law already bars people who are not American citizens from receiving Medicaid benefits, which are paid for with a mix of state and federal tax money. But applicants are required only to sign a form attesting to their citizenship, which leaves the system ripe for abuse, according to supporters of the new law.
"No questions were asked," said Chris Riley, a spokesman for Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., who co-authored the provision.
Neither Riley nor state officials could say how many Medicaid beneficiaries in Louisiana are not citizens. State Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said the number is likely small, because the state already takes several steps to ensure that benefits go only to those who qualify.
Riley said the new rules should not be a burden to anyone who is legally entitled to Medicaid, and that the law gives states flexibility in establishing citizenship.
"No one is going to be left behind if they're a citizen," Riley said.
Documentation required
But critics of the law said many people who qualify for Medicaid will lose their benefits because they won't be able to supply sufficient documentation. That would not only hurt patients, it also would put a financial pinch on nursing homes, outpatient clinics and other health care providers whose financial bottom lines depend in large part on Medicaid billings.
"With 46 million Americans already uninsured, the last thing we as a country need to be doing is increasing that number by throwing people off of programs for which they already qualify," said Dan Hawkins, policy director for the National Association of Community Health Centers, a nonprofit health advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
Hawkins said the vast majority of Medicaid recipients are American citizens, but that some might not have the documents to prove it. That could particularly affect elderly people who were not born in hospitals and have no birth certificates, homeless people and itinerant workers.
"This is not about immigration. This really is nothing more than bureaucratic paperwork," Hawkins said.
Pain for clinic?
At the Algiers Community Health Clinic, Dr. Monir Shalaby said about one-third of the patients there are on Medicaid -- a number that includes children enrolled in the state's LaCHIP program.
Most of Shalaby's patients are poor, and many don't have checking accounts or other basic documentation to prove their citizenship, he said. Many of them would have trouble coming up with a passport or birth certificate.
Although the number of Hispanic patients coming to the clinic has increased significantly since Katrina, Shalaby said most of them don't have any insurance and pay cash for their care on a sliding scale based on income.
Shalaby said he could see the need for verifying citizenship in border states such as California or Texas. "Here in Louisiana, for God's sake, I'm not sure we really need to go through all of that," he said.
Michael Andry, chief executive officer of EXCELth, which operates the Algiers clinic, said the new rules won't keep anyone from getting care, as the clinic serves everyone regardless of whether they have insurance. But it could affect the clinic's bottom line, he said, if it results in fewer people receiving Medicaid, and it also could lead to more work for clinic staff who help patients enroll in the program.
"Now it's going to be a lot more work in that process," Andry said.
'Reasonable opportunity'
Current law requires people who qualify for Medicaid by virtue of their income, disability or health status to re-enroll in the program once a year. In Louisiana, that typically means sending back a form to the Department of Health and Hospitals certifying that they still meet the criteria for receiving benefits.
But the new law will require people who re-enroll to show a passport, a certified copy of their birth certificate or a certificate of naturalization. People who don't have those documents can use other means to establish citizenship, such as military records or census records. In rare circumstances, people will be allowed to keep their benefits by supplying sworn affidavits from at least two U.S. citizens to whom they are not related.
A guidance document provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Washington, D.C., on how to implement the new law says states must give a "reasonable opportunity" to recipients to prove their citizenship before cutting off benefits.
As a practical matter, Kennedy said, the new law will mean that most people on Medicaid will have to appear in person at a state office to verify their citizenship, unless they are willing to send their passport or original birth certificate in the mail.
That could prove difficult for people in rural parishes, who might have to travel long distances to the nearest government office.
Kennedy said the new directive came after the state has gone to great lengths in recent years to make it easier for people to re-enroll by mail. "It's creating a significant burden for every recipient," she said.
It also will mean added costs to the state, which will have to dedicate additional staff to help process the applications. Kennedy could not say how much it would cost the state.
Act could affect people whose records are lost
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
By Jan Moller Times Picayune/NOLA.com
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Beginning Saturday, Americans who get their health insurance through Medicaid, including more than 1 million poor, elderly and disabled Louisianians, will have to present proof of citizenship when they renew their health benefits.
The changes were mandated by Congress as part of the Deficit Reduction Act, which includes provisions designed to block undocumented immigrants from receiving taxpayer-paid health benefits. President Bush signed the legislation in February.
But state health officials said the law is a solution in search of a problem that will impose new bureaucratic burdens on all Medicaid recipients, and that could prove uniquely troublesome to people who lost vital records during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"It certainly exacerbates the problem in Louisiana for those people who did lose their documents (in the storms)," said J. Ruth Kennedy, deputy director of the state's Medicaid program. "But we believe there's going to be problems for persons who did not lose their documents due to the flooding."
All current Medicaid beneficiaries will be required to give proof of citizenship when their enrollment comes up for renewal. But the people most immediately affected will be the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people who apply for benefits every month and will have to provide documentation proving their citizenship before they can qualify.
No questions asked
Current law already bars people who are not American citizens from receiving Medicaid benefits, which are paid for with a mix of state and federal tax money. But applicants are required only to sign a form attesting to their citizenship, which leaves the system ripe for abuse, according to supporters of the new law.
"No questions were asked," said Chris Riley, a spokesman for Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., who co-authored the provision.
Neither Riley nor state officials could say how many Medicaid beneficiaries in Louisiana are not citizens. State Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said the number is likely small, because the state already takes several steps to ensure that benefits go only to those who qualify.
Riley said the new rules should not be a burden to anyone who is legally entitled to Medicaid, and that the law gives states flexibility in establishing citizenship.
"No one is going to be left behind if they're a citizen," Riley said.
Documentation required
But critics of the law said many people who qualify for Medicaid will lose their benefits because they won't be able to supply sufficient documentation. That would not only hurt patients, it also would put a financial pinch on nursing homes, outpatient clinics and other health care providers whose financial bottom lines depend in large part on Medicaid billings.
"With 46 million Americans already uninsured, the last thing we as a country need to be doing is increasing that number by throwing people off of programs for which they already qualify," said Dan Hawkins, policy director for the National Association of Community Health Centers, a nonprofit health advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
Hawkins said the vast majority of Medicaid recipients are American citizens, but that some might not have the documents to prove it. That could particularly affect elderly people who were not born in hospitals and have no birth certificates, homeless people and itinerant workers.
"This is not about immigration. This really is nothing more than bureaucratic paperwork," Hawkins said.
Pain for clinic?
At the Algiers Community Health Clinic, Dr. Monir Shalaby said about one-third of the patients there are on Medicaid -- a number that includes children enrolled in the state's LaCHIP program.
Most of Shalaby's patients are poor, and many don't have checking accounts or other basic documentation to prove their citizenship, he said. Many of them would have trouble coming up with a passport or birth certificate.
Although the number of Hispanic patients coming to the clinic has increased significantly since Katrina, Shalaby said most of them don't have any insurance and pay cash for their care on a sliding scale based on income.
Shalaby said he could see the need for verifying citizenship in border states such as California or Texas. "Here in Louisiana, for God's sake, I'm not sure we really need to go through all of that," he said.
Michael Andry, chief executive officer of EXCELth, which operates the Algiers clinic, said the new rules won't keep anyone from getting care, as the clinic serves everyone regardless of whether they have insurance. But it could affect the clinic's bottom line, he said, if it results in fewer people receiving Medicaid, and it also could lead to more work for clinic staff who help patients enroll in the program.
"Now it's going to be a lot more work in that process," Andry said.
'Reasonable opportunity'
Current law requires people who qualify for Medicaid by virtue of their income, disability or health status to re-enroll in the program once a year. In Louisiana, that typically means sending back a form to the Department of Health and Hospitals certifying that they still meet the criteria for receiving benefits.
But the new law will require people who re-enroll to show a passport, a certified copy of their birth certificate or a certificate of naturalization. People who don't have those documents can use other means to establish citizenship, such as military records or census records. In rare circumstances, people will be allowed to keep their benefits by supplying sworn affidavits from at least two U.S. citizens to whom they are not related.
A guidance document provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Washington, D.C., on how to implement the new law says states must give a "reasonable opportunity" to recipients to prove their citizenship before cutting off benefits.
As a practical matter, Kennedy said, the new law will mean that most people on Medicaid will have to appear in person at a state office to verify their citizenship, unless they are willing to send their passport or original birth certificate in the mail.
That could prove difficult for people in rural parishes, who might have to travel long distances to the nearest government office.
Kennedy said the new directive came after the state has gone to great lengths in recent years to make it easier for people to re-enroll by mail. "It's creating a significant burden for every recipient," she said.
It also will mean added costs to the state, which will have to dedicate additional staff to help process the applications. Kennedy could not say how much it would cost the state.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Council wants to end state of emergency
By Bruce Eggler Times Picayune/NOLA.com 6/28/06
Staff writer
Ten months after New Orleans was placed under a state of emergency as Hurricane Katrina approached, life for some residents is getting close to normal.
In fact, it’s close enough to normal that the City Council thinks it’s time to talk about ending the state of emergency, which gives Mayor Ray Nagin a host of special powers.
Nagin says the time for ending the emergency powers is getting close but has not yet arrived, and he cites a long list of legal and practical reasons.
The council’s two at-large members, Oliver Thomas and Arnie Fielkow, this week sent Nagin a letter noting that he issued his first emergency proclamation on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina hit, and that he has renewed it every month since then.
Council members have been rankled for many months by the fact that the emergency declaration gives Nagin the power to suspend many normal laws and regulations.
In December, for example, Nagin declared that the council’s vote overriding his veto of a law about where FEMA trailers could be placed was null and void because his emergency powers meant the council had no voice in such issues.
The Thomas-Fielkow letter, however, is the first time the council has publicly proposed ending the city’s emergency status. Written a month after four new members, including Fielkow, took office, the letter also is the first sign of friction between the new council and Nagin, though the request is phrased in respectful terms.
In the letter, Thomas and Fielkow said they want to “open a dialogue” with Nagin on whether it’s time to end the state of emergency. They suggested that the debate should take place at a council meeting “in the near future.” At that session, they said, “the pros and cons of extending or terminating the state of emergency could be fully aired and the public’s input on this important topic could be received.”
Nagin said Tuesday that he “will discuss this request with the council and decide the best approach.”
'The threat of danger’
During a wide-ranging interview at The Times-Picayune a day earlier, Nagin said of the state of emergency: “I would like to come out of it at some point in time, in the next couple of months, but we want to make sure we don’t do it prematurely.”
Nagin and City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields cited several reasons why the emergency declaration has been extended so many times, including that Louisiana has been under a similar state of emergency for the same period, that large portions of the city remain devastated and largely uninhabited, that basic utilities have not been restored to all neighborhoods, that the city continues to be vulnerable to renewed flooding as the height of a new hurricane season approaches, and that city government’s finances remain precarious because the population has been depleted and the tax base crippled.
“The city continues to seek federal and state financial assistance with recovery efforts,” Moses-Fields said. “The Stafford Act provides that federal emergency assistance programs are contingent upon the existence of an emergency.”
In addition, she said, “the continuing state of emergency empowers the city to restrict ingress and egress” in areas that lack basic services, such as parts of the Lower 9th Ward, “as well as to employ state and federal assistance, such as National Guard units, to control criminal activity.”
Moses-Fields said the state of emergency “shall continue until the threat of danger has been dealt with to the extent that the emergency conditions no longer exist.”
By way of comparison, she said, “California was under a state of emergency for over two years because of an electricity shortage from 2001 to 2003. Louisville, Ky., was under a state of emergency for approximately one year because of severe flooding in 1997. New York was under an 11-month state of emergency due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and Florida was under an eight-month state of emergency as a result of hurricanes in 2004.”
Preserving the peace
The state law under which Nagin acted is known as the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act. It says the chief executive of a city may declare a state of emergency whenever a situation “requires immediate action to preserve the public peace, property, health or safety within the municipality or to provide for continued operation of municipal government.”
Under those circumstances, the law says, the mayor may order evacuations, limit access to affected areas, suspend the sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages and firearms, reorganize city departments and “suspend the provisions of any municipal regulatory ordinance prescribing the procedures for conduct of local business, or the orders, rules or regulations of any municipal agency” if necessary to deal with the emergency.
Nagin used those powers to suspend many normal procedures and deadlines for city regulatory agencies.
He also cited those powers during his long dispute with the council late last year about where hundreds of FEMA trailers should be installed.
Council members were critical of plans to place large numbers of trailers in city parks and playgrounds, saying those sites were needed for recreation. But when they passed an ordinance saying group trailer sites would be allowed “only with the prior written approval of the district council member,” Nagin vetoed the measure.
The council voted 7-0 to override the veto, but Nagin said that vote was null and void. Because the city was under a state of emergency, he said, he had the sole legal authority to decide where trailers could go. Although council members were upset by his action, they did not challenge its legality.
In passing the law under which Nagin has acted, Moses-Fields said, the Legislature said its goals included “to reduce the vulnerability of people and communities of this state (to) damage, injury and loss of life and property resulting from natural or manmade catastrophes” and “to provide a setting conducive to the rapid and orderly start of restoration and rehabilitation of persons and property affected by emergencies or disasters.”
She said continuing the state of emergency furthers those goals.
By Bruce Eggler Times Picayune/NOLA.com 6/28/06
Staff writer
Ten months after New Orleans was placed under a state of emergency as Hurricane Katrina approached, life for some residents is getting close to normal.
In fact, it’s close enough to normal that the City Council thinks it’s time to talk about ending the state of emergency, which gives Mayor Ray Nagin a host of special powers.
Nagin says the time for ending the emergency powers is getting close but has not yet arrived, and he cites a long list of legal and practical reasons.
The council’s two at-large members, Oliver Thomas and Arnie Fielkow, this week sent Nagin a letter noting that he issued his first emergency proclamation on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina hit, and that he has renewed it every month since then.
Council members have been rankled for many months by the fact that the emergency declaration gives Nagin the power to suspend many normal laws and regulations.
In December, for example, Nagin declared that the council’s vote overriding his veto of a law about where FEMA trailers could be placed was null and void because his emergency powers meant the council had no voice in such issues.
The Thomas-Fielkow letter, however, is the first time the council has publicly proposed ending the city’s emergency status. Written a month after four new members, including Fielkow, took office, the letter also is the first sign of friction between the new council and Nagin, though the request is phrased in respectful terms.
In the letter, Thomas and Fielkow said they want to “open a dialogue” with Nagin on whether it’s time to end the state of emergency. They suggested that the debate should take place at a council meeting “in the near future.” At that session, they said, “the pros and cons of extending or terminating the state of emergency could be fully aired and the public’s input on this important topic could be received.”
Nagin said Tuesday that he “will discuss this request with the council and decide the best approach.”
'The threat of danger’
During a wide-ranging interview at The Times-Picayune a day earlier, Nagin said of the state of emergency: “I would like to come out of it at some point in time, in the next couple of months, but we want to make sure we don’t do it prematurely.”
Nagin and City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields cited several reasons why the emergency declaration has been extended so many times, including that Louisiana has been under a similar state of emergency for the same period, that large portions of the city remain devastated and largely uninhabited, that basic utilities have not been restored to all neighborhoods, that the city continues to be vulnerable to renewed flooding as the height of a new hurricane season approaches, and that city government’s finances remain precarious because the population has been depleted and the tax base crippled.
“The city continues to seek federal and state financial assistance with recovery efforts,” Moses-Fields said. “The Stafford Act provides that federal emergency assistance programs are contingent upon the existence of an emergency.”
In addition, she said, “the continuing state of emergency empowers the city to restrict ingress and egress” in areas that lack basic services, such as parts of the Lower 9th Ward, “as well as to employ state and federal assistance, such as National Guard units, to control criminal activity.”
Moses-Fields said the state of emergency “shall continue until the threat of danger has been dealt with to the extent that the emergency conditions no longer exist.”
By way of comparison, she said, “California was under a state of emergency for over two years because of an electricity shortage from 2001 to 2003. Louisville, Ky., was under a state of emergency for approximately one year because of severe flooding in 1997. New York was under an 11-month state of emergency due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and Florida was under an eight-month state of emergency as a result of hurricanes in 2004.”
Preserving the peace
The state law under which Nagin acted is known as the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act. It says the chief executive of a city may declare a state of emergency whenever a situation “requires immediate action to preserve the public peace, property, health or safety within the municipality or to provide for continued operation of municipal government.”
Under those circumstances, the law says, the mayor may order evacuations, limit access to affected areas, suspend the sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages and firearms, reorganize city departments and “suspend the provisions of any municipal regulatory ordinance prescribing the procedures for conduct of local business, or the orders, rules or regulations of any municipal agency” if necessary to deal with the emergency.
Nagin used those powers to suspend many normal procedures and deadlines for city regulatory agencies.
He also cited those powers during his long dispute with the council late last year about where hundreds of FEMA trailers should be installed.
Council members were critical of plans to place large numbers of trailers in city parks and playgrounds, saying those sites were needed for recreation. But when they passed an ordinance saying group trailer sites would be allowed “only with the prior written approval of the district council member,” Nagin vetoed the measure.
The council voted 7-0 to override the veto, but Nagin said that vote was null and void. Because the city was under a state of emergency, he said, he had the sole legal authority to decide where trailers could go. Although council members were upset by his action, they did not challenge its legality.
In passing the law under which Nagin has acted, Moses-Fields said, the Legislature said its goals included “to reduce the vulnerability of people and communities of this state (to) damage, injury and loss of life and property resulting from natural or manmade catastrophes” and “to provide a setting conducive to the rapid and orderly start of restoration and rehabilitation of persons and property affected by emergencies or disasters.”
She said continuing the state of emergency furthers those goals.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Displaced residents file suit - Against HUD
Local, federal housing agencies face civil rights allegations
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
New Orleans public housing residents filed a civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the Housing Authority of New Orleans and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, saying the agencies are preventing low-income black families from returning to the city.
Two weeks after HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced sweeping plans to redevelop New Orleans' public housing, with four traditional complexes in line for the wrecking ball, residents filed the suit claiming HUD's plan violates laws of fair housing, equal protection and even international law.
"We want to return to our homes," said Pamela Mahogany, who lived in the sprawling St. Bernard complex in the 7th Ward before the floodwaters of Aug. 29. She has since found a rental using a federal housing voucher but said she wants her neighborhood back.
"We have a right to live in public housing," Mahogany said Tuesday, during a news conference on the steps of the federal court building.
Permanent and affordable
Eighteen people who lived in public housing units before Hurricane Katrina filed the federal suit on behalf of thousands of others who haven't been able to return to their homes in the city's complexes, such as the flood-damaged St. Bernard in the 7th Ward.
The complexes "are permanent, affordable housing units within the community of their choice," the federal lawsuit says. "Instead of moving quickly to reopen habitable units and make repairs where necessary, for the most part, HANO boarded up units. Most recently, HUD made clear that these families would not be able to return anytime soon when it announced its plan to demolish 5,000 public housing units."
HANO has said that the complexes are far too damaged for rehabilitation and that the enormous St. Bernard, along with three other complexes, will be torn down and redeveloped within three years. Meanwhile, only about 1,000 of the 5,100 pre-Katrina public housing units have reopened, HANO said.
Even that number is inflated, said attorneys for the public housing residents Tuesday, who said the number of returning families numbers about 880.
"HUD is constantly changing the rules," said attorney Bill Quigley, one of several representing the residents. "In court, a judge is going to make them (HUD officials) raise their hands and they're going to have to tell the truth or face the consequences."
Looking toward the future
HUD said Tuesday that it wants all residents to be able to return to New Orleans, but it will not place people back into damaged, substandard units.
The redevelopment plan will help New Orleans rebuild a prosperous city, HUD spokesman Jerry Brown said.
"This is about the next generation," Brown said.
Most of the named plaintiffs in the suit continue to live outside of New Orleans since the floodwaters forced them to flee their hometown.
Donna Johnigan, a 30-year resident of B.W. Cooper and a resident leader, remains in Houston but wants HANO to repair her apartment because it is affordable for her, the lawsuit says. Emelda Paul, a 40-year resident of the Lafitte complex in Mid-City, is living in Arizona and said her apartment suffered "minor flood damage, mold and mildew."
The public housing residents are being represented in part by local attorney Tracie Washington and the Advancement Project, a national civil rights group based in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit sues by name Jackson, HUD, HANO, and the two federal officials recently assigned to run HANO's board, Donald Babers and Bill Thorson.
'Not disposable'
Many public housing residents in New Orleans either have been relocated to different public housing complexes, or now use federal Section 8 vouchers to live in the private sector. Others live with families or friends in the New Orleans region.
Having a temporary home isn't the same as returning home, said attorney Judith Browne-Dianis, of the Advancement Project, and the families are in distress.
"Public housing residents are not disposable," Browne-Dianis said Tuesday outside the federal courthouse in New Orleans. "You can't move them around like checkers. When you have boarded up the units and spent money on gates and fences instead of on mold remediation, that is a clear sign you don't want them to come home."
Before Katrina, New Orleans was home to 5,100 families living in public housing and an additional 9,000 families renting homes with Section 8 vouchers.
The city's housing crisis, however, has seen rents spike and available apartments and homes turn into rare finds for people of the highest incomes.
"St. Bernard is not just public housing," said activist Endesha Juakali, who grew up there and lived near the 1,300-unit complex before Katrina. "It's a neighborhood. We want out neighborhood rebuilt, and the anchor of the neighborhood is public housing."
Juakali, a local gadfly who briefly was chairman of HANO under Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, said the public housing protest won't end soon and that it won't be pretty.
"If we're unhappy, we're going to make the whole city unhappy," Juakali said. "We're going to disrupt this whole city. We're going to run the tourists away. None of it comes to us anyway."
HANO is not taking new applications for public housing and the Section 8 waiting list is closed. U.S. District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle will preside over the case.
Local, federal housing agencies face civil rights allegations
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
New Orleans public housing residents filed a civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the Housing Authority of New Orleans and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, saying the agencies are preventing low-income black families from returning to the city.
Two weeks after HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced sweeping plans to redevelop New Orleans' public housing, with four traditional complexes in line for the wrecking ball, residents filed the suit claiming HUD's plan violates laws of fair housing, equal protection and even international law.
"We want to return to our homes," said Pamela Mahogany, who lived in the sprawling St. Bernard complex in the 7th Ward before the floodwaters of Aug. 29. She has since found a rental using a federal housing voucher but said she wants her neighborhood back.
"We have a right to live in public housing," Mahogany said Tuesday, during a news conference on the steps of the federal court building.
Permanent and affordable
Eighteen people who lived in public housing units before Hurricane Katrina filed the federal suit on behalf of thousands of others who haven't been able to return to their homes in the city's complexes, such as the flood-damaged St. Bernard in the 7th Ward.
The complexes "are permanent, affordable housing units within the community of their choice," the federal lawsuit says. "Instead of moving quickly to reopen habitable units and make repairs where necessary, for the most part, HANO boarded up units. Most recently, HUD made clear that these families would not be able to return anytime soon when it announced its plan to demolish 5,000 public housing units."
HANO has said that the complexes are far too damaged for rehabilitation and that the enormous St. Bernard, along with three other complexes, will be torn down and redeveloped within three years. Meanwhile, only about 1,000 of the 5,100 pre-Katrina public housing units have reopened, HANO said.
Even that number is inflated, said attorneys for the public housing residents Tuesday, who said the number of returning families numbers about 880.
"HUD is constantly changing the rules," said attorney Bill Quigley, one of several representing the residents. "In court, a judge is going to make them (HUD officials) raise their hands and they're going to have to tell the truth or face the consequences."
Looking toward the future
HUD said Tuesday that it wants all residents to be able to return to New Orleans, but it will not place people back into damaged, substandard units.
The redevelopment plan will help New Orleans rebuild a prosperous city, HUD spokesman Jerry Brown said.
"This is about the next generation," Brown said.
Most of the named plaintiffs in the suit continue to live outside of New Orleans since the floodwaters forced them to flee their hometown.
Donna Johnigan, a 30-year resident of B.W. Cooper and a resident leader, remains in Houston but wants HANO to repair her apartment because it is affordable for her, the lawsuit says. Emelda Paul, a 40-year resident of the Lafitte complex in Mid-City, is living in Arizona and said her apartment suffered "minor flood damage, mold and mildew."
The public housing residents are being represented in part by local attorney Tracie Washington and the Advancement Project, a national civil rights group based in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit sues by name Jackson, HUD, HANO, and the two federal officials recently assigned to run HANO's board, Donald Babers and Bill Thorson.
'Not disposable'
Many public housing residents in New Orleans either have been relocated to different public housing complexes, or now use federal Section 8 vouchers to live in the private sector. Others live with families or friends in the New Orleans region.
Having a temporary home isn't the same as returning home, said attorney Judith Browne-Dianis, of the Advancement Project, and the families are in distress.
"Public housing residents are not disposable," Browne-Dianis said Tuesday outside the federal courthouse in New Orleans. "You can't move them around like checkers. When you have boarded up the units and spent money on gates and fences instead of on mold remediation, that is a clear sign you don't want them to come home."
Before Katrina, New Orleans was home to 5,100 families living in public housing and an additional 9,000 families renting homes with Section 8 vouchers.
The city's housing crisis, however, has seen rents spike and available apartments and homes turn into rare finds for people of the highest incomes.
"St. Bernard is not just public housing," said activist Endesha Juakali, who grew up there and lived near the 1,300-unit complex before Katrina. "It's a neighborhood. We want out neighborhood rebuilt, and the anchor of the neighborhood is public housing."
Juakali, a local gadfly who briefly was chairman of HANO under Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, said the public housing protest won't end soon and that it won't be pretty.
"If we're unhappy, we're going to make the whole city unhappy," Juakali said. "We're going to disrupt this whole city. We're going to run the tourists away. None of it comes to us anyway."
HANO is not taking new applications for public housing and the Section 8 waiting list is closed. U.S. District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle will preside over the case.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Registered sex offender arrested
He is accused of fondling girl, 9
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard Parish sheriff's deputies have arrested a registered sex offender from Meraux on charges that he fondled a 9-year-old girl.
Milfred J. Nunez, 66, 3121 East St. Bernard Highway, who was on probation for a 2002 conviction, was arrested Saturday and booked with one count of sexual battery and one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile, said Maj. John Doran, St. Bernard's chief of detectives.
The juvenile division of the Special Criminal Investigation Division interviewed the child after her mother contacted authorities, Doran said
The girl told authorities of two visits to Nunez's Meraux residence between June 15 and June 23. She told police that during the visits, Nunez told her to lie down and touched her inappropriately.
Doran said one incident involved Nunez allegedly touching the girl's genitals. He said in the other episode, Nunez touched her under her clothes, but not her genitals.
Doran said Nunez was assigned a $50,000 bond, but he is still in St. Bernard Parish Prison on a probation hold for the earlier conviction, which was for a charge of indecent behavior with a juvenile.
He is accused of fondling girl, 9
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard Parish sheriff's deputies have arrested a registered sex offender from Meraux on charges that he fondled a 9-year-old girl.
Milfred J. Nunez, 66, 3121 East St. Bernard Highway, who was on probation for a 2002 conviction, was arrested Saturday and booked with one count of sexual battery and one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile, said Maj. John Doran, St. Bernard's chief of detectives.
The juvenile division of the Special Criminal Investigation Division interviewed the child after her mother contacted authorities, Doran said
The girl told authorities of two visits to Nunez's Meraux residence between June 15 and June 23. She told police that during the visits, Nunez told her to lie down and touched her inappropriately.
Doran said one incident involved Nunez allegedly touching the girl's genitals. He said in the other episode, Nunez touched her under her clothes, but not her genitals.
Doran said Nunez was assigned a $50,000 bond, but he is still in St. Bernard Parish Prison on a probation hold for the earlier conviction, which was for a charge of indecent behavior with a juvenile.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Flood insurance bill targets some vacation homes
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - Mobile Press Register/AL.com
By SEAN REILLY
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Owners of thousands of older vacation homes and business properties in Alabama could pay more for flood insurance under a House bill overwhelmingly approved Tuesday that would phase out government subsidies on such structures.
While premium increases are currently capped at 10 percent per year, the legislation would allow rises of up to 15 percent annually for vacation homes, second homes and business structures built before the early to mid-1970s.
Under a long-standing loophole, policyholders in those cases generally pay lower than average rates. The increases would continue until the policyholders no longer receive discounted premiums.
"If you can afford one of these homes, you can afford to pay your freight," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, an Ohio Republican who led Tuesday's debate as record rainfall coincidentally continued to cause flooding throughout the Washington, D.C., area.
Out of almost 45,600 flood insurance policies in Alabama, about 3,700 cover subsidized vacation homes and other "non-primary residences," according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the program. It was not clear Tuesday how many businesses properties in the state stand to be affected.
Over Democratic protests, however, lawmakers also agreed on a voice vote to an amendment by U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., to phase out similar discounts for primary residences that are sold after the legislation takes effect.
The amendment will put everyone on the "same level playing field," Garrett said. But U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the financial services committee, warned that it could hurt the value of homes in low-income areas and discourage communities from participating in the flood insurance program.
The final bill passed 416-4, with the support of U.S. Reps. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile and Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, as well as the other five members of Alabama's House delegation. The full Senate has yet to act on a somewhat more stringent measure approved last month by the Senate banking committee, chaired by Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa.
If lawmakers have traditionally been reluctant to boost costs for policyholders, they may have little choice after last year's hurricanes produced some 225,000 claims and left the program virtually bankrupt.
Simply to keep paying claims, the House bill would allow continued borrowing from the federal treasury up to a limit of $25 billion. The measure would also increase fines on federally regulated banks and other lenders that fail to make borrowers in flood-prone areas buy insurance.
"This is a major first step" in the right direction, said David Conrad, a flood insurance expert at the National Wildlife Federation, a Washington, D.C.- area advocacy group.
But in the long run, Conrad said, "it's going to take more than eliminating these subsidies to completely fix the flood insurance program. More needs to be done with state and local governments to start directing development ... out of the most risky locations."
In some respects, the House bill appears weaker than its Senate banking committee counterpart. The Senate measure, for example, allows yearly premium increases of up to 25 percent on subsidized vacation homes and would eventually force more people to buy policies.
And in a move that critics say could actually increase the flood insurance program's future losses, the House bill would also increase coverage limits for the first time in more than a decade. For homeowners, maximum coverage for the house and its contents would jump to $470,000, up significantly from the existing cap of $350,000.
But the House measure mandates an investigation into whether insurance company adjusters improperly classified hurricane damage claims as flood-related -- and thus payable by the federal flood insurance program--instead of wind-related, which would be paid out of the insurer's pocket.
The inquiry would be conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, an internal agency watchdog. It is being sought by U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, a Bay St. Louis Democrat who has accused insurance companies of systematic wrongdoing in what's become known as the "wind-versus-water" debate.
Because providers of homeowners' insurance often also market flood policies, they have a natural incentive to push losses on to the government's ledger, Taylor again argued Tuesday.
"It is a system ripe for abuse," he said, "and I'm convinced it has been abused."
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - Mobile Press Register/AL.com
By SEAN REILLY
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Owners of thousands of older vacation homes and business properties in Alabama could pay more for flood insurance under a House bill overwhelmingly approved Tuesday that would phase out government subsidies on such structures.
While premium increases are currently capped at 10 percent per year, the legislation would allow rises of up to 15 percent annually for vacation homes, second homes and business structures built before the early to mid-1970s.
Under a long-standing loophole, policyholders in those cases generally pay lower than average rates. The increases would continue until the policyholders no longer receive discounted premiums.
"If you can afford one of these homes, you can afford to pay your freight," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, an Ohio Republican who led Tuesday's debate as record rainfall coincidentally continued to cause flooding throughout the Washington, D.C., area.
Out of almost 45,600 flood insurance policies in Alabama, about 3,700 cover subsidized vacation homes and other "non-primary residences," according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the program. It was not clear Tuesday how many businesses properties in the state stand to be affected.
Over Democratic protests, however, lawmakers also agreed on a voice vote to an amendment by U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., to phase out similar discounts for primary residences that are sold after the legislation takes effect.
The amendment will put everyone on the "same level playing field," Garrett said. But U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the financial services committee, warned that it could hurt the value of homes in low-income areas and discourage communities from participating in the flood insurance program.
The final bill passed 416-4, with the support of U.S. Reps. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile and Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, as well as the other five members of Alabama's House delegation. The full Senate has yet to act on a somewhat more stringent measure approved last month by the Senate banking committee, chaired by Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa.
If lawmakers have traditionally been reluctant to boost costs for policyholders, they may have little choice after last year's hurricanes produced some 225,000 claims and left the program virtually bankrupt.
Simply to keep paying claims, the House bill would allow continued borrowing from the federal treasury up to a limit of $25 billion. The measure would also increase fines on federally regulated banks and other lenders that fail to make borrowers in flood-prone areas buy insurance.
"This is a major first step" in the right direction, said David Conrad, a flood insurance expert at the National Wildlife Federation, a Washington, D.C.- area advocacy group.
But in the long run, Conrad said, "it's going to take more than eliminating these subsidies to completely fix the flood insurance program. More needs to be done with state and local governments to start directing development ... out of the most risky locations."
In some respects, the House bill appears weaker than its Senate banking committee counterpart. The Senate measure, for example, allows yearly premium increases of up to 25 percent on subsidized vacation homes and would eventually force more people to buy policies.
And in a move that critics say could actually increase the flood insurance program's future losses, the House bill would also increase coverage limits for the first time in more than a decade. For homeowners, maximum coverage for the house and its contents would jump to $470,000, up significantly from the existing cap of $350,000.
But the House measure mandates an investigation into whether insurance company adjusters improperly classified hurricane damage claims as flood-related -- and thus payable by the federal flood insurance program--instead of wind-related, which would be paid out of the insurer's pocket.
The inquiry would be conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, an internal agency watchdog. It is being sought by U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, a Bay St. Louis Democrat who has accused insurance companies of systematic wrongdoing in what's become known as the "wind-versus-water" debate.
Because providers of homeowners' insurance often also market flood policies, they have a natural incentive to push losses on to the government's ledger, Taylor again argued Tuesday.
"It is a system ripe for abuse," he said, "and I'm convinced it has been abused."
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Audrey2Katrina
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GCN Recovery News Report
Gulf Coast News Network Update:
This report will constantly be updated as information becomes available
Updated 6/28/06 10:36 AM
Long Beach voters approved a non-binding resolution supporting casinos in their city. Tuesday's vote was much closer than past referendums on the matter with 2,179 people voted for gaming, while 1,801 people voted against it. The non-binding referendum asked residents if they were for or against land-based gaming in Long Beach north of U.S. 90 and across from the harbor.
The delay in distributing checks to homeowners who qualified for the state's Homeowner Grant Program should be resolved next month, according to officials with the Mississippi Development Authority, which is administering the program. The grant program was set up to help homeowners that lost their homes to Katrina's storm surge who live outside the federal flood zones. The program is also being revised to include more participants and is increasing the amount that can be paid to accommodate higher rebuilding costs.The program would pay up to $150,000 to homeowners, but most will not be receiving that much. About 16,000 homeowners qualified for the program. The state had anticipated that 30,000 would participate. Barbour said the program has a period for comment before the money is released, and a filing by the National Mortgage Bankers Association has held up the funds. The bankers want the money distributed to them instead of to the homeowners. The MDA June 27th announced that they are expanding the program to include low and middle income homeowners who lost their homes within the flood zones and are asking such residents to apply.
Gulf Coast News Network Update:
This report will constantly be updated as information becomes available
Updated 6/28/06 10:36 AM
Long Beach voters approved a non-binding resolution supporting casinos in their city. Tuesday's vote was much closer than past referendums on the matter with 2,179 people voted for gaming, while 1,801 people voted against it. The non-binding referendum asked residents if they were for or against land-based gaming in Long Beach north of U.S. 90 and across from the harbor.
The delay in distributing checks to homeowners who qualified for the state's Homeowner Grant Program should be resolved next month, according to officials with the Mississippi Development Authority, which is administering the program. The grant program was set up to help homeowners that lost their homes to Katrina's storm surge who live outside the federal flood zones. The program is also being revised to include more participants and is increasing the amount that can be paid to accommodate higher rebuilding costs.The program would pay up to $150,000 to homeowners, but most will not be receiving that much. About 16,000 homeowners qualified for the program. The state had anticipated that 30,000 would participate. Barbour said the program has a period for comment before the money is released, and a filing by the National Mortgage Bankers Association has held up the funds. The bankers want the money distributed to them instead of to the homeowners. The MDA June 27th announced that they are expanding the program to include low and middle income homeowners who lost their homes within the flood zones and are asking such residents to apply.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Gulf Coast Network: Special-- Updated:
Dane’s Story – Part 3
The following is a recalling of recent events as they really happened days and months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The story is being told by Dane St. Pe, a resident for many years of coastal Mississippi. His story is so powerful, that it cannot be taken in all at once, but was broken up into a three-part inspirational series of stories that shows the true depth and breadth of the human spirit of tough, coastal Mississippians. Dane St. Pe tells us of just what transpired in his search to survive.-Ed.
The presence of a Higher Power has to be in such a vast amount of coincidences…but then again, the Lord helps those who help themselves.
[Edit note: Parts 1 and 2 are found in earlier postings]
By Mark Proulx - Special to GCN Filed 6/27/06 GCN
“My plan to come back only included burying my dad and trying to start a life for myself. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought God had plans for me…” - Dane
In preparation for a return to Mississippi, Dane began the torturous task of contacting FEMA. His future didn’t look good. Dane had filed for personal bankruptcy over a year before; his credit was in the toilet – along with most of his possessions – and he literally had nowhere to live.
A friend whom he contacted suggested that he file for a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, since it would look better to FEMA if he had been turned down. An SBA loan approval or denial, his friend mentioned, could also take months. With nothing more to lose, Dane applied to the SBA, knowing that this was probably the start of his road into hell, like so many others he had heard about.
The FEMA people Dane had talked to on the phone couldn’t give him any info on his FEMA trailer and said he would have to go back to Mississippi to the local FEMA office in Waveland to find out. Dane called his friend David and told him he was finally ready to come home. David filled him in on the horrors awaiting him in Hancock County, especially how hard it would be to get a trailer.
Not only that, but there were a good many people still living in tents.
“I told David I don’t care if I have to live in a tent. I have to get out of Florida and come home.”
A couple of days before New Year’s when he decided to go back home, Dane began watching the Weather Channel. Just his luck, the day he planned to travel back was the day it was supposed to be raining. Everything Dane owned was stuffed into the back of the little beat up truck he had bought from his first job and he couldn’t afford to let it get all wet...so he had to wait. Like a storm of foreboding, that’s when Dane’s luck completely changed.
“About 10:00 a.m. the next day, my phone rang. It was a lady from FEMA asking me if I still needed a trailer. I almost flipped and told her if it weren’t raining in Florida I would have been in Waveland knocking on her door that morning.”
At the first opportunity, Dane left for Bay St. Louis. The FEMA trailer, a little Cavalier unit with a tiny kitchenette, cramped living room and a bath/shower was situated in the new trailer area directly across from Hancock Medical Center. Sitting in his little trailer, Dane could only reflect how lucky he had been up to that point. Staying about a week, Dane traveled back to Florida to finish up a job he needed to complete before he could permanently move back to his little trailer “home.” After about a week in Florida, Dane was shocked and dumbfounded by how his luck had turned.
“I went to the bank to deposit some money, and I happened to look at my receipt when I walked out of the Wachovia branch in Florida. I noticed I had a sixteen thousand dollar balance in my account! I almost passed out. I even went back into the bank to see if a mistake had been made. They told me it was no mistake. Evidently, the SBA loan had been flat out denied, so the FEMA grant kicked in and they deposited it directly to my account.”
That very day Dane went out and bought a better work truck and a tool box, and filled it with all the tools he could. Sometime during the day, a feeling came over him that he needed to get office supplies if he were going to be a real business. So, he went to Best Buy, bought a lap top, printer, copier, fax all-in-one, and all of the office stuff he could think of to start a business back in Mississippi.
Home he came. Dane immediately went over to the train depot in Bay St. Louis to apply for his electrical contractor’s license. Since the testing was scheduled for once a month, Dane had to wait three weeks for his first shot at it.
As luck would have it, the entire test was residential electrical code, something he wasn’t very familiar with, coming from a commercial and industrial background. Frustrated and disappointed, Dane did not pass the test the first time.
A lady at the depot felt for him, so she told Dane he could come by and familiarize himself with the Residential Blue book at the office anytime he wanted. He couldn’t take it with him, but she could tell he was serious about getting on his feet. The lady was so sincere about wanting to help out Dane that he felt like he couldn’t let her down. Besides, having been back for a little while, he was certainly aware of how desperately Hancock County needed good contractors.
For the next couple of months, Dane kept himself busy- actually too busy to take the contractor’s license test again. However, over this time he was able to familiarize himself with the code to the point he felt confident enough to take the test again. And pass he did. Immediately after receiving the news that he had passed, Dane was awarded a contractor’s license for his newly-established business - St. Pe & Son Electric.
Running back and forth across the wasteland of Bay St. Louis and Waveland doing jobs, Dane came across those same knocked-over pillars in Clermont Harbor he had seen those long, awful months ago as he was climbing out of the wreckage and mountains of debris. A powerful emotion poured out of him upon seeing those pillars.
“We need to make a monument out of these things,” he said to himself and he began talking to land owners on either side of the road on which the pillars stood. He was told the pillars actually resided on county property.
Taking time out of his day, Dane went to the county offices to find out if he could salvage those pillars and erect a memorial specifically for Clermont Harbor. He was told by one of the personal assistants to the supervisors there that he should talk to Charles Gray at the Hancock County Historical Society to find out about using them as a memorial. However, she would definitely put Dane on the agenda for next board of supervisors meeting to discuss using these pillars as a memorial.
Dane sought out the advice of Charles Gray about his desire to erect a memorial out of the pillars. After a long talk, Mr. Gray was ecstatic about the idea. Dane’s simple plan to salvage these pillars seemed to be a fitting memorial since Clermont Harbor had such a rich history. Gray decided it was not enough and immediately started helping Dane put plans into place to produce an entire history of Clermont Harbor, as well as a full proposal to erect the pillars as a memorial. As the project progressed, more professional people found out about it, and volunteered some time to draw up blueprints and research documents.
“Eddie Coleman, Charles Gray and I put the proposal together with pictures of the pillars before and after, the history of Clermont Harbor and our idea for a beach memorial to bring before the Board of Supervisors of Hancock County. Much to my surprise, they approved it, but said I would have to get permission from the state since I wanted to build the monument on the beach.”
On May 5, Dane met with a a representative from the Department of Marine Resources and Ms. Margaret Bretz, from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. He showed them the blueprints a local architect had done for them for free. Impressed and persuaded by his sincerity, they approved the monument.
“For almost five months I struggled to get back on my feet and figure out what God had planned for me. When I got back and saw those pillars again, I just knew God wanted me to do this. As soon as I started to go to work on it, people were waiting to help me out every step of the way. All that was left was to get structural drawings, go through the permit process, find out how much it will cost, raise the money, and build it. I have a lot of faith that God wanted me to see this through. Ever since Katrina, my life has pushed me in this one direction.”
But something still wasn’t right. Dane knew there was far more to be done.
So he thought.
And he thought.
“Every day I see people that didn’t have flood insurance or had it, but are getting the run around from the insurance companies. Not many people want the grant from FEMA because you have to get $350,000 of insurance and put a lien on your own property. The rules aren’t fair. There’s too much tied to the money being given out. People just need help…not excuses or strings attached. I’m sick of it. I think the money should go directly to the people who need it the most with no middle man taking a huge chunk out for himself. Our people need help…and I’m going to do something about it.”
Then it hit him like a bolt of lightening.
As the plans to unveil the beach memorial began to come to fruition, Dane held a meeting with the professionals who had been involved in the process.
“What if,” he said, “we expand this into a full-blown non-profit with the idea of turning over every dime we can to people in desperate need…people who have been left high and dry in all of Hancock County? People with absolutely no help from the insurance companies, FEMA, the government, or loans? What if we develop an organization that specifically builds houses and give money directly to people who have no possible means of support?”
Within a very short period of time, they all agreed that the memorial was the galvanizing effort needed to bring about the life of a new organization dedicated to helping out the citizens of Hancock County.
The day that Dane, the Historical Society, Hancock County and the State of Mississippi were to unveil the beach memorial, Dane and his partners wanted to kick off the first ever Clermont Harbor Festival, a benefit festival to raise money for the people in Hancock County.
Dane’s idea for the festival, however, was too big for the Historical Society to handle so he was counseled to start a non-profit foundation. He asked the professionals he had worked with to be founding members of this new foundation because he did not want to be solely responsible for the amount of money needed to be raised. They readily agreed.
That day, the “Harbor of Hope Foundation” was born.
The new Harbor of Hope Foundation is now in the process of attaining 501(C)(3) status. They have a construction consultant and an attorney on the board, and Dane as the spokesman.
The plans for the foundation are that none of the members will be paid at all. The board members are strictly voluntary. Five percent of what is raised is planned to go to the Hancock County Historical Society as a way of protecting and preserving all of Hancock County’s treasures and memories. Twenty percent of donations raised at the festival will go to the Clermont Harbor Civic Association every year to help rebuild the town Dane deeply loves and in which he grew up. Fifty percent is slated to go to people across Hancock County with the stipulation that it goes directly to people who meet the requirements of “need.” Twenty-five percent will be directed by the foundation to other special projects.
The target date for the unveiling and the festival is September 22-24, 2006.
“I want to hand carry checks to our neighbors,” says Dane, “and say, ‘Forget FEMA and forget the insurance companies. This money is from your neighbors, your family and your friends from all over the country.’ I believe that if organizations in major metropolitan cities can throw millions of dollars away on causes I have never heard of, then I truly believe we can raise a lot of money for our own people…some great people who have been forgotten. We had a life here once, a good life. The only way we will bring back the Coast is to get these people back in their homes and on their feet.”
(Dane’s personal note: I cannot do this by myself even though I’ m crazy enough to believe I can. I need help. Help me help the people around me to rebuild their lives. I never believed in mourning a person’s death, but rather to celebrate his life. I have tried to no avail to get in touch with any of the bike builders on the Discovery Channel - Jesse James, Orange County Choppers or Billy Lane - to see if I can get them to build a bike to be auctioned off at the festival. I believe we can get a lot of people to come. I need someone in the music industry to help get some really big name groups in country, rock, jazz, etc., to come to play for this benefit festival. I want to give away a home to a family like the people on “Extreme Make Over Home Edition” do. I want to see a bass boat raffled off and also a couple of four-wheel ATV’s for the hunters. I need start-up money for the festival and for starting up this foundation. Help me throw the biggest party the Gulf Coast has ever seen and show the world how good old Southern people celebrate in the face of adversity.
Since we don’t have the papers approved yet, Mr. Charles Gray is willing to receive donations through his functioning 501(c)(3) and fund our efforts until we are approved. If you care to help, you can send your donation to:
Hancock County Historical Society
P. O. Box 312
Bay Saint Louis, MS 39520
(228-467-4090)
Please note on your check: Clermont Harbor Memorial.
My information is:
Dane M. St. Pe
P. O. Box 2842
Bay Saint Louis, MS 39521
email: stpeandson@yahoo.com
(504-473-7466)
Please don’t send me personally anything. I can rebuild my life on my own, but there are a lot of people around me who can’t. I cannot just sit by and do nothing. That would be unacceptable. Thank you and may the God of Heaven richly bless you for your giving.)
Dane’s Story – Part 3
The following is a recalling of recent events as they really happened days and months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The story is being told by Dane St. Pe, a resident for many years of coastal Mississippi. His story is so powerful, that it cannot be taken in all at once, but was broken up into a three-part inspirational series of stories that shows the true depth and breadth of the human spirit of tough, coastal Mississippians. Dane St. Pe tells us of just what transpired in his search to survive.-Ed.
The presence of a Higher Power has to be in such a vast amount of coincidences…but then again, the Lord helps those who help themselves.
[Edit note: Parts 1 and 2 are found in earlier postings]
By Mark Proulx - Special to GCN Filed 6/27/06 GCN
“My plan to come back only included burying my dad and trying to start a life for myself. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought God had plans for me…” - Dane
In preparation for a return to Mississippi, Dane began the torturous task of contacting FEMA. His future didn’t look good. Dane had filed for personal bankruptcy over a year before; his credit was in the toilet – along with most of his possessions – and he literally had nowhere to live.
A friend whom he contacted suggested that he file for a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, since it would look better to FEMA if he had been turned down. An SBA loan approval or denial, his friend mentioned, could also take months. With nothing more to lose, Dane applied to the SBA, knowing that this was probably the start of his road into hell, like so many others he had heard about.
The FEMA people Dane had talked to on the phone couldn’t give him any info on his FEMA trailer and said he would have to go back to Mississippi to the local FEMA office in Waveland to find out. Dane called his friend David and told him he was finally ready to come home. David filled him in on the horrors awaiting him in Hancock County, especially how hard it would be to get a trailer.
Not only that, but there were a good many people still living in tents.
“I told David I don’t care if I have to live in a tent. I have to get out of Florida and come home.”
A couple of days before New Year’s when he decided to go back home, Dane began watching the Weather Channel. Just his luck, the day he planned to travel back was the day it was supposed to be raining. Everything Dane owned was stuffed into the back of the little beat up truck he had bought from his first job and he couldn’t afford to let it get all wet...so he had to wait. Like a storm of foreboding, that’s when Dane’s luck completely changed.
“About 10:00 a.m. the next day, my phone rang. It was a lady from FEMA asking me if I still needed a trailer. I almost flipped and told her if it weren’t raining in Florida I would have been in Waveland knocking on her door that morning.”
At the first opportunity, Dane left for Bay St. Louis. The FEMA trailer, a little Cavalier unit with a tiny kitchenette, cramped living room and a bath/shower was situated in the new trailer area directly across from Hancock Medical Center. Sitting in his little trailer, Dane could only reflect how lucky he had been up to that point. Staying about a week, Dane traveled back to Florida to finish up a job he needed to complete before he could permanently move back to his little trailer “home.” After about a week in Florida, Dane was shocked and dumbfounded by how his luck had turned.
“I went to the bank to deposit some money, and I happened to look at my receipt when I walked out of the Wachovia branch in Florida. I noticed I had a sixteen thousand dollar balance in my account! I almost passed out. I even went back into the bank to see if a mistake had been made. They told me it was no mistake. Evidently, the SBA loan had been flat out denied, so the FEMA grant kicked in and they deposited it directly to my account.”
That very day Dane went out and bought a better work truck and a tool box, and filled it with all the tools he could. Sometime during the day, a feeling came over him that he needed to get office supplies if he were going to be a real business. So, he went to Best Buy, bought a lap top, printer, copier, fax all-in-one, and all of the office stuff he could think of to start a business back in Mississippi.
Home he came. Dane immediately went over to the train depot in Bay St. Louis to apply for his electrical contractor’s license. Since the testing was scheduled for once a month, Dane had to wait three weeks for his first shot at it.
As luck would have it, the entire test was residential electrical code, something he wasn’t very familiar with, coming from a commercial and industrial background. Frustrated and disappointed, Dane did not pass the test the first time.
A lady at the depot felt for him, so she told Dane he could come by and familiarize himself with the Residential Blue book at the office anytime he wanted. He couldn’t take it with him, but she could tell he was serious about getting on his feet. The lady was so sincere about wanting to help out Dane that he felt like he couldn’t let her down. Besides, having been back for a little while, he was certainly aware of how desperately Hancock County needed good contractors.
For the next couple of months, Dane kept himself busy- actually too busy to take the contractor’s license test again. However, over this time he was able to familiarize himself with the code to the point he felt confident enough to take the test again. And pass he did. Immediately after receiving the news that he had passed, Dane was awarded a contractor’s license for his newly-established business - St. Pe & Son Electric.
Running back and forth across the wasteland of Bay St. Louis and Waveland doing jobs, Dane came across those same knocked-over pillars in Clermont Harbor he had seen those long, awful months ago as he was climbing out of the wreckage and mountains of debris. A powerful emotion poured out of him upon seeing those pillars.
“We need to make a monument out of these things,” he said to himself and he began talking to land owners on either side of the road on which the pillars stood. He was told the pillars actually resided on county property.
Taking time out of his day, Dane went to the county offices to find out if he could salvage those pillars and erect a memorial specifically for Clermont Harbor. He was told by one of the personal assistants to the supervisors there that he should talk to Charles Gray at the Hancock County Historical Society to find out about using them as a memorial. However, she would definitely put Dane on the agenda for next board of supervisors meeting to discuss using these pillars as a memorial.
Dane sought out the advice of Charles Gray about his desire to erect a memorial out of the pillars. After a long talk, Mr. Gray was ecstatic about the idea. Dane’s simple plan to salvage these pillars seemed to be a fitting memorial since Clermont Harbor had such a rich history. Gray decided it was not enough and immediately started helping Dane put plans into place to produce an entire history of Clermont Harbor, as well as a full proposal to erect the pillars as a memorial. As the project progressed, more professional people found out about it, and volunteered some time to draw up blueprints and research documents.
“Eddie Coleman, Charles Gray and I put the proposal together with pictures of the pillars before and after, the history of Clermont Harbor and our idea for a beach memorial to bring before the Board of Supervisors of Hancock County. Much to my surprise, they approved it, but said I would have to get permission from the state since I wanted to build the monument on the beach.”
On May 5, Dane met with a a representative from the Department of Marine Resources and Ms. Margaret Bretz, from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. He showed them the blueprints a local architect had done for them for free. Impressed and persuaded by his sincerity, they approved the monument.
“For almost five months I struggled to get back on my feet and figure out what God had planned for me. When I got back and saw those pillars again, I just knew God wanted me to do this. As soon as I started to go to work on it, people were waiting to help me out every step of the way. All that was left was to get structural drawings, go through the permit process, find out how much it will cost, raise the money, and build it. I have a lot of faith that God wanted me to see this through. Ever since Katrina, my life has pushed me in this one direction.”
But something still wasn’t right. Dane knew there was far more to be done.
So he thought.
And he thought.
“Every day I see people that didn’t have flood insurance or had it, but are getting the run around from the insurance companies. Not many people want the grant from FEMA because you have to get $350,000 of insurance and put a lien on your own property. The rules aren’t fair. There’s too much tied to the money being given out. People just need help…not excuses or strings attached. I’m sick of it. I think the money should go directly to the people who need it the most with no middle man taking a huge chunk out for himself. Our people need help…and I’m going to do something about it.”
Then it hit him like a bolt of lightening.
As the plans to unveil the beach memorial began to come to fruition, Dane held a meeting with the professionals who had been involved in the process.
“What if,” he said, “we expand this into a full-blown non-profit with the idea of turning over every dime we can to people in desperate need…people who have been left high and dry in all of Hancock County? People with absolutely no help from the insurance companies, FEMA, the government, or loans? What if we develop an organization that specifically builds houses and give money directly to people who have no possible means of support?”
Within a very short period of time, they all agreed that the memorial was the galvanizing effort needed to bring about the life of a new organization dedicated to helping out the citizens of Hancock County.
The day that Dane, the Historical Society, Hancock County and the State of Mississippi were to unveil the beach memorial, Dane and his partners wanted to kick off the first ever Clermont Harbor Festival, a benefit festival to raise money for the people in Hancock County.
Dane’s idea for the festival, however, was too big for the Historical Society to handle so he was counseled to start a non-profit foundation. He asked the professionals he had worked with to be founding members of this new foundation because he did not want to be solely responsible for the amount of money needed to be raised. They readily agreed.
That day, the “Harbor of Hope Foundation” was born.
The new Harbor of Hope Foundation is now in the process of attaining 501(C)(3) status. They have a construction consultant and an attorney on the board, and Dane as the spokesman.
The plans for the foundation are that none of the members will be paid at all. The board members are strictly voluntary. Five percent of what is raised is planned to go to the Hancock County Historical Society as a way of protecting and preserving all of Hancock County’s treasures and memories. Twenty percent of donations raised at the festival will go to the Clermont Harbor Civic Association every year to help rebuild the town Dane deeply loves and in which he grew up. Fifty percent is slated to go to people across Hancock County with the stipulation that it goes directly to people who meet the requirements of “need.” Twenty-five percent will be directed by the foundation to other special projects.
The target date for the unveiling and the festival is September 22-24, 2006.
“I want to hand carry checks to our neighbors,” says Dane, “and say, ‘Forget FEMA and forget the insurance companies. This money is from your neighbors, your family and your friends from all over the country.’ I believe that if organizations in major metropolitan cities can throw millions of dollars away on causes I have never heard of, then I truly believe we can raise a lot of money for our own people…some great people who have been forgotten. We had a life here once, a good life. The only way we will bring back the Coast is to get these people back in their homes and on their feet.”
(Dane’s personal note: I cannot do this by myself even though I’ m crazy enough to believe I can. I need help. Help me help the people around me to rebuild their lives. I never believed in mourning a person’s death, but rather to celebrate his life. I have tried to no avail to get in touch with any of the bike builders on the Discovery Channel - Jesse James, Orange County Choppers or Billy Lane - to see if I can get them to build a bike to be auctioned off at the festival. I believe we can get a lot of people to come. I need someone in the music industry to help get some really big name groups in country, rock, jazz, etc., to come to play for this benefit festival. I want to give away a home to a family like the people on “Extreme Make Over Home Edition” do. I want to see a bass boat raffled off and also a couple of four-wheel ATV’s for the hunters. I need start-up money for the festival and for starting up this foundation. Help me throw the biggest party the Gulf Coast has ever seen and show the world how good old Southern people celebrate in the face of adversity.
Since we don’t have the papers approved yet, Mr. Charles Gray is willing to receive donations through his functioning 501(c)(3) and fund our efforts until we are approved. If you care to help, you can send your donation to:
Hancock County Historical Society
P. O. Box 312
Bay Saint Louis, MS 39520
(228-467-4090)
Please note on your check: Clermont Harbor Memorial.
My information is:
Dane M. St. Pe
P. O. Box 2842
Bay Saint Louis, MS 39521
email: stpeandson@yahoo.com
(504-473-7466)
Please don’t send me personally anything. I can rebuild my life on my own, but there are a lot of people around me who can’t. I cannot just sit by and do nothing. That would be unacceptable. Thank you and may the God of Heaven richly bless you for your giving.)
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Audrey2Katrina
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Fire follows Katrina loss
Family now has no home
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
sunherald.com 6/28/06
Quantella Lee and her four children have fallen victim to a post-Katrina problem the Harrison County fire marshal calls "electrical overload."
The single mother's FEMA trailer and another trailer occupied by her niece were hooked to the electrical supply at Lee's storm-damaged home on Lobouy Road in the DeLisle community near Pass Christian. Building supplies and new appliances sat inside the wood-frame home awaiting installation.
A fire June 2 caused by an electrical overload destroyed Lee's home and left her FEMA trailer uninhabitable. Her children, asleep while Lee was at work, escaped shoeless but without injury.
Friends of the family have set up a benefit bank account to help them start over again.
"These trailers were designed to be used on weekends, not 24 hours a day, seven days a week, month after month," said George Mixon of Harrison County Fire Services.
"It's just overloading the circuitry the way FEMA set up some of these trailers."
Lee's home was uninsured when Hurricane Katrina hit and she didn't qualify for an SBA loan for repairs. Lee said she used $4,000 from FEMA to buy paint, shingles and other supplies. Her contractor called her Tuesday to set a start date.
"Seeing how I don't have a house to repair now, there's nothing I can do," said Lee.
She hopes a benefit fund created in her name at Hancock Bank will help her family start over. They now live in a FEMA trailer park on County Farm Road.
Lee was at work at Oreck Manufacturing in Long Beach the morning the fire started. She rushed home to see the hopeless task of the DeLisle Volunteer Fire Department. Her eldest son hugged her.
"We don't have anything, but we're all right," she recalled the words of 16-year-old Demetrious.
Lee has a 2-year-old son, Darion, and two daughters, De'Aja, 15, and Dre'a, 6 months.
"I don't make a lot of money," Lee said. "To rebuild, I'll have to start from the ground up. I'm trying to find out what kind of help is available."
Family now has no home
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
sunherald.com 6/28/06
Quantella Lee and her four children have fallen victim to a post-Katrina problem the Harrison County fire marshal calls "electrical overload."
The single mother's FEMA trailer and another trailer occupied by her niece were hooked to the electrical supply at Lee's storm-damaged home on Lobouy Road in the DeLisle community near Pass Christian. Building supplies and new appliances sat inside the wood-frame home awaiting installation.
A fire June 2 caused by an electrical overload destroyed Lee's home and left her FEMA trailer uninhabitable. Her children, asleep while Lee was at work, escaped shoeless but without injury.
Friends of the family have set up a benefit bank account to help them start over again.
"These trailers were designed to be used on weekends, not 24 hours a day, seven days a week, month after month," said George Mixon of Harrison County Fire Services.
"It's just overloading the circuitry the way FEMA set up some of these trailers."
Lee's home was uninsured when Hurricane Katrina hit and she didn't qualify for an SBA loan for repairs. Lee said she used $4,000 from FEMA to buy paint, shingles and other supplies. Her contractor called her Tuesday to set a start date.
"Seeing how I don't have a house to repair now, there's nothing I can do," said Lee.
She hopes a benefit fund created in her name at Hancock Bank will help her family start over. They now live in a FEMA trailer park on County Farm Road.
Lee was at work at Oreck Manufacturing in Long Beach the morning the fire started. She rushed home to see the hopeless task of the DeLisle Volunteer Fire Department. Her eldest son hugged her.
"We don't have anything, but we're all right," she recalled the words of 16-year-old Demetrious.
Lee has a 2-year-old son, Darion, and two daughters, De'Aja, 15, and Dre'a, 6 months.
"I don't make a lot of money," Lee said. "To rebuild, I'll have to start from the ground up. I'm trying to find out what kind of help is available."
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Audrey2Katrina
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- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Flood probe approved
Republicans don't block bill
By MAX FOLLMER 6/28/06
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved flood-insurance legislation that also mandates an investigation into whether insurance companies fraudulently denied Katrina-related claims, despite earlier concerns Republicans might try to block the probe.
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, proposed the investigation as an amendment to a larger bill giving an additional $25 billion to the National Flood Insurance Program to cover claims stemming from Katrina. A similar flood-insurance overhaul is pending in the Senate.
The House voted 416-4 to approve the measure, which also raises the maximum coverage limits for residences from $250,000 to $335,000, and for businesses and churches from $500,- 000 to $670,000.
Earlier, Taylor aides said there was a fear the insurance industry might pressure Republican leaders to oppose the investigation.
If the final version of the bill includes Taylor's proposed investigation, the Department of Homeland Security would have six months to tell Congress whether insurance companies were illegally attributing damage from Katrina to flooding rather than high winds.
Attributing damage to flooding shifts the financial burden from the insurance companies to the government because flood claims are covered by the federally funded NFIP.
"The biggest fraud [after Katrina] occurred at the corporate level where the insurance industry made a corporate decision to whenever possible blame flooding every time and stick the taxpayers with bills that (the insurance companies) should have paid," Taylor asserted before Tuesday's vote.
The bill also would eliminate flood-insurance subsidies for vacation homes, second homes and commercial properties.
It would create four new options for insurance coverage, including temporary-housing coverage, business-interruption coverage, basement-improve- ment costs and replacement costs for contents.
FEMA also would be ordered to update flood maps, giving priority to the areas affected by Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
Republicans don't block bill
By MAX FOLLMER 6/28/06
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved flood-insurance legislation that also mandates an investigation into whether insurance companies fraudulently denied Katrina-related claims, despite earlier concerns Republicans might try to block the probe.
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, proposed the investigation as an amendment to a larger bill giving an additional $25 billion to the National Flood Insurance Program to cover claims stemming from Katrina. A similar flood-insurance overhaul is pending in the Senate.
The House voted 416-4 to approve the measure, which also raises the maximum coverage limits for residences from $250,000 to $335,000, and for businesses and churches from $500,- 000 to $670,000.
Earlier, Taylor aides said there was a fear the insurance industry might pressure Republican leaders to oppose the investigation.
If the final version of the bill includes Taylor's proposed investigation, the Department of Homeland Security would have six months to tell Congress whether insurance companies were illegally attributing damage from Katrina to flooding rather than high winds.
Attributing damage to flooding shifts the financial burden from the insurance companies to the government because flood claims are covered by the federally funded NFIP.
"The biggest fraud [after Katrina] occurred at the corporate level where the insurance industry made a corporate decision to whenever possible blame flooding every time and stick the taxpayers with bills that (the insurance companies) should have paid," Taylor asserted before Tuesday's vote.
The bill also would eliminate flood-insurance subsidies for vacation homes, second homes and commercial properties.
It would create four new options for insurance coverage, including temporary-housing coverage, business-interruption coverage, basement-improve- ment costs and replacement costs for contents.
FEMA also would be ordered to update flood maps, giving priority to the areas affected by Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Mom, infant killed in crash
Sons critical, dad in for surgery
By KAREN NELSON
sunherald.com 6/28/06
GAUTIER - Jessie Wilson was driving into Gautier Tuesday morning with his wife, Ashley, and their three young children so she could drop him off at work and take the pickup for moving their belongings into a new mobile home in Vancleave.
"Everything was just going perfect for them," said Jessie Wilson's sister, Rosa Parrish.
Jessie's family had helped them secure two acres and the mobile home and the couple was anxious to begin moving in.
But at around 8:15 a.m., before Jessie even made it to work, the pickup collided with a Chevy Blazer driven by Gilda Edwards on Gautier-Vancleave Road north of Interstate 10.
Ashley de Luca Wilson, 22, was killed along with their youngest child, an infant daughter, Ashleyn. Jessie Wilson, 27, was in Ocean Springs Hospital Tuesday night awaiting surgery and their two sons, Jessie Lee Wilson Jr., 3, and Lee Calvin Wilson, 1, were airlifted from Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula to the University of South Alabama's Children's and Women's Hospital in Mobile.
The boys were listed as critical but stable at the Mobile hospital Tuesday night.
Edwards, who Gautier police said was heading to work also, was alone in her vehicle that collided with the Wilsons. She was listed in good condition at Ocean Springs Hospital on Tuesday.
The wreck happened at the bend in Gautier-Vancleave Road near the Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge. Gautier police were still investigating Tuesday night and released few details.
Parrish said her brother worked on a road crew for Mallette Brothers in Gautier. The whole family had spent Monday night with her in Saucier and were looking forward to their new home in Vancleave.
"They are all good people," Parrish said from the pediatric intensive-care waiting room at Children's Hospital. "They loved their children. Jessie loved his wife."
Sons critical, dad in for surgery
By KAREN NELSON
sunherald.com 6/28/06
GAUTIER - Jessie Wilson was driving into Gautier Tuesday morning with his wife, Ashley, and their three young children so she could drop him off at work and take the pickup for moving their belongings into a new mobile home in Vancleave.
"Everything was just going perfect for them," said Jessie Wilson's sister, Rosa Parrish.
Jessie's family had helped them secure two acres and the mobile home and the couple was anxious to begin moving in.
But at around 8:15 a.m., before Jessie even made it to work, the pickup collided with a Chevy Blazer driven by Gilda Edwards on Gautier-Vancleave Road north of Interstate 10.
Ashley de Luca Wilson, 22, was killed along with their youngest child, an infant daughter, Ashleyn. Jessie Wilson, 27, was in Ocean Springs Hospital Tuesday night awaiting surgery and their two sons, Jessie Lee Wilson Jr., 3, and Lee Calvin Wilson, 1, were airlifted from Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula to the University of South Alabama's Children's and Women's Hospital in Mobile.
The boys were listed as critical but stable at the Mobile hospital Tuesday night.
Edwards, who Gautier police said was heading to work also, was alone in her vehicle that collided with the Wilsons. She was listed in good condition at Ocean Springs Hospital on Tuesday.
The wreck happened at the bend in Gautier-Vancleave Road near the Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge. Gautier police were still investigating Tuesday night and released few details.
Parrish said her brother worked on a road crew for Mallette Brothers in Gautier. The whole family had spent Monday night with her in Saucier and were looking forward to their new home in Vancleave.
"They are all good people," Parrish said from the pediatric intensive-care waiting room at Children's Hospital. "They loved their children. Jessie loved his wife."
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Audrey2Katrina
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- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
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Entergy's system in disarray and struggling post-Katrina
By Pam Radtke Russell Times Picayune-Nola.com Wed. 6/28/06
Business writer
Late Tuesday afternoon, as temperatures climbed to 95 degrees, power surged and then ebbed at homes in Gentilly and around Esplanade Avenue. And then finally, about 4 p.m., it went out.
For more than four hours, 7,000 to 10,000 customers sweated it out on their stoops as Entergy worked to restore power after shutting it off for safety reasons.
The outage, and others in recent weeks, underscore the system's fragility after Hurricane Katrina, officials said. Repairs made after the storm to get power restored are considered temporary. The system no longer has back-up redundancy, and won't until millions of dollars are spent to repair the system, officials said.
Before Katrina, that redundancy didn't prevent outages from happening, but it did allow Entergy to restore power more quickly. Then, Entergy had the capability to switch to an alternative power source. Instead, on Tuesday afternoon, the Pauger substation had to be shut down because it had transmission line problems.
Without that ability to switch power sources, customers must wait hours while Entergy repairs the damage.
"The real impact of the lack of a robust or redundant distribution system is that we don't have the ability to switch to a secondary or tertiary source," said Rod West, Entergy's regional manager for electric distribution.
The duration of power outages is unlikely to change anytime soon for New Orleans customers. Entergy is waiting for millions of dollars from Community Development Block Grants or another source to help restore the system's distribution infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Power outages are expected throughout the region, including in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, where hurricane damage was the greatest, West said.
"We expect things to break," West said. "It's to our benefit that customers have lights on continuously. Our frustration is that we don't have all the tools in the tool box that we once had to make the repairs."
The tools primarily consist of Entergy's distribution system. Only one of three units at Entergy's Michoud power plant is up and running. Once that plant is producing at a greater capacity, the city will have a reliable loop system, rather than its current radial system in which multiple lines are bringing power from outside the city.
Additionally, only 15 of Entergy's 18 substations are operating. That means power must go farther to get to some homes, and if a line goes down or there is an equipment failure in that circuit, more customers are caught in the outage.
"There's going to be outages because of a bad storm," said Clint Vince, an adviser to the New Orleans City Council on Entergy issues. "They essentially have to rebuild the system" when there's damage to one section.
Though Entergy has recently invested more than $14 million in improving the reliability of the system, it needs much more, Vince said.
"I have four letters for you: C-D-B-G," Vince said, referring to Community Development Block Grants. "This ought to be the wake-up call for the LRA (Louisiana Recovery Authority) and the state and the feds that we have to have money to rebuild the electric and gas system," he said. "You can't rebuild the city unless you have reliable electricity."
Entergy has applied for $718 million in federal financing through Community Development Block Grants. The state soon will receive $4.2 billion in grant money, but Entergy is competing for the money with other infrastructure and housing needs.
But even if hundreds of millions are invested, there's no way to prevent some power outages, West said.
"Reliability is a function of degrees," West said. "You still can't anticipate that a device may fail; it may simply not work." In the case of the Pauger substation, Entergy could have switched customers to another power source while repairs were made on equipment that helped regulate the flow of energy to the substation.
But without that device, there was no way to provide a consistent voltage to homes, which would have been a safety issue for homeowners or workers, West said.
So, that section of the system was powered down about 4 p.m. Entergy was able to provide power again to those customers between 8 and 8:45 p.m., West said.
By Pam Radtke Russell Times Picayune-Nola.com Wed. 6/28/06
Business writer
Late Tuesday afternoon, as temperatures climbed to 95 degrees, power surged and then ebbed at homes in Gentilly and around Esplanade Avenue. And then finally, about 4 p.m., it went out.
For more than four hours, 7,000 to 10,000 customers sweated it out on their stoops as Entergy worked to restore power after shutting it off for safety reasons.
The outage, and others in recent weeks, underscore the system's fragility after Hurricane Katrina, officials said. Repairs made after the storm to get power restored are considered temporary. The system no longer has back-up redundancy, and won't until millions of dollars are spent to repair the system, officials said.
Before Katrina, that redundancy didn't prevent outages from happening, but it did allow Entergy to restore power more quickly. Then, Entergy had the capability to switch to an alternative power source. Instead, on Tuesday afternoon, the Pauger substation had to be shut down because it had transmission line problems.
Without that ability to switch power sources, customers must wait hours while Entergy repairs the damage.
"The real impact of the lack of a robust or redundant distribution system is that we don't have the ability to switch to a secondary or tertiary source," said Rod West, Entergy's regional manager for electric distribution.
The duration of power outages is unlikely to change anytime soon for New Orleans customers. Entergy is waiting for millions of dollars from Community Development Block Grants or another source to help restore the system's distribution infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Power outages are expected throughout the region, including in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, where hurricane damage was the greatest, West said.
"We expect things to break," West said. "It's to our benefit that customers have lights on continuously. Our frustration is that we don't have all the tools in the tool box that we once had to make the repairs."
The tools primarily consist of Entergy's distribution system. Only one of three units at Entergy's Michoud power plant is up and running. Once that plant is producing at a greater capacity, the city will have a reliable loop system, rather than its current radial system in which multiple lines are bringing power from outside the city.
Additionally, only 15 of Entergy's 18 substations are operating. That means power must go farther to get to some homes, and if a line goes down or there is an equipment failure in that circuit, more customers are caught in the outage.
"There's going to be outages because of a bad storm," said Clint Vince, an adviser to the New Orleans City Council on Entergy issues. "They essentially have to rebuild the system" when there's damage to one section.
Though Entergy has recently invested more than $14 million in improving the reliability of the system, it needs much more, Vince said.
"I have four letters for you: C-D-B-G," Vince said, referring to Community Development Block Grants. "This ought to be the wake-up call for the LRA (Louisiana Recovery Authority) and the state and the feds that we have to have money to rebuild the electric and gas system," he said. "You can't rebuild the city unless you have reliable electricity."
Entergy has applied for $718 million in federal financing through Community Development Block Grants. The state soon will receive $4.2 billion in grant money, but Entergy is competing for the money with other infrastructure and housing needs.
But even if hundreds of millions are invested, there's no way to prevent some power outages, West said.
"Reliability is a function of degrees," West said. "You still can't anticipate that a device may fail; it may simply not work." In the case of the Pauger substation, Entergy could have switched customers to another power source while repairs were made on equipment that helped regulate the flow of energy to the substation.
But without that device, there was no way to provide a consistent voltage to homes, which would have been a safety issue for homeowners or workers, West said.
So, that section of the system was powered down about 4 p.m. Entergy was able to provide power again to those customers between 8 and 8:45 p.m., West said.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
House approves flood-plan limit increase
Business, 2nd homeowners will pay more
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune-NOLA.com
By Bill Walsh
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to boost government-backed flood insurance coverage limits that frustrated some homeowners after Hurricane Katrina and authorized premium increases on businesses and vacation homes to cover shortfalls in the program.
The bipartisan bill, authored by Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, would authorize the National Flood Insurance Program to borrow up to $25 billion to cover all hurricane-related claims. It also includes an amendment ordering a probe of private insurers who avoided paying thousands of claims along the Gulf Coast after Katrina by assigning damage to floods instead of high winds.
"It's a system ripe for abuse, and I think it has been abused," Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., the amendment's author said.
The 416-4 House vote on the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act was the latest step by Congress toward overhauling the 38-year-old government program that has found itself deep in debt after last year's record hurricane season. In separate legislation, the House and Senate have been attempting to put the program on sounder financial footing by phasing out government-paid insurance subsidies that are now enjoyed by a quarter of the nearly 5 million policyholders.
Both chambers want to eliminate subsidies for owners of vacation homes, second homes and businesses by raising from 10 percent to 15 percent the cap on annual premium increases. The Senate also has gone after subsidies for repetitively flooded property. A bill by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., which passed the Senate Banking Committee in May, is awaiting action by the full Senate.
Unlike the Senate measure, Baker's legislation would raise the ceiling on insurance coverage. The limits for residential properties would go from $250,000 to $335,000, a home's contents from $100,000 to $135,000, and coverage for nonresidential properties from $500,000 to $670,000.
Many property owners in South Louisiana hit the coverage limit after Hurricane Katrina and still found they had bills to pay.
"This bill not only protects the viability of a program vital to the security of millions of Americans, it also ushers in common-sense reforms to strengthen the flood insurance program, making it more responsive to the real needs of property owners, more responsible to taxpayers and more financially sound going forward," Baker said in a statement after the vote.
Consumer groups have generally lined up behind the provisions of the Senate bill, while the mortgage and real estate industries favor the House version. Home builders oppose a Senate provision that would require owners of buildings behind levees and dams -- whether or not they are in the 100-year flood plain -- to purchase flood insurance. The House only asks for a feasibility study on that issue.
Mortgage lenders don't like the Senate bill's requirement for state-chartered banks to enforce mandatory flood-insurance purchase requirements. Both bills toughen penalties on lenders failing to make sure the borrowers buy flood policies. The House caps annual penalties at $1 million. The Senate eliminates the cap.
Both bills direct FEMA to refine the nation's outdated 100-year-flood maps. The House bill would, for the first time, require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to map the 500-year-flood zone. But Robert Hunter, who tracks the legislation for the Consumer Federation of America, said neither bill sets a deadline.
"It encourages all kinds of unwise new construction," Hunter said.
Hunter also criticized the House bill for allowing property owners to buy additional flood insurance coverage for basements and crawl spaces that aren't traditionally included. The House bill provides $1,000 in living expenses after a flood when a residence is deemed uninhabitable and allows companies to purchase business interruption insurance.
The House bill would extend a flood-mitigation pilot program that has not been financed for the past two years. And Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, successfully amended the bill to instruct FEMA that "demolish and rebuild" should be considered a mitigation option eligible for grants under the federal mitigation assistance program.
Business, 2nd homeowners will pay more
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune-NOLA.com
By Bill Walsh
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to boost government-backed flood insurance coverage limits that frustrated some homeowners after Hurricane Katrina and authorized premium increases on businesses and vacation homes to cover shortfalls in the program.
The bipartisan bill, authored by Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, would authorize the National Flood Insurance Program to borrow up to $25 billion to cover all hurricane-related claims. It also includes an amendment ordering a probe of private insurers who avoided paying thousands of claims along the Gulf Coast after Katrina by assigning damage to floods instead of high winds.
"It's a system ripe for abuse, and I think it has been abused," Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., the amendment's author said.
The 416-4 House vote on the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act was the latest step by Congress toward overhauling the 38-year-old government program that has found itself deep in debt after last year's record hurricane season. In separate legislation, the House and Senate have been attempting to put the program on sounder financial footing by phasing out government-paid insurance subsidies that are now enjoyed by a quarter of the nearly 5 million policyholders.
Both chambers want to eliminate subsidies for owners of vacation homes, second homes and businesses by raising from 10 percent to 15 percent the cap on annual premium increases. The Senate also has gone after subsidies for repetitively flooded property. A bill by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., which passed the Senate Banking Committee in May, is awaiting action by the full Senate.
Unlike the Senate measure, Baker's legislation would raise the ceiling on insurance coverage. The limits for residential properties would go from $250,000 to $335,000, a home's contents from $100,000 to $135,000, and coverage for nonresidential properties from $500,000 to $670,000.
Many property owners in South Louisiana hit the coverage limit after Hurricane Katrina and still found they had bills to pay.
"This bill not only protects the viability of a program vital to the security of millions of Americans, it also ushers in common-sense reforms to strengthen the flood insurance program, making it more responsive to the real needs of property owners, more responsible to taxpayers and more financially sound going forward," Baker said in a statement after the vote.
Consumer groups have generally lined up behind the provisions of the Senate bill, while the mortgage and real estate industries favor the House version. Home builders oppose a Senate provision that would require owners of buildings behind levees and dams -- whether or not they are in the 100-year flood plain -- to purchase flood insurance. The House only asks for a feasibility study on that issue.
Mortgage lenders don't like the Senate bill's requirement for state-chartered banks to enforce mandatory flood-insurance purchase requirements. Both bills toughen penalties on lenders failing to make sure the borrowers buy flood policies. The House caps annual penalties at $1 million. The Senate eliminates the cap.
Both bills direct FEMA to refine the nation's outdated 100-year-flood maps. The House bill would, for the first time, require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to map the 500-year-flood zone. But Robert Hunter, who tracks the legislation for the Consumer Federation of America, said neither bill sets a deadline.
"It encourages all kinds of unwise new construction," Hunter said.
Hunter also criticized the House bill for allowing property owners to buy additional flood insurance coverage for basements and crawl spaces that aren't traditionally included. The House bill provides $1,000 in living expenses after a flood when a residence is deemed uninhabitable and allows companies to purchase business interruption insurance.
The House bill would extend a flood-mitigation pilot program that has not been financed for the past two years. And Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner, successfully amended the bill to instruct FEMA that "demolish and rebuild" should be considered a mitigation option eligible for grants under the federal mitigation assistance program.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Blanco feels squeeze on smoking ban
Federal report details the dangers of secondhand smoke
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- With the U.S. surgeon general declaring secondhand smoke a "serious health hazard," Gov. Kathleen Blanco is facing increasing pressure to make a decision on a bill that would ban smoking in state restaurants and most other public buildings and workplaces but not in casinos and other gambling halls.
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus and an opponent of the measure, said he and officials of the Louisiana Restaurant Association will make a pitch to Blanco today during a 5 p.m. conference call to veto Senate Bill 742 by Sen. Rob Marionneaux Jr., D-Livonia.
Richmond said the bill is unfair to restaurants. If it becomes law, he said, bars will start serving more food and casino patrons will walk from a snack bar or restaurant into the gambling area to light up, to the detriment of the restaurants.
"Right now is not the time to tamper with the recovery of our restaurants" that were hit hard by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Richmond said.
Meanwhile, Terri Broussard, state advocacy director of the American Heart Association, and Zoey Devall, governmental relations director for the American Cancer Society in Louisiana, fired off a letter to Blanco's acting legislative director, Hunt Downer, seeking a meeting or a conference call with the governor to present their case for signing the measure.
Both sides firm
Blanco has until July 10 to act on the bill. If she does nothing, it will become law without her signature. Blanco previously said she would sign the bill; she has vetoed only one of more than 600 bills lawmakers have sent her so far. If the bill becomes law, it would go into effect Jan. 1.
Blanco spokesman Roderick Hawkins said although the bill is still under review, "we see no reason why the governor would change" her intention of signing it.
Jim Funk, chief executive officer of the restaurant association, said the group may file a lawsuit challenging the bill if it becomes law. "We think it is unfair and . . . awfully confusing." He said a part of the law allows smoking in venues with video poker machines but said that may or may not apply to a restaurant-bar that can have up to three video poker machines.
In their letter to Downer, Devall and Broussard noted the release of a report by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona confirming the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The health advocates said that "only smoke-free buildings and public places effectively protect nonsmokers" who are employees or patrons.
The health advocates are urging their organizations' approximately 10,000 Louisiana members to call Blanco's office or e-mail her to urge her to not veto the bill. Blanco aides said only a few calls or e-mails had been received by late Tuesday and most were in favor of the ban.
State Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said agency Secretary Fred Cerise has asked Blanco to sign Marionneaux's bill as a way to "protect our citizens from the deadly effects of secondhand smoke."
Effects on children
The surgeon general's report left little doubt where the nation's top health official stands on the issue.
"The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard," Carmona said.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers' fumes -- what Carmona termed "involuntary smoking" -- and tens of thousands die each year as a result, according to the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
The report calls for completely smoke-free buildings and public places, saying that separate smoking sections and ventilation systems do not fully protect nonsmokers. Seventeen states and more than 400 towns, cities and counties have passed strong no-smoking laws.
But public smoking bans don't reach inside private homes, where about one in five children breathes their parents' smoke -- and youngsters' still developing bodies are especially vulnerable, the report says. Secondhand smoke puts children at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, as well as bronchitis, pneumonia, worsening asthma attacks, poor lung growth and ear infections, the report found.
Carmona urged parents who can't kick the habit to smoke outdoors, never in a house or car with a child. Opening a window to let the smoke out won't protect them.
"Stay away from smokers," he urged everyone else.
Even a few minutes around drifting smoke is enough to spark an asthma attack, make blood more prone to clotting, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that over time can lead to cancer, he said.
No news here
The report won't surprise doctors. It isn't a new study but a compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke done since the last surgeon general's report on the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung cancer that kills 3,000 nonsmokers a year.
Since then, scientists have proved that even more illnesses are triggered or worsened by secondhand smoke. Topping that list: More than 35,000 nonsmokers a year die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke.
Regular exposure to someone else's smoke increases the risk of a nonsmoker getting heart disease or lung cancer by up to 30 percent, Carmona found.
Some tobacco companies acknowledge the risks. But R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which has fought some of the smoking bans, challenges the new report's call for completely smoke-free zones and insists the danger is overblown.
"Bottom line, we believe adults should be able to patronize establishments that permit smoking if they choose to do so," said RJR spokesman David Howard.
And a key argument of some business owners' legal challenges to smoking bans is that smoking customers will go elsewhere, cutting their profits.
But the surgeon general's report says that's not true. It cites a list of studies that found no negative economic impact from city and state smoking bans -- including evidence that New York City restaurants and bars increased business by almost 9 percent after going smoke-free.
Federal report details the dangers of secondhand smoke
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Times Picayune/NOLA.com
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- With the U.S. surgeon general declaring secondhand smoke a "serious health hazard," Gov. Kathleen Blanco is facing increasing pressure to make a decision on a bill that would ban smoking in state restaurants and most other public buildings and workplaces but not in casinos and other gambling halls.
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus and an opponent of the measure, said he and officials of the Louisiana Restaurant Association will make a pitch to Blanco today during a 5 p.m. conference call to veto Senate Bill 742 by Sen. Rob Marionneaux Jr., D-Livonia.
Richmond said the bill is unfair to restaurants. If it becomes law, he said, bars will start serving more food and casino patrons will walk from a snack bar or restaurant into the gambling area to light up, to the detriment of the restaurants.
"Right now is not the time to tamper with the recovery of our restaurants" that were hit hard by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Richmond said.
Meanwhile, Terri Broussard, state advocacy director of the American Heart Association, and Zoey Devall, governmental relations director for the American Cancer Society in Louisiana, fired off a letter to Blanco's acting legislative director, Hunt Downer, seeking a meeting or a conference call with the governor to present their case for signing the measure.
Both sides firm
Blanco has until July 10 to act on the bill. If she does nothing, it will become law without her signature. Blanco previously said she would sign the bill; she has vetoed only one of more than 600 bills lawmakers have sent her so far. If the bill becomes law, it would go into effect Jan. 1.
Blanco spokesman Roderick Hawkins said although the bill is still under review, "we see no reason why the governor would change" her intention of signing it.
Jim Funk, chief executive officer of the restaurant association, said the group may file a lawsuit challenging the bill if it becomes law. "We think it is unfair and . . . awfully confusing." He said a part of the law allows smoking in venues with video poker machines but said that may or may not apply to a restaurant-bar that can have up to three video poker machines.
In their letter to Downer, Devall and Broussard noted the release of a report by U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona confirming the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The health advocates said that "only smoke-free buildings and public places effectively protect nonsmokers" who are employees or patrons.
The health advocates are urging their organizations' approximately 10,000 Louisiana members to call Blanco's office or e-mail her to urge her to not veto the bill. Blanco aides said only a few calls or e-mails had been received by late Tuesday and most were in favor of the ban.
State Department of Health and Hospitals spokesman Bob Johannessen said agency Secretary Fred Cerise has asked Blanco to sign Marionneaux's bill as a way to "protect our citizens from the deadly effects of secondhand smoke."
Effects on children
The surgeon general's report left little doubt where the nation's top health official stands on the issue.
"The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard," Carmona said.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers' fumes -- what Carmona termed "involuntary smoking" -- and tens of thousands die each year as a result, according to the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
The report calls for completely smoke-free buildings and public places, saying that separate smoking sections and ventilation systems do not fully protect nonsmokers. Seventeen states and more than 400 towns, cities and counties have passed strong no-smoking laws.
But public smoking bans don't reach inside private homes, where about one in five children breathes their parents' smoke -- and youngsters' still developing bodies are especially vulnerable, the report says. Secondhand smoke puts children at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, as well as bronchitis, pneumonia, worsening asthma attacks, poor lung growth and ear infections, the report found.
Carmona urged parents who can't kick the habit to smoke outdoors, never in a house or car with a child. Opening a window to let the smoke out won't protect them.
"Stay away from smokers," he urged everyone else.
Even a few minutes around drifting smoke is enough to spark an asthma attack, make blood more prone to clotting, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that over time can lead to cancer, he said.
No news here
The report won't surprise doctors. It isn't a new study but a compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke done since the last surgeon general's report on the topic in 1986, which declared secondhand smoke a cause of lung cancer that kills 3,000 nonsmokers a year.
Since then, scientists have proved that even more illnesses are triggered or worsened by secondhand smoke. Topping that list: More than 35,000 nonsmokers a year die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke.
Regular exposure to someone else's smoke increases the risk of a nonsmoker getting heart disease or lung cancer by up to 30 percent, Carmona found.
Some tobacco companies acknowledge the risks. But R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which has fought some of the smoking bans, challenges the new report's call for completely smoke-free zones and insists the danger is overblown.
"Bottom line, we believe adults should be able to patronize establishments that permit smoking if they choose to do so," said RJR spokesman David Howard.
And a key argument of some business owners' legal challenges to smoking bans is that smoking customers will go elsewhere, cutting their profits.
But the surgeon general's report says that's not true. It cites a list of studies that found no negative economic impact from city and state smoking bans -- including evidence that New York City restaurants and bars increased business by almost 9 percent after going smoke-free.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Adding judges could ease jam, DA says
He outlines strategies in war on N.O. crime
Thursday, June 29, 2006 TP-NOLA.com
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
With more than 6,000 open criminal cases in the New Orleans court system, District Attorney Eddie Jordan said Wednesday that the parish may need more judges to handle the growing backlog.
And, 10 months after Hurricane Katrina drowned most of New Orleans and exacerbated the city's underfinanced, overloaded and problem-plagued criminal court system, Jordan announced in a wide-ranging news conference that his office has crafted a plan to ensure that his office works effectively and efficiently with the Police Department on all cases.
"There is a huge backlog of cases," Jordan said. "Additional judges may be helpful in resolving this problem, because obviously we cannot try all the cases that are to be tried this year with the judges that we currently have, and the schedule they have today: six judges holding court every other week and only holding court from basically 9 to 5."
Only the Louisiana Supreme Court can appoint temporary judges.
The current schedule that judges have, Jordan said, is that half of the dozen sections meet every week and then take a week off. Several Criminal District Court courtrooms have not been repaired.
Jordan's statement comes one day after Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a gradual, yet imminent, merger of New Orleans civil and criminal courts.
The merged courts will be known as the 41st Judicial District Court, on Jan. 1, 2009. The state Supreme Court will continue a study on the number of judges needed for the New Orleans court and all courts in the state while the merger is being phased in.
Stressing teamwork
"There are certain things within total control of police and prosecutors," Jordan said, standing beside New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley, former state Attorney General Richard Ieyoub and several top prosecutors. "Those are things we are going to work on. We can't say what the courts or the public defender will do. We're going to have to get our act together."
Ieyoub, recently tapped to serve as Mayor Ray Nagin's liaison with the criminal justice system, said he met with Jordan's staff, Police Department officials and others Wednesday to hammer out snags in the relationship between police and prosecutors.
"This has been a great first step, moving forward to correct any inefficiencies in the system," Ieyoub said.
Jordan said his office will review cases to find those it can move, but the most serious charges, including murder and armed robbery, do not appear to be in danger.
"We will be able to produce witnesses in violence cases," Jordan said. "That is why there has been no wholesale dismissal of violence cases."
Riley vowed to improve the Police Department's long-running problem with officers failing to show up for court hearings. "Some are due to negligence and some to a failure of subpoenas," Riley said. "Things have to be done to make the criminal justice system work better."
Old, new hurdles faced
The strained court system post-Katrina has several problems that Jordan has no control over, such as the struggling public defender program, which has about 25 attorneys instead of the 70 on staff before Katrina hit on Aug. 29. At least 800 pretrial inmates are scattered around Louisiana, some as far away as a five-hour drive, because Orleans Parish Prison's capacity is at about 1,600 instead of the prestorm 7,000.
Security issues have limited the hours that criminal district court is open -- 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the public shut out from noon to 1 p.m. each day. The building shuts down for that hour as inmates are moved because the prisoners can no longer be brought in through the "docks" at the rear of most courtrooms, which run directly from the fenced-in Parish Prison complex.
Inmates currently must be brought into the courthouse at Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street through public entrances. Security requires that the public not mix with the inmates, court officials said. Only six inmates at one time are allowed to sit in a courtroom.
Jordan on Wednesday also repeated some complaints that the Orleans Parish district attorney's office has had for years, including the starting salary for trial attorneys, who make $30,000 a year, plus benefits. City attorneys start at $50,000, while Jefferson Parish starts its attorneys at $40,000.
Another measure that could strengthen criminal cases, Jordan said, would be to install videotape technology at the jail so police could record their interviews with suspects.
"The ultimate objective here is to make sure our systemfunctions more effectively," Jordan said. "We are the critical agencies in leading the effort to make our system a better system. We have a plan in place."
He outlines strategies in war on N.O. crime
Thursday, June 29, 2006 TP-NOLA.com
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
With more than 6,000 open criminal cases in the New Orleans court system, District Attorney Eddie Jordan said Wednesday that the parish may need more judges to handle the growing backlog.
And, 10 months after Hurricane Katrina drowned most of New Orleans and exacerbated the city's underfinanced, overloaded and problem-plagued criminal court system, Jordan announced in a wide-ranging news conference that his office has crafted a plan to ensure that his office works effectively and efficiently with the Police Department on all cases.
"There is a huge backlog of cases," Jordan said. "Additional judges may be helpful in resolving this problem, because obviously we cannot try all the cases that are to be tried this year with the judges that we currently have, and the schedule they have today: six judges holding court every other week and only holding court from basically 9 to 5."
Only the Louisiana Supreme Court can appoint temporary judges.
The current schedule that judges have, Jordan said, is that half of the dozen sections meet every week and then take a week off. Several Criminal District Court courtrooms have not been repaired.
Jordan's statement comes one day after Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a gradual, yet imminent, merger of New Orleans civil and criminal courts.
The merged courts will be known as the 41st Judicial District Court, on Jan. 1, 2009. The state Supreme Court will continue a study on the number of judges needed for the New Orleans court and all courts in the state while the merger is being phased in.
Stressing teamwork
"There are certain things within total control of police and prosecutors," Jordan said, standing beside New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley, former state Attorney General Richard Ieyoub and several top prosecutors. "Those are things we are going to work on. We can't say what the courts or the public defender will do. We're going to have to get our act together."
Ieyoub, recently tapped to serve as Mayor Ray Nagin's liaison with the criminal justice system, said he met with Jordan's staff, Police Department officials and others Wednesday to hammer out snags in the relationship between police and prosecutors.
"This has been a great first step, moving forward to correct any inefficiencies in the system," Ieyoub said.
Jordan said his office will review cases to find those it can move, but the most serious charges, including murder and armed robbery, do not appear to be in danger.
"We will be able to produce witnesses in violence cases," Jordan said. "That is why there has been no wholesale dismissal of violence cases."
Riley vowed to improve the Police Department's long-running problem with officers failing to show up for court hearings. "Some are due to negligence and some to a failure of subpoenas," Riley said. "Things have to be done to make the criminal justice system work better."
Old, new hurdles faced
The strained court system post-Katrina has several problems that Jordan has no control over, such as the struggling public defender program, which has about 25 attorneys instead of the 70 on staff before Katrina hit on Aug. 29. At least 800 pretrial inmates are scattered around Louisiana, some as far away as a five-hour drive, because Orleans Parish Prison's capacity is at about 1,600 instead of the prestorm 7,000.
Security issues have limited the hours that criminal district court is open -- 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with the public shut out from noon to 1 p.m. each day. The building shuts down for that hour as inmates are moved because the prisoners can no longer be brought in through the "docks" at the rear of most courtrooms, which run directly from the fenced-in Parish Prison complex.
Inmates currently must be brought into the courthouse at Tulane Avenue and South Broad Street through public entrances. Security requires that the public not mix with the inmates, court officials said. Only six inmates at one time are allowed to sit in a courtroom.
Jordan on Wednesday also repeated some complaints that the Orleans Parish district attorney's office has had for years, including the starting salary for trial attorneys, who make $30,000 a year, plus benefits. City attorneys start at $50,000, while Jefferson Parish starts its attorneys at $40,000.
Another measure that could strengthen criminal cases, Jordan said, would be to install videotape technology at the jail so police could record their interviews with suspects.
"The ultimate objective here is to make sure our systemfunctions more effectively," Jordan said. "We are the critical agencies in leading the effort to make our system a better system. We have a plan in place."
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Luling man killed in early-morning crash
Nola.com Update 6/29/06
A Luling man was killed in a single-vehicle crash on River Road in St. Charles Parish early today, State Police said.
Michael Lauland, 39, was driving a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup eastbound on River Road near Sugarhouse Road when he lost control around 4:42 a.m., a State Police news release said.
The truck left the roadway, entered a drainage ditch and flipped, ejecting Lauland from the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. Lauland was not wearing a seatbelt, State Police said.
Nola.com Update 6/29/06
A Luling man was killed in a single-vehicle crash on River Road in St. Charles Parish early today, State Police said.
Michael Lauland, 39, was driving a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup eastbound on River Road near Sugarhouse Road when he lost control around 4:42 a.m., a State Police news release said.
The truck left the roadway, entered a drainage ditch and flipped, ejecting Lauland from the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. Lauland was not wearing a seatbelt, State Police said.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Slidell to close road, park entrances for inaugural
St. Tammany bureau
A segment of Bayou Lane and both entrances to Heritage Park in Slidell will be closed to vehicles Saturday starting at 5 p.m. to accommodate the 7:30 p.m. city inaugural celebration in the park.
Bayou Lane will be closed from West Hall to Pennsylvania Avenue, said Kim Bergeron, media specialist with the city’s Department of Cultural and Public Affairs.
“We’re expecting quite a turnout, so we’re closing the entrances to the park for public safety. That way we won’t have to worry about cars cycling through the park with a lot of kids running around,” Bergeron said.
People using the Heritage Park boat launch on Saturday should take note of the restricted access as well, Bergeron said.
St. Tammany bureau
A segment of Bayou Lane and both entrances to Heritage Park in Slidell will be closed to vehicles Saturday starting at 5 p.m. to accommodate the 7:30 p.m. city inaugural celebration in the park.
Bayou Lane will be closed from West Hall to Pennsylvania Avenue, said Kim Bergeron, media specialist with the city’s Department of Cultural and Public Affairs.
“We’re expecting quite a turnout, so we’re closing the entrances to the park for public safety. That way we won’t have to worry about cars cycling through the park with a lot of kids running around,” Bergeron said.
People using the Heritage Park boat launch on Saturday should take note of the restricted access as well, Bergeron said.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Four local hospitals to be sold
NOLA.com update 6/29/06
Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Thursday that it will sell four of its metro New Orleans hospitals as part of a settlement with federal investigators looking into the hospital operator’s Medicare practices.
The local hospitals to be sold are Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans, Kenner Regional Medical Center in Kenner, and Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna.
Neither Lindy Boggs Medical Center nor Memorial Medical Center have reopened since Hurricane Katrina.
Northshore Regional Medical Center in Slidell, which is also owned by Tenet, will not be sold.
The company said it is selling the Louisiana hospitals - along with seven others in Pennsylvania and Florida - in an attempt to boost profitability, expand capital investments in its remaining hospitals and help fund the $725 million Medicare settlement.
NOLA.com update 6/29/06
Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Thursday that it will sell four of its metro New Orleans hospitals as part of a settlement with federal investigators looking into the hospital operator’s Medicare practices.
The local hospitals to be sold are Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans, Kenner Regional Medical Center in Kenner, and Meadowcrest Hospital in Gretna.
Neither Lindy Boggs Medical Center nor Memorial Medical Center have reopened since Hurricane Katrina.
Northshore Regional Medical Center in Slidell, which is also owned by Tenet, will not be sold.
The company said it is selling the Louisiana hospitals - along with seven others in Pennsylvania and Florida - in an attempt to boost profitability, expand capital investments in its remaining hospitals and help fund the $725 million Medicare settlement.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 76
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
I-10 lanes in Metairie to be closed for work tonight
Metairie update TP/NOLA.com 6/29/06
The right two lanes of westbound Interstate 10 will be closed between the 17th Street Canal and Oaklawn overpass from 8 p.m. tonight until 6 a.m. Friday.
A news release from the state Department of Transportation and Development said the lanes are being closed so that work crews can install install roadway barriers.
Metairie update TP/NOLA.com 6/29/06
The right two lanes of westbound Interstate 10 will be closed between the 17th Street Canal and Oaklawn overpass from 8 p.m. tonight until 6 a.m. Friday.
A news release from the state Department of Transportation and Development said the lanes are being closed so that work crews can install install roadway barriers.
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