Rapper released from house arrest
C-Murder often broke rules, officer testifies
Friday, July 14, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Paul Purpura
West Bank bureau
After hearing a prosecutor and witnesses accuse Corey "C-Murder" Miller of violating conditions of his house arrest numerous times, a state judge Thursday turned down their request to jail the rapper and instead released Miller from his home confinement as he awaits retrial on a second-degree murder charge.
Judge Martha Sassone of the 24th Judicial District Court said Miller's participation in a home-monitoring program was causing "a burden" on the Gretna Police Department, which runs the program in Jefferson Parish.
Miller, 35, had been under house arrest since March 20 after posting a $500,000 bond that Sassone set. He is charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 12, 2002, killing of Steve Miller, 16, at the now-closed Platinum Club in Harvey.
Sassone said Thursday she felt "comfortable" that Miller had not violated conditions of house arrest, except for a May 4 visit to a Smoothie King in Metairie during a court-approved outing during which police lost track of his whereabouts for more than 3½ hours.
Instead of having to wear a monitoring bracelet and stay at his grandmother's house in Kenner, Miller now can move freely in Jefferson and Orleans parishes but must be home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. He is barred from drinking alcohol and going to bars, and visitors to his residence are restricted, she said.
"You understand what the consequences are going to be?" Sassone asked Miller, suggesting she would revoke his $500,000 bond and return him to jail.
"I understand," he said.
The judge's decision drew smiles and gleeful gasps from Miller's family in the courtroom and an objection from Assistant District Attorney Roger Jordan.
Citing a gag order, attorneys on both sides of the case declined to comment afterward. Miller, clearly happy with the day's events, also declined to comment as he left the Gretna courtroom with his girlfriend and family members.
Also charged in B.R.
About five months after Miller's September 2003 murder conviction, Sassone ordered a new trial, siding with the rapper's attorneys who accused prosecutors of illegally withholding criminal background information on their key eyewitnesses. Such information could have helped the defense's case.
In March, after months of appeals, the state Supreme Court upheld Sassone's decision. Days later, she ordered him into the home incarceration program as a condition of bail. A new trial date has not been set.
Miller also was released from jail on $250,000 in Baton Rouge, where he is charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder in an incident outside a nightclub in August 2001.
Sassone on Thursday left the bail amount she set intact.
Frequently 'out of range'
Prosecutors had filed a motion seeking to revoke Miller's house arrest on June 8. His whereabouts were tracked through a monitoring system involving a transmitter on his ankle that sends a signal to a receiver box in his residence.
Gretna police Lt. Dennis Gordon, who has overseen the parish's house arrest program since April 2000, testified that Miller was "out of range" numerous times.
The equipment was functioning properly, he testified, and he told Sassone he thought Miller's participation in the program should have been revoked.
Gretna police attempted to revoke Miller's home incarceration privilege on June 5 because he was out of range and in arrears on home incarceration fees.
Miller's attorney, Ron Rakosky, suggested that the equipment was not working properly, and the times his client was out of range were for "ridiculously short periods of time," typically between 10 and 20 minutes. He said the monitoring system couldn't tell how far Miller was outside the electronic perimeter.
"Maybe a foot, maybe 100 feet. You don't know," Rakosky said.
Private security guards hired by Miller's legal team were posted to watch the residence to ensure he did not leave, Rakosky said, and Miller's grandmother, Maxine Miller, testified that her grandson had not left the home when police said he did.
Records unsealed
Also Thursday, Sassone lifted a secrecy order that had shielded the records of the home incarceration dispute that has unfolded since early May. The unsealing was requested by The Times-Picayune.
During the hearing, Miller's attorneys admitted that the judge and attorneys in the case had discussed the incarceration dispute during closed door meetings, including a May 24 hearing that the court had originally portrayed as a status conference on the case.
Rakosky described the holding of the hearing behind closed doors as an accident that resulted from a shortage of available courtrooms due to renovations at the courthouse.
In announcing that she was removing Miller from house arrest, Sassone also said she was lifting her seal on the home incarceration records. "Everything is wide open," she said. "There will be no more sealing."
News from Central Gulf Focus: La./Miss (Ala contributors)
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Audrey2Katrina
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Lott: Plan to revamp FEMA would aid disaster response
7/14/2006, 11:05 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — Making the Federal Emergency Management Agency more autonomous should improve the government response to hurricanes and other disasters, says U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.
A bill that passed the U.S. Senate this week would make FEMA a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The proposal must pass the House before it could go to President Bush.
The move comes more than 10 months after Hurricane Katrina walloped Mississippi and Louisiana.
Lott, R-Miss., said the plan is a compromise that would give FEMA a position similar to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is an independent agency under Homeland Security.
"We saw that the Coast Guard did a great job after the hurricane, so if it worked for the Coast Guard, we hope that maybe it will work for FEMA," Lott told The Mississippi Press newspaper.
The proposal says the FEMA administrator would report directly to the secretary of Homeland Security and would be the principal emergency preparedness and response adviser to the president.
Lott said FEMA "had kind of been allowed to be a backwater."
"The head of FEMA strictly came from a background that did not qualify him as an emergency manager," Lott said. "Six of the nine regional offices were headed by people who were acting, which meant they were kind of semi-temporary."
Jackson County Civil Defense Director Butch Loper said FEMA needs to be removed from Homeland Security and made an independent agency. He said there is too much bureaucracy.
"As long as (Homeland Security Secretary Michael) Chertoff has got anything to do with it, nothing will help it," Loper said. "It needs to be an independent agency that works with natural disasters and assists in terrorist events. There's a difference in the way law enforcement handles those things."
Lott said many FEMA workers did a good job after Katrina.
"But a lot of the people were not in positions to provide leadership, or were not sympathetic to what the people were going through and in some cases exceeded their authority, people were hired on the fly and put through some two-week course," he said.
7/14/2006, 11:05 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — Making the Federal Emergency Management Agency more autonomous should improve the government response to hurricanes and other disasters, says U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.
A bill that passed the U.S. Senate this week would make FEMA a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The proposal must pass the House before it could go to President Bush.
The move comes more than 10 months after Hurricane Katrina walloped Mississippi and Louisiana.
Lott, R-Miss., said the plan is a compromise that would give FEMA a position similar to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is an independent agency under Homeland Security.
"We saw that the Coast Guard did a great job after the hurricane, so if it worked for the Coast Guard, we hope that maybe it will work for FEMA," Lott told The Mississippi Press newspaper.
The proposal says the FEMA administrator would report directly to the secretary of Homeland Security and would be the principal emergency preparedness and response adviser to the president.
Lott said FEMA "had kind of been allowed to be a backwater."
"The head of FEMA strictly came from a background that did not qualify him as an emergency manager," Lott said. "Six of the nine regional offices were headed by people who were acting, which meant they were kind of semi-temporary."
Jackson County Civil Defense Director Butch Loper said FEMA needs to be removed from Homeland Security and made an independent agency. He said there is too much bureaucracy.
"As long as (Homeland Security Secretary Michael) Chertoff has got anything to do with it, nothing will help it," Loper said. "It needs to be an independent agency that works with natural disasters and assists in terrorist events. There's a difference in the way law enforcement handles those things."
Lott said many FEMA workers did a good job after Katrina.
"But a lot of the people were not in positions to provide leadership, or were not sympathetic to what the people were going through and in some cases exceeded their authority, people were hired on the fly and put through some two-week course," he said.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Man fatally shot by New Orleans police
7/14/2006, 8:40 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A man was fatally shot by New Orleans police officer after he pointed a gun following a foot chase, authorities said.
Kirk Lewis, 39, of New Orleans, fled on foot after officers tried to stop him while he was riding a bicycle late Thursday, the police department said. As officers pursued, the man threw away a bag and then pulled a .357-caliber handgun from his waistband, authorities said.
Lewis was shot in the chest after he pointed the weapon at an officer, the department said. He died later at Ochsner Hospital.
Police said the discarded bag contained crack cocaine.
7/14/2006, 8:40 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A man was fatally shot by New Orleans police officer after he pointed a gun following a foot chase, authorities said.
Kirk Lewis, 39, of New Orleans, fled on foot after officers tried to stop him while he was riding a bicycle late Thursday, the police department said. As officers pursued, the man threw away a bag and then pulled a .357-caliber handgun from his waistband, authorities said.
Lewis was shot in the chest after he pointed the weapon at an officer, the department said. He died later at Ochsner Hospital.
Police said the discarded bag contained crack cocaine.
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Gulfport announces water outage near 8th Avenue on Monday
SUN HERALD.com 7/14/06
GULFPORT - Gulfport public works crews will be making repairs to water lines in a neighborhood south of Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport on Monday, creating a water outage and subsequent boil water notice.
The work will be conducted from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will affect the area between 8th Avenue on the east, 13th Avenue on the west, 34th Street on the south and Strawberry Road on the north.
After water is restored, people should boil all drinking water for one minute and let cool before consuming. Residents will be notified when tests show that the water is safe to drink.
For questions or further information, please contact the Public Works Department at 868-5765 or 868-5740.
SUN HERALD.com 7/14/06
GULFPORT - Gulfport public works crews will be making repairs to water lines in a neighborhood south of Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport on Monday, creating a water outage and subsequent boil water notice.
The work will be conducted from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will affect the area between 8th Avenue on the east, 13th Avenue on the west, 34th Street on the south and Strawberry Road on the north.
After water is restored, people should boil all drinking water for one minute and let cool before consuming. Residents will be notified when tests show that the water is safe to drink.
For questions or further information, please contact the Public Works Department at 868-5765 or 868-5740.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Insurer: Without evidence, we 'fall back' on surge
By QUINCY COLLINS SMITH 7/14/06
sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Jeff Gilbert, the senior claims official for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. in Mississippi, told a federal court Thursday the company did not look for ways out of honoring homeowners' policies after Hurricane Katrina.
"Our philosophy is to look for ways to pay claims," Gilbert said. "It's the right thing to do... Our only expectation is for the policyholder to describe his loss. It's our responsibility to break it up (into coverage)."
But on cross-examination, Gilbert said when there is no engineering, witness or documentation evidence available for a destroyed or damaged home to determine wind damage, the company works on the assumption that storm surge caused the destruction and the company "falls back" on the policy, which has flood exclusions.
"The contract speaks for itself and that's our relationship with the policyholder," Gilbert said.
Nationwide never makes a determination on a claim with a slab without an engineering report, said Gayle Saunders, a Nationwide spokeswoman.
Gilbert, Nationwide associate property-claims director for South Central Operations, was the first defense witness to testify in the suit filed by Pascagoula police officer Paul Leonard and his wife, Julie, against the insurance company.
The Leonards, who were paid $1,600 by Nationwide for wind damage at their Washington Avenue home, say their local agent misled them to believe their Nationwide homeowner's policy covered them for all damage in a hurricane and that the company failed to properly honor their claim.
The Leonards' case is the first of several Hurricane Katrina wind vs. water lawsuits filed against Nationwide, including a separate suit with more than 200 plaintiffs.
Attorneys for Nationwide argue the evidence will show Nationwide and its representatives acted appropriately in settling the Leonards' claim based on damage and the Leonards' policy, which has a flood exclusion.
Defense testimony in this expedited bench trial will continue today in Judge L.T. Senter Jr.'s courtroom.
Gilbert testified that of the 21,000 homeowner policy claims reported in Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina, 97 percent have been resolved or are on holdback. The company has paid $32 million to Mississippi homeowners. Gilbert could not testify to the number of total loss claims paid out.
Gilbert also testified that in cases in which wind caused a breach in the home, the company would cover the breach but not the flooding damage caused by water that entered the home through the breach because of anti-concurrent clauses in policies.
Zach Scruggs, an attorney for the Leonards, said there is an anti-concurrent clause issue in the Leonards' case and many other cases against insurance policies.
"Most policies have an anti-concurrent clause," Scruggs said. "It makes the policyholder the loser... The insured does not stand a chance."
Saunders said many insurance companies have similar language for anti-concurrent clauses in their homeowner policies.
Central to the case is the wind vs. water evidence and the facts of the Leonards' policy, Saunders said.
"This case is about the Leonards' case," Saunders said. "'The evidence is there."
The Leonards' attorney with the Scruggs Katrina Group concluded most of their case with expert testimony from a structural engineer and an adjuster hired to complete a loss estimate for the Leonards' home. Today, the attorneys plan to present video depositions of Gilbert and Richard Yuill, a Nationwide underwriting product director.
Peter de la Mora, a structural engineer hired to assess wind and water damage at the Leonards' home, testified that wind caused structural damage to the Leonards' home and water contributed to the damage.
Adjuster Brian Persson testified that he calculated total structural loss estimates for the Leonards' home at $130,253 in damage. Based on his and de la Mora's reports, Persson estimated wind damage losses at $47,365.
During cross-examination, Nationwide attorneys attempted to show multiple contradictions in different original and supplemental reports from Persson and de la Mora.
By QUINCY COLLINS SMITH 7/14/06
sunherald.com
GULFPORT - Jeff Gilbert, the senior claims official for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. in Mississippi, told a federal court Thursday the company did not look for ways out of honoring homeowners' policies after Hurricane Katrina.
"Our philosophy is to look for ways to pay claims," Gilbert said. "It's the right thing to do... Our only expectation is for the policyholder to describe his loss. It's our responsibility to break it up (into coverage)."
But on cross-examination, Gilbert said when there is no engineering, witness or documentation evidence available for a destroyed or damaged home to determine wind damage, the company works on the assumption that storm surge caused the destruction and the company "falls back" on the policy, which has flood exclusions.
"The contract speaks for itself and that's our relationship with the policyholder," Gilbert said.
Nationwide never makes a determination on a claim with a slab without an engineering report, said Gayle Saunders, a Nationwide spokeswoman.
Gilbert, Nationwide associate property-claims director for South Central Operations, was the first defense witness to testify in the suit filed by Pascagoula police officer Paul Leonard and his wife, Julie, against the insurance company.
The Leonards, who were paid $1,600 by Nationwide for wind damage at their Washington Avenue home, say their local agent misled them to believe their Nationwide homeowner's policy covered them for all damage in a hurricane and that the company failed to properly honor their claim.
The Leonards' case is the first of several Hurricane Katrina wind vs. water lawsuits filed against Nationwide, including a separate suit with more than 200 plaintiffs.
Attorneys for Nationwide argue the evidence will show Nationwide and its representatives acted appropriately in settling the Leonards' claim based on damage and the Leonards' policy, which has a flood exclusion.
Defense testimony in this expedited bench trial will continue today in Judge L.T. Senter Jr.'s courtroom.
Gilbert testified that of the 21,000 homeowner policy claims reported in Mississippi from Hurricane Katrina, 97 percent have been resolved or are on holdback. The company has paid $32 million to Mississippi homeowners. Gilbert could not testify to the number of total loss claims paid out.
Gilbert also testified that in cases in which wind caused a breach in the home, the company would cover the breach but not the flooding damage caused by water that entered the home through the breach because of anti-concurrent clauses in policies.
Zach Scruggs, an attorney for the Leonards, said there is an anti-concurrent clause issue in the Leonards' case and many other cases against insurance policies.
"Most policies have an anti-concurrent clause," Scruggs said. "It makes the policyholder the loser... The insured does not stand a chance."
Saunders said many insurance companies have similar language for anti-concurrent clauses in their homeowner policies.
Central to the case is the wind vs. water evidence and the facts of the Leonards' policy, Saunders said.
"This case is about the Leonards' case," Saunders said. "'The evidence is there."
The Leonards' attorney with the Scruggs Katrina Group concluded most of their case with expert testimony from a structural engineer and an adjuster hired to complete a loss estimate for the Leonards' home. Today, the attorneys plan to present video depositions of Gilbert and Richard Yuill, a Nationwide underwriting product director.
Peter de la Mora, a structural engineer hired to assess wind and water damage at the Leonards' home, testified that wind caused structural damage to the Leonards' home and water contributed to the damage.
Adjuster Brian Persson testified that he calculated total structural loss estimates for the Leonards' home at $130,253 in damage. Based on his and de la Mora's reports, Persson estimated wind damage losses at $47,365.
During cross-examination, Nationwide attorneys attempted to show multiple contradictions in different original and supplemental reports from Persson and de la Mora.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Foxwoods still in hunt for casino
Four other companies also interested in Broadwater site
By DON HAMMACK 7/14/06
sunherald.com
BILOXI - According to the project manager for the redevelopment of the Broadwater Hotel site, Foxwoods Development Co. has not pulled out of its deal to build a casino there.
Mark Calvert, of investment banking firm Cascade Capital, said Foxwoods' 60-day exclusive window to conduct due diligence ran out within the last 10 days. Foxwoods is looking at an approximately 16-acre site on the 261-acre property being developed by W.C. "Cotton" Fore and Roy Anderson III.
"We said we'd entertain other offers, so we have four other players talking to us about the possibility of doing the deal," Calvert said.
He said he's still working with Foxwoods daily.
An official at Foxwoods declined to comment, referring questions to the tribe's public-relations office in Connecticut. Phones messages left there were not returned Wednesday afternoon.
The tribe had previously touted a plan to invest $400 million or more in Biloxi.
The world's largest casino, Foxwoods, is in southeast Connecticut on the lands of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. The complex employs 12,000 people and has 7,400 slot machines, 365 table games, 35 restaurants, 25 retail outlets, two showrooms and 80 poker tables.
Foxwoods is competing to acquire a casino license in Philadelphia, Pa., and is working with another American Indian tribe in California on a project there.
Officials had said the casino here would operate like non-Indian casinos in Mississippi, paying the same taxes and being subject to the same rules and regulations.
The Mississippi Gaming Commission ruled last month that its location north of U.S. 90 is a legal gambling site, after developers finished ironing out a lease with the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office for waterfront property required to link to the inland sites.
Calvert, who said demolition is expected to begin at the site by the end of the month, would not identify the other four companies that are now involved.
Beverly Martin, executive director of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association, said she's not surprised by that fact.
"It's a prime site," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me a bit that somebody else would come in and scoop it up."
She said it might be hard for other operators to match Foxwoods' financial clout, however. Martin said many companies like to throw around talk about developments in the $1 billion neighborhood.
"Foxwoods is really one of the ones that can pull it off," she said.
Four other companies also interested in Broadwater site
By DON HAMMACK 7/14/06
sunherald.com
BILOXI - According to the project manager for the redevelopment of the Broadwater Hotel site, Foxwoods Development Co. has not pulled out of its deal to build a casino there.
Mark Calvert, of investment banking firm Cascade Capital, said Foxwoods' 60-day exclusive window to conduct due diligence ran out within the last 10 days. Foxwoods is looking at an approximately 16-acre site on the 261-acre property being developed by W.C. "Cotton" Fore and Roy Anderson III.
"We said we'd entertain other offers, so we have four other players talking to us about the possibility of doing the deal," Calvert said.
He said he's still working with Foxwoods daily.
An official at Foxwoods declined to comment, referring questions to the tribe's public-relations office in Connecticut. Phones messages left there were not returned Wednesday afternoon.
The tribe had previously touted a plan to invest $400 million or more in Biloxi.
The world's largest casino, Foxwoods, is in southeast Connecticut on the lands of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. The complex employs 12,000 people and has 7,400 slot machines, 365 table games, 35 restaurants, 25 retail outlets, two showrooms and 80 poker tables.
Foxwoods is competing to acquire a casino license in Philadelphia, Pa., and is working with another American Indian tribe in California on a project there.
Officials had said the casino here would operate like non-Indian casinos in Mississippi, paying the same taxes and being subject to the same rules and regulations.
The Mississippi Gaming Commission ruled last month that its location north of U.S. 90 is a legal gambling site, after developers finished ironing out a lease with the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office for waterfront property required to link to the inland sites.
Calvert, who said demolition is expected to begin at the site by the end of the month, would not identify the other four companies that are now involved.
Beverly Martin, executive director of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association, said she's not surprised by that fact.
"It's a prime site," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me a bit that somebody else would come in and scoop it up."
She said it might be hard for other operators to match Foxwoods' financial clout, however. Martin said many companies like to throw around talk about developments in the $1 billion neighborhood.
"Foxwoods is really one of the ones that can pull it off," she said.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Standing dead trees are a danger
By RYAN LaFONTAINE 7/14/06
sunherald.com
HANCOCK COUNTY - Katrina's wicked winds didn't snap them in half or knock them to the ground. Instead, thousands of massive pine trees here were left to die a slow death from saltwater.
First they turn brown, and later their limbs fall off. Soon what's left of the trees will come tumbling down and where they will land is anyone's guess.
County officials are pleading for help and they need it fast. Each day, dozens of dead trees topple with freight-train force, jeopardizing houses, power lines and motorists, and even children who spend summer days playing in the woods.
Carolyn Hollister and her husband, Paul, were keeping a close eye on two mammoth pines barely standing next to their Waveland home that was being restored.
"They were huge and they were dead," she said. "They would have fallen on the house."
A volunteer group from California helped cut down the trees. Otherwise, it would have cost the Hollisters about $1,000 to have them removed.
"A lot of homeowners don't have the money to remove them, especially now," said Rocky Pullman, president of the Hancock Board of Supervisors.
County leaders have asked FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Forestry Commission for help, but with no luck. This week they turned to the state Emergency Management Agency and Gov. Haley Barbour to figure a way to chop down the rotting timber.
The federal government will likely cover the cost of removing dead trees from public rights of way. But local leaders are far more nervous about the trees that threaten human life.
"There's a big concern for the safety of the general public," Pullman said. "A lot of them are close to houses or next to FEMA trailers and some are on private property next to roadways."
Mike Womack, MEMA's interim director, said he has met with FEMA and the two agencies are hammering out details of a plan to remove the trees, but no deal has been made.
Meanwhile, the Hollisters are anxiously waiting to see where two other pines - leaning near their backyard - will fall, before they complete their home renovations.
By RYAN LaFONTAINE 7/14/06
sunherald.com
HANCOCK COUNTY - Katrina's wicked winds didn't snap them in half or knock them to the ground. Instead, thousands of massive pine trees here were left to die a slow death from saltwater.
First they turn brown, and later their limbs fall off. Soon what's left of the trees will come tumbling down and where they will land is anyone's guess.
County officials are pleading for help and they need it fast. Each day, dozens of dead trees topple with freight-train force, jeopardizing houses, power lines and motorists, and even children who spend summer days playing in the woods.
Carolyn Hollister and her husband, Paul, were keeping a close eye on two mammoth pines barely standing next to their Waveland home that was being restored.
"They were huge and they were dead," she said. "They would have fallen on the house."
A volunteer group from California helped cut down the trees. Otherwise, it would have cost the Hollisters about $1,000 to have them removed.
"A lot of homeowners don't have the money to remove them, especially now," said Rocky Pullman, president of the Hancock Board of Supervisors.
County leaders have asked FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Forestry Commission for help, but with no luck. This week they turned to the state Emergency Management Agency and Gov. Haley Barbour to figure a way to chop down the rotting timber.
The federal government will likely cover the cost of removing dead trees from public rights of way. But local leaders are far more nervous about the trees that threaten human life.
"There's a big concern for the safety of the general public," Pullman said. "A lot of them are close to houses or next to FEMA trailers and some are on private property next to roadways."
Mike Womack, MEMA's interim director, said he has met with FEMA and the two agencies are hammering out details of a plan to remove the trees, but no deal has been made.
Meanwhile, the Hollisters are anxiously waiting to see where two other pines - leaning near their backyard - will fall, before they complete their home renovations.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Firefighters respond to 2-alarm business blaze
Mobile Press Register 7/13/06
Mobile ALA.
A two-alarm fire this afternoon at SOLA – the Safety Controls Group – at 1524 Azalea Road in Mobile caused an estimated $100,000 in damage, a fire department spokesman stated in a news release.
At about 4:28 p.m., an employee reported the fire at the industrial supply business that handles cascade systems (compressed air) and self-contained breathing apparatus (or SCBA), which are products commonly used by firefighters in fires to protect their breathing, according to the news release.
When firefighters arrived, they reported heavy smoke and flames and requested a second alarm assignment, according to the news release from Steve Huffman, the spokesman for the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department. Firefighters were able to bring the fire under control quickly, Huffman said.
The fire appears to have originated in an upper front corner storage area above the business office area in the large metal building, Huffman said. The employee told fire investigators she heard a loud explosion above her office, went to investigate the noise, then discovered heavy smoke near the ceiling in the warehouse/workshop area, he said.
The cause of the fire remaines under investigation. No injuries were reported.
Mobile Press Register 7/13/06
Mobile ALA.
A two-alarm fire this afternoon at SOLA – the Safety Controls Group – at 1524 Azalea Road in Mobile caused an estimated $100,000 in damage, a fire department spokesman stated in a news release.
At about 4:28 p.m., an employee reported the fire at the industrial supply business that handles cascade systems (compressed air) and self-contained breathing apparatus (or SCBA), which are products commonly used by firefighters in fires to protect their breathing, according to the news release.
When firefighters arrived, they reported heavy smoke and flames and requested a second alarm assignment, according to the news release from Steve Huffman, the spokesman for the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department. Firefighters were able to bring the fire under control quickly, Huffman said.
The fire appears to have originated in an upper front corner storage area above the business office area in the large metal building, Huffman said. The employee told fire investigators she heard a loud explosion above her office, went to investigate the noise, then discovered heavy smoke near the ceiling in the warehouse/workshop area, he said.
The cause of the fire remaines under investigation. No injuries were reported.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Southern governors meet this weekend in New Orleans
7/14/2006, 7:41 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As this year's chairwoman of the Southern Governors' Association, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco will host the group's 72nd annual meeting this weekend in New Orleans.
The meeting will focus on hurricane recovery issues.
The topics include disaster preparedness and emergency management, civil disturbances and terrorism, state-based health information systems, regional interoperability and the privacy and security of electronic medical records.
Tomorrow, governors and other volunteers will help with the construction of a new housing community in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward.
The project, known as the Musicians' Village, was conceived by native jazz musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Junior in partnership with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. The community is just under way but plans for 300 houses as a way to help displaced musicians and others come home.
Blanco will lead a bus tour of the hurricane-damaged areas later in the day.
On Sunday, the governors will hear about the performance of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact during last year's hurricane season.
The association's membership comprises the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia and West Virginia.
7/14/2006, 7:41 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As this year's chairwoman of the Southern Governors' Association, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco will host the group's 72nd annual meeting this weekend in New Orleans.
The meeting will focus on hurricane recovery issues.
The topics include disaster preparedness and emergency management, civil disturbances and terrorism, state-based health information systems, regional interoperability and the privacy and security of electronic medical records.
Tomorrow, governors and other volunteers will help with the construction of a new housing community in New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward.
The project, known as the Musicians' Village, was conceived by native jazz musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Junior in partnership with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. The community is just under way but plans for 300 houses as a way to help displaced musicians and others come home.
Blanco will lead a bus tour of the hurricane-damaged areas later in the day.
On Sunday, the governors will hear about the performance of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact during last year's hurricane season.
The association's membership comprises the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia and West Virginia.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 75
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
GMAC Bowl moving to eve of BCS title game
7/14/2006, 7:41 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — The GMAC Bowl is moving to January.
Bowl officials announced today the Mobile postseason game will be played this season on Sunday, January 7th. That's the eve of the BCS national championship game.
The game was played on the Wednesday or Thursday before Christmas from 1999-to-2005.
The GMAC Bowl will kickoff at 7 p.m. CST and be televised nationally by ESPN.
Silverstein said ESPN has cleared the GMAC Bowl to move to January at least through 2010.
The game features teams from the Mid-American Conference and Conference USA.
7/14/2006, 7:41 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — The GMAC Bowl is moving to January.
Bowl officials announced today the Mobile postseason game will be played this season on Sunday, January 7th. That's the eve of the BCS national championship game.
The game was played on the Wednesday or Thursday before Christmas from 1999-to-2005.
The GMAC Bowl will kickoff at 7 p.m. CST and be televised nationally by ESPN.
Silverstein said ESPN has cleared the GMAC Bowl to move to January at least through 2010.
The game features teams from the Mid-American Conference and Conference USA.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 75
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Failed pump cuts city's water supply
But S&WB says 2 others enough to prevent crisis
Fred Cook works on a pump that failed over the Fourth of July weekend at the New River Station.
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Krupa
The recent failure of one of three enormous pumps that siphon water from the Mississippi River to a New Orleans water purification plant has reduced by 70 million gallons per day the volume that can be tapped for use on the city's east bank, officials said.
The power of two remaining pumps that suck in river water is adequate to provide the average 130 million gallons the city needs every day, Sewerage & Water Board spokesman Robert Jackson said. And an older, dormant pump at a separate station also could be called into service if needed, he said.
"We're still in pretty good shape," he said. "We're drawing what we need. We're not drawing more than we need." But the failure over the Fourth of July weekend of the massive low-lift pump at the New River Station, near the Jefferson Parish line, dealt a blow to the maximum capacity of raw water that can be drawn from the river and added another complication to the city's beleaguered water system.
It still is unclear why the low-lift pump ground to a halt sometime in early July, though several S&WB employees said privately that inadequate maintenance contributed to the failure. The board is preparing to award an emergency contract for the pump's inspection and repair, Jackson said, tasks that he said are outside the ability of staff machinists. "Usually when (pumps) burn up, they burn up because the ball bearings burn up," Jackson said. "We won't know until they take the pump apart whether or not it was lack of maintenance."
Jackson said the New River Station's two remaining pumps each sucks in as much as 70 million gallons of water per day from the river and the Old River Station pump could move 80 million gallons per day if needed, so the city is not in immediate jeopardy of depleting supply at its Carrollton Water Purification Plant.
With New Orleans' population having grown to about 220,000 residents since Hurricane Katrina virtually emptied the city last year, customers have been using about 50 million gallons of drinking water per day, or 63 percent of the volume that was used before the Aug. 29 storm.
However, another 85 million gallons per day have been leaking in recent months, most of it through cracked underground pipes and broken fire hydrants that were damaged when the storm's winds toppled trees whose roots pried loose the subterranean infrastructure. Before Katrina, the amount of water wasted or used for firefighting and other public needs was less than half the current volume.
Experts have said that New Orleans, with its aged water distribution system, is lucky to have a ready supply of fresh water rushing past its door every day. They note that similar problems in desert cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas could exhaust the drinking water reserve completely.
To get a handle on the leaks, S&WB embarked last month on a $192,500 pilot program to install 400 radio transmission devices on underground pipes across the city. About the size of a soda can, the devices "listen" for vibrations indicating the source of a leak. Contractors then canvass the city with hand-held computers that receive the devices' data, and crews then are dispatched to the sites to do repairs.
Jackson said the process now is under way. "We've begun the patrolling," he said. "I think we should have some results pretty soon."
But as repairs to plainly visible leaks continue throughout New Orleans, low water pressure has become an almost daily problem. Workers often must shut underground valves to fix broken pipes, cutting off water to entire neighborhoods. For example, repairs to a 50-inch water main line will suspend service today between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the entire Lower 9th Ward and other areas of the city south of Florida Avenue and east of Elysian Fields Avenue.
Equipment failures also have created service problems. On Monday, the loss of electricity to a turbine that powers pumps used to sustain water pressure near the purification plant caused water pressure to plummet for several hours Uptown and in the Central Business District.
Residents may report leaks, including the sound of water running underground, by calling (504) 52-WATER or through the S&WB Web site, http://www.swbno.org.
But S&WB says 2 others enough to prevent crisis
Fred Cook works on a pump that failed over the Fourth of July weekend at the New River Station.
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Krupa
The recent failure of one of three enormous pumps that siphon water from the Mississippi River to a New Orleans water purification plant has reduced by 70 million gallons per day the volume that can be tapped for use on the city's east bank, officials said.
The power of two remaining pumps that suck in river water is adequate to provide the average 130 million gallons the city needs every day, Sewerage & Water Board spokesman Robert Jackson said. And an older, dormant pump at a separate station also could be called into service if needed, he said.
"We're still in pretty good shape," he said. "We're drawing what we need. We're not drawing more than we need." But the failure over the Fourth of July weekend of the massive low-lift pump at the New River Station, near the Jefferson Parish line, dealt a blow to the maximum capacity of raw water that can be drawn from the river and added another complication to the city's beleaguered water system.
It still is unclear why the low-lift pump ground to a halt sometime in early July, though several S&WB employees said privately that inadequate maintenance contributed to the failure. The board is preparing to award an emergency contract for the pump's inspection and repair, Jackson said, tasks that he said are outside the ability of staff machinists. "Usually when (pumps) burn up, they burn up because the ball bearings burn up," Jackson said. "We won't know until they take the pump apart whether or not it was lack of maintenance."
Jackson said the New River Station's two remaining pumps each sucks in as much as 70 million gallons of water per day from the river and the Old River Station pump could move 80 million gallons per day if needed, so the city is not in immediate jeopardy of depleting supply at its Carrollton Water Purification Plant.
With New Orleans' population having grown to about 220,000 residents since Hurricane Katrina virtually emptied the city last year, customers have been using about 50 million gallons of drinking water per day, or 63 percent of the volume that was used before the Aug. 29 storm.
However, another 85 million gallons per day have been leaking in recent months, most of it through cracked underground pipes and broken fire hydrants that were damaged when the storm's winds toppled trees whose roots pried loose the subterranean infrastructure. Before Katrina, the amount of water wasted or used for firefighting and other public needs was less than half the current volume.
Experts have said that New Orleans, with its aged water distribution system, is lucky to have a ready supply of fresh water rushing past its door every day. They note that similar problems in desert cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas could exhaust the drinking water reserve completely.
To get a handle on the leaks, S&WB embarked last month on a $192,500 pilot program to install 400 radio transmission devices on underground pipes across the city. About the size of a soda can, the devices "listen" for vibrations indicating the source of a leak. Contractors then canvass the city with hand-held computers that receive the devices' data, and crews then are dispatched to the sites to do repairs.
Jackson said the process now is under way. "We've begun the patrolling," he said. "I think we should have some results pretty soon."
But as repairs to plainly visible leaks continue throughout New Orleans, low water pressure has become an almost daily problem. Workers often must shut underground valves to fix broken pipes, cutting off water to entire neighborhoods. For example, repairs to a 50-inch water main line will suspend service today between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the entire Lower 9th Ward and other areas of the city south of Florida Avenue and east of Elysian Fields Avenue.
Equipment failures also have created service problems. On Monday, the loss of electricity to a turbine that powers pumps used to sustain water pressure near the purification plant caused water pressure to plummet for several hours Uptown and in the Central Business District.
Residents may report leaks, including the sound of water running underground, by calling (504) 52-WATER or through the S&WB Web site, http://www.swbno.org.
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 75
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
LRA may take over insurance claims
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Rebecca Mowbray
Business writer
The Road Home program may take over the insurance claims of its grant recipients and sue for additional payouts if participating homeowners didn't receive all they should have from their insurers, the chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's housing task force said this week.
Walter Leger said his authority hopes such a move would prevent the Road Home program, which is intended to help homeowners cover uninsured property damage, from becoming a $7.5 billion subsidy to the insurance industry.
The group worries that the insurance industry will be less willing to pay out if it knows that homeowners can get help with their uninsured losses through Road Home. The Recovery Authority is also concerned that weary homeowners will give up on pursuing insurance claims if they know they can get grant money.
"We're going to reserve every right to pursue the claims," Leger said. "Otherwise, the insurance industry can use the Road Home program as a reason not to pay claims."
Homeowners participating in the Road Home program would be asked to sign over their pending claim rights to insurance payouts when receiving grant money. And if the Recovery Authority feels that a recipient's claims have been underpaid, it may opt to go after the insurer for more money. Details are still sketchy on the plan, but if the state is successful at extracting extra money from insurance companies, Leger said it will put that money back into the Recovery Authority's grant program to create additional resources for rebuilding Louisiana.
As an incentive for homeowners to continue pursuing their insurance claims on their own, the LRA is also working on a plan to ensure that they can recover attorney fees if a lawyer wins them additional insurance money that will ultimately save resources in the Road Home program.
Loretta Worters, vice president of communications at the Insurance Information Institute trade group, lauded the Recovery Authority's effort to create incentives for consumers to continue pursuing their claims. She said abandoning those claims would waste the federal money made available for the rebuilding effort.
"In essence, it's defrauding the Road Home. Ultimately you're defrauding the government, which we all, as taxpayers, pay for," Worters said. "There's only so much money to go around."
Worters encouraged consumers to keep pursuing their insurance claims, saying the industry has no way of knowing policyholders need more money if they don't file supplemental requests asking for it.
Leger's efforts to make sure that all sources of insurance money for rebuilding are exhausted come as the state is battling the insurance industry to extend an Aug. 29 deadline for filing lawsuits disputing their insurance claims. In Louisiana, homeowners have typically had one year to legally dispute their claims and payouts, the shortest time period of any Gulf Coast state.
On Monday, a suit was filed in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge to test the constitutionality of two laws that were passed in the most recent legislative session extending the deadline for filing suit over Hurricanes Katrina and Rita claims by an additional year. On Tuesday, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon ordered insurance companies to voluntarily extend the lawsuit deadline by an additional year by Aug. 1, or face fines and sanctions that could include revoking operating certificates.
The deadline for filing lawsuits is widely viewed as the last date that consumers can get additional payouts from their insurers because they lose their legal leverage after that date.
Too tired to fight
Under the Road Home program, property owners are eligible for grants of up to $150,000. The money can be used to buy out the owner of a decimated property or cover gaps between the homeowner's insurance proceeds and repair bills. The Louisiana Recovery Authority estimates that 123,000 homes and 82,000 rental properties in Louisiana sustained major or severe damage in Katrina and Rita and may be eligible for grants.
Donelon doesn't think insurance companies would officially instruct their agents to stiff people and send them to the grant program, but he thinks the existence of the Road Home program will make it easier for an adjuster to decline additional payouts. The bigger issue, Donelon said, will be homeowners who are too tired to continue fighting for more insurance money.
"Those are legitimate concerns that folks will just rely on the fact that there's a check available from the federal government for whatever they don't have to strain to collect from their insurers," Donelon said. "It's an ordeal to go through documenting your claim, fighting for the higher costs of supplies and additional damages when you can get the remainder from the grant program. That's a real issue."
Even if property owners were motivated to sue, many consumers find that their individual claims are too small for a lawyer to take the case. But if those many small claims were consolidated, the government might be able to use its muscle to pursue them.
"The government is in a stronger position to go after these kind of claims," said Bob Hunter, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America.
If Leger, an attorney who made his mark suing the tobacco companies and representing plaintiffs when the Bright Field freighter slammed into the Riverwalk Marketplace in 1996, can set up a program to wring additional claims payments from insurers, the state may find itself in the unusual position of becoming a major player in the many class action lawsuits unfolding in courts across the Gulf Coast.
"The state may have to become a party to these big class actions," said John Lovett, a Loyola University law professor who is studying the Road Home program and the property issues created by Hurricane Katrina.
Attorney fees issue
But Leger said the first order of business is to make sure that homeowners don't see their grants reduced by attorney fees if they hire a lawyer and land additional insurance money.
The calculation used to determine the size of each Road Home applicant's grant involves tallying up the homeowner's insurance payouts and deducting that amount from the total amount of grant money for which he is eligible. Leger doesn't want homeowners to be penalized if some of their insurance payout is eaten up by legal fees.
As Leger sees it, if an attorney is able to get an extra $25,000 for a homeowner on an insurance claim and the attorney takes $5,000 for a fee, the homeowner should only see his grant reduced by $20,000 instead of $25,000, because that's all he got from the additional insurance proceeds. The idea is that the attorney fees should come out of Recovery Authority money because paying the lawyer $5,000 ultimately saves the Road Home program $20,000, and that savings will expand the program's reach.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which supplied the Recovery Authority with the rebuilding grant money, said the attorney fees provision was not part of the Road Home grant program submitted by the state. If the state wants to use HUD money to pursue insurance claims on behalf of homeowners, or to pay attorney fees, HUD would need to review the plan to determine whether it's a appropriate use of federal money.
It will ultimately be up to Gov. Kathleen Blanco or Attorney General Charles Foti to decide whether to pursue the homeowners claims, Leger said. It is the Recovery Authority's job to get homeowners to sign over their rights to those claims.
Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for Foti, bristled at the notion that the state's top lawyer would get involved in homeowners insurance claims unless there were questions of fraud or illegality. She said that no official request has been made for the attorney general's office to create a blueprint for pursuing claims. "It's all just like talk. There's no type of formal request," Wartelle said.
Leger said that he has had informal discussions with HUD and the attorney general's office, and plans to follow up with official requests.
If the state or a related entity were to pursue claims, it would probably end up negotiating claims in groups by company or by situation, such as underpayment of claims and allocation of wind damage and flood damage, and farming the work out to outside counsel. Pursuing claims that weary and distracted homeowners can't could be a complex and ambitious undertaking.
"The issue becomes, is it worth the effort to staff up and acquire the necessary legal assistance that would be required to pursue those subrogations?" Donelon said.
But the Louisiana Department of Insurance believes it could be financially worthwhile to do so. While Boston insurance modeling firm AIR Worldwide Corp. estimated in the fall that there would be $20.8 billion in non-flood insured property losses from Katrina in Louisiana, insurance companies have paid only $12.8 billion in Katrina claims in Louisiana so far.
Donelon believes that the gap in anticipated payouts suggests that there may be several hundred thousand claims in the state in which homeowners believe they are owed additional money although their insurers consider the cases closed. "The companies are telling me that they're 95 percent closed on their hurricane claims. I doubt that seriously," Donelon said.
While talk of attorney fees and class action lawsuits may have a bad sound, Leger said it's ultimately about making sure the state makes the best of limited resources to rebuild.
"The state is trying to do the right thing to help people and to preserve the asset of the state: that money. The more money we have, the more money we can give to people to rebuild," Leger said. "I don't think there's anything unfair about this. It only makes sense."
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Rebecca Mowbray
Business writer
The Road Home program may take over the insurance claims of its grant recipients and sue for additional payouts if participating homeowners didn't receive all they should have from their insurers, the chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority's housing task force said this week.
Walter Leger said his authority hopes such a move would prevent the Road Home program, which is intended to help homeowners cover uninsured property damage, from becoming a $7.5 billion subsidy to the insurance industry.
The group worries that the insurance industry will be less willing to pay out if it knows that homeowners can get help with their uninsured losses through Road Home. The Recovery Authority is also concerned that weary homeowners will give up on pursuing insurance claims if they know they can get grant money.
"We're going to reserve every right to pursue the claims," Leger said. "Otherwise, the insurance industry can use the Road Home program as a reason not to pay claims."
Homeowners participating in the Road Home program would be asked to sign over their pending claim rights to insurance payouts when receiving grant money. And if the Recovery Authority feels that a recipient's claims have been underpaid, it may opt to go after the insurer for more money. Details are still sketchy on the plan, but if the state is successful at extracting extra money from insurance companies, Leger said it will put that money back into the Recovery Authority's grant program to create additional resources for rebuilding Louisiana.
As an incentive for homeowners to continue pursuing their insurance claims on their own, the LRA is also working on a plan to ensure that they can recover attorney fees if a lawyer wins them additional insurance money that will ultimately save resources in the Road Home program.
Loretta Worters, vice president of communications at the Insurance Information Institute trade group, lauded the Recovery Authority's effort to create incentives for consumers to continue pursuing their claims. She said abandoning those claims would waste the federal money made available for the rebuilding effort.
"In essence, it's defrauding the Road Home. Ultimately you're defrauding the government, which we all, as taxpayers, pay for," Worters said. "There's only so much money to go around."
Worters encouraged consumers to keep pursuing their insurance claims, saying the industry has no way of knowing policyholders need more money if they don't file supplemental requests asking for it.
Leger's efforts to make sure that all sources of insurance money for rebuilding are exhausted come as the state is battling the insurance industry to extend an Aug. 29 deadline for filing lawsuits disputing their insurance claims. In Louisiana, homeowners have typically had one year to legally dispute their claims and payouts, the shortest time period of any Gulf Coast state.
On Monday, a suit was filed in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge to test the constitutionality of two laws that were passed in the most recent legislative session extending the deadline for filing suit over Hurricanes Katrina and Rita claims by an additional year. On Tuesday, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon ordered insurance companies to voluntarily extend the lawsuit deadline by an additional year by Aug. 1, or face fines and sanctions that could include revoking operating certificates.
The deadline for filing lawsuits is widely viewed as the last date that consumers can get additional payouts from their insurers because they lose their legal leverage after that date.
Too tired to fight
Under the Road Home program, property owners are eligible for grants of up to $150,000. The money can be used to buy out the owner of a decimated property or cover gaps between the homeowner's insurance proceeds and repair bills. The Louisiana Recovery Authority estimates that 123,000 homes and 82,000 rental properties in Louisiana sustained major or severe damage in Katrina and Rita and may be eligible for grants.
Donelon doesn't think insurance companies would officially instruct their agents to stiff people and send them to the grant program, but he thinks the existence of the Road Home program will make it easier for an adjuster to decline additional payouts. The bigger issue, Donelon said, will be homeowners who are too tired to continue fighting for more insurance money.
"Those are legitimate concerns that folks will just rely on the fact that there's a check available from the federal government for whatever they don't have to strain to collect from their insurers," Donelon said. "It's an ordeal to go through documenting your claim, fighting for the higher costs of supplies and additional damages when you can get the remainder from the grant program. That's a real issue."
Even if property owners were motivated to sue, many consumers find that their individual claims are too small for a lawyer to take the case. But if those many small claims were consolidated, the government might be able to use its muscle to pursue them.
"The government is in a stronger position to go after these kind of claims," said Bob Hunter, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America.
If Leger, an attorney who made his mark suing the tobacco companies and representing plaintiffs when the Bright Field freighter slammed into the Riverwalk Marketplace in 1996, can set up a program to wring additional claims payments from insurers, the state may find itself in the unusual position of becoming a major player in the many class action lawsuits unfolding in courts across the Gulf Coast.
"The state may have to become a party to these big class actions," said John Lovett, a Loyola University law professor who is studying the Road Home program and the property issues created by Hurricane Katrina.
Attorney fees issue
But Leger said the first order of business is to make sure that homeowners don't see their grants reduced by attorney fees if they hire a lawyer and land additional insurance money.
The calculation used to determine the size of each Road Home applicant's grant involves tallying up the homeowner's insurance payouts and deducting that amount from the total amount of grant money for which he is eligible. Leger doesn't want homeowners to be penalized if some of their insurance payout is eaten up by legal fees.
As Leger sees it, if an attorney is able to get an extra $25,000 for a homeowner on an insurance claim and the attorney takes $5,000 for a fee, the homeowner should only see his grant reduced by $20,000 instead of $25,000, because that's all he got from the additional insurance proceeds. The idea is that the attorney fees should come out of Recovery Authority money because paying the lawyer $5,000 ultimately saves the Road Home program $20,000, and that savings will expand the program's reach.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which supplied the Recovery Authority with the rebuilding grant money, said the attorney fees provision was not part of the Road Home grant program submitted by the state. If the state wants to use HUD money to pursue insurance claims on behalf of homeowners, or to pay attorney fees, HUD would need to review the plan to determine whether it's a appropriate use of federal money.
It will ultimately be up to Gov. Kathleen Blanco or Attorney General Charles Foti to decide whether to pursue the homeowners claims, Leger said. It is the Recovery Authority's job to get homeowners to sign over their rights to those claims.
Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for Foti, bristled at the notion that the state's top lawyer would get involved in homeowners insurance claims unless there were questions of fraud or illegality. She said that no official request has been made for the attorney general's office to create a blueprint for pursuing claims. "It's all just like talk. There's no type of formal request," Wartelle said.
Leger said that he has had informal discussions with HUD and the attorney general's office, and plans to follow up with official requests.
If the state or a related entity were to pursue claims, it would probably end up negotiating claims in groups by company or by situation, such as underpayment of claims and allocation of wind damage and flood damage, and farming the work out to outside counsel. Pursuing claims that weary and distracted homeowners can't could be a complex and ambitious undertaking.
"The issue becomes, is it worth the effort to staff up and acquire the necessary legal assistance that would be required to pursue those subrogations?" Donelon said.
But the Louisiana Department of Insurance believes it could be financially worthwhile to do so. While Boston insurance modeling firm AIR Worldwide Corp. estimated in the fall that there would be $20.8 billion in non-flood insured property losses from Katrina in Louisiana, insurance companies have paid only $12.8 billion in Katrina claims in Louisiana so far.
Donelon believes that the gap in anticipated payouts suggests that there may be several hundred thousand claims in the state in which homeowners believe they are owed additional money although their insurers consider the cases closed. "The companies are telling me that they're 95 percent closed on their hurricane claims. I doubt that seriously," Donelon said.
While talk of attorney fees and class action lawsuits may have a bad sound, Leger said it's ultimately about making sure the state makes the best of limited resources to rebuild.
"The state is trying to do the right thing to help people and to preserve the asset of the state: that money. The more money we have, the more money we can give to people to rebuild," Leger said. "I don't think there's anything unfair about this. It only makes sense."
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 75
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Waiting is tough on Road Home
Homeowners anxious for answers on aid
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Jeff Duncan
and Coleman Warner%%par%%Staff writers
Gentilly resident Marvin Price is making progress in repairing severe damage that 4½ feet of Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters brought to his Fairmont Drive home, using money from the contents settlement on an insurance claim.
(Chris Granger / Times-Picayune)
Marvin Price, center, has applied for 'Road Home' and is hoping for $30,000 to finish repairing his house.
But he needs another $30,000 or so to finish the work, and he is getting antsy waiting for word from the state Road Home program on his grant application, which he applied for months ago. With the state program now fully financed with federal money, Price is waiting to be called in for an interview to see whether he qualifies for assistance.
"I'm just mainly hoping to get funds to rebuild, to get back to where I was," he said. "I was hoping to hear where I stand with the program, some kind of notification."
The LSU Health Sciences Center employee, who lives with his two children in a FEMA trailer at the property, is worried that the $118,000 insurance settlement he received for home damage -- which he said he could not use for repairs because his lender demanded it be applied to his mortgage -- will count against whatever he qualifies for from the Road Home program, Louisiana's $7.5 billion plan to assist homeowners whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged in Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Price also frets that a recent federal flood advisory may lead to a Louisiana Recovery Authority demand that he raise his home to get financial help.
"My concern is that after they finish subtracting out everything, I won't have enough to actually fix the house," said Price, 36, noting he has no need for the program's $150,000 maximum benefit. "If I could get $25,000 to $30,000, I could finish everything."
Price is one of 51,033 Orleans Parish residents who have registered for assistance in the state Road Home program, according to recent figures released by the LRA, the state agency overseeing the plan. Four months since the program began taking applications, Orleans Parish residents make up about 58 percent of the 87,738 applicants statewide. Registering does not mean a homeowner is eligible for a grant: It simply means the case will be reviewed.
The high numbers of New Orleans registrants are not a surprise, said Mike Byrne, Road Home manager for ICF International, a contractor hired by the state to screen applicants. "Orleans is kind of a no-brainer. It's obvious what's there. We have enough data to know what kind of a presence we need to have in Orleans Parish."
Of the people who had applied for assistance through June 26, 13,264 were from St. Bernard Parish, 9,194 were from Jefferson Parish, 5,416 from St. Tammany and 3,352 from Plaquemines.
LRA officials caution that the figures are probably inordinately high because many people who have registered are not eligible for assistance, and the number might include duplicate applications. For example, based on FEMA data, the LRA thinks 53,474 Orleans Parish residents are eligible for assistance. The number of applications filed so far represents 95 percent of the total eligible homeowners in the parish, a scenario that officials think is unlikely.
Checking the numbers
While it was expected that Orleans Parish residents would make up the majority of applicants -- almost 70 percent of the 63,410 homes that suffered severe damage statewide were in Orleans -- LRA officials are skeptical of the high registration rate.
"That alone gave us pause," LRA spokeswoman Catherine Heitman said of the high number of Orleans Parish residents listed on the early returns. "Those numbers may not be exactly right. We hope to have them cleaned up soon."
To be eligible, homeowners must have lived in a unit that was categorized by FEMA as having been "destroyed" or having suffered "major" or "severe" damage.
The high registration numbers are not necessarily a problem because state officials have encouraged all homeowners who think they might be eligible to apply. They plan to cross-check data with FEMA lists to determine eligibility, Heitman said.
The Road Home program will provide residents up to $150,000 to rebuild or sell houses severely damaged by the storms. Using Community Development Block Grants overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the program will pay homeowners for repair costs above what was covered by insurance policies, FEMA grants and Small Business Administration loans. But while the program allows up to $150,000 per homeowner in additional money, the total payout -- insurance plus the grant -- cannot exceed the home's pre-Katrina value.
About $7.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants is devoted to a program to aid homeowners affected by the storms.
About 123,000 homeowners are thought to be eligible for the program, state officials said. About 87,000 have already applied by phone or online. Two other programs are targeted for rental development.
Officials think it will take six to eight weeks to process routine cases and that they will begin issuing checks by late summer.
Confusion among owners
The program averaged about 3,000 registrants per week for the first four months, but Heitman said the pace has accelerated as news spread of congressional approval of a $4.2 billion appropriation bill for Louisiana recovery needs.
Heitman said LRA officials will continue to seek to reach about 30,000 or so other homeowners who likely would qualify for the program but have yet to apply. She said many homeowners have expressed confusion about their eligibility at recent LRA neighborhood outreach sessions. She said some eligible homeowners failed to register because they thought they made too much money or did not receive enough damage to their homes.
"There are some misconceptions out there," said Walter Leger, chairman of the LRA's Housing Task Force. "I hear, 'I make too much money' or 'I had plenty of insurance' all the time. That's got nothing to do with it."
The confusion hasn't been restricted to citizens. LRA officials contacted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his chief information officer, Greg Meffert, this week to correct them about erroneous information they had spread about the program in recent public appearances.
At a meeting with elected, business and civic leaders in Algiers on Wednesday, Nagin said only about 15,000 to 16,000 homeowners from Orleans Parish had applied for assistance. Meffert quoted similar numbers in a story on WWL-TV this week.
LRA officials said city officials were drawing conclusions from incomplete and outdated information. The data Nagin and Meffert referred to were supplied by the LRA reflecting only online registrants through June 14.
"All the data we are going by at this stage can be categorized as anecdotal," Byrne said. "We're just not there yet."
Those who registered online also were asked to answer a survey about their intentions in the program. Of the 27,958 respondents, 53 percent said they want to repair their homes, 12 percent said they want to tear down the home and rebuild on the same site and 10 percent said they want to sell. The other respondents were unsure or had other plans.
LRA officials said the sampling is not an accurate reflection of the entire registry because it does not include phone applicants, who make up more than two-thirds of the registrants.
"The data itself is still broader and more general than we need to draw into it any conclusions," Byrne said. "If we put too much emphasis on any one area, it would skew the way we look at things. I think four months from now, we're going to have a much clearer picture and be able to make some intelligent decisions."
Homeowners 'on edge'
The LRA recently launched a pilot program to begin scheduling appointments at a housing assistance center in Baton Rouge. The LRA will open 10 other centers statewide by late August. The centers are available for appointments only. Registration is only allowed over the phone at 1-(888) 176-3253 or online at http://www.road2la.org.
Property owners are pleased to hear that the Road Home program is now fully financed, but they expressed frustration at uncertainty over how the awards will be calculated and how long the application process will play out.
"Everybody is on the limb, on edge, wondering will it be denied," said Gregory Smith, 44, a former mechanic who is a paraplegic because of a motorcycle accident many years ago. "I was hoping that whenever it comes through that I will be in the first group of people they will call, since I registered early."
With no insurance coverage for his home, Smith has used money from disability payments and tapped help from relatives and volunteers in starting renovations to his flooded home in eastern New Orleans. But he still needs $40,000 to $50,000 to finish the work, and he hopes that margin will be covered by a Road Home grant.
"I did the best I could with what I had. I got the walls up," said Smith, who is living in the home with his wife. "I think they (state officials) are doing the best that they can to help people get back home. I wish that the government would have acted earlier."
Homeowners anxious for answers on aid
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Jeff Duncan
and Coleman Warner%%par%%Staff writers
Gentilly resident Marvin Price is making progress in repairing severe damage that 4½ feet of Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters brought to his Fairmont Drive home, using money from the contents settlement on an insurance claim.
(Chris Granger / Times-Picayune)
Marvin Price, center, has applied for 'Road Home' and is hoping for $30,000 to finish repairing his house.
But he needs another $30,000 or so to finish the work, and he is getting antsy waiting for word from the state Road Home program on his grant application, which he applied for months ago. With the state program now fully financed with federal money, Price is waiting to be called in for an interview to see whether he qualifies for assistance.
"I'm just mainly hoping to get funds to rebuild, to get back to where I was," he said. "I was hoping to hear where I stand with the program, some kind of notification."
The LSU Health Sciences Center employee, who lives with his two children in a FEMA trailer at the property, is worried that the $118,000 insurance settlement he received for home damage -- which he said he could not use for repairs because his lender demanded it be applied to his mortgage -- will count against whatever he qualifies for from the Road Home program, Louisiana's $7.5 billion plan to assist homeowners whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged in Hurricanes Katrina or Rita. Price also frets that a recent federal flood advisory may lead to a Louisiana Recovery Authority demand that he raise his home to get financial help.
"My concern is that after they finish subtracting out everything, I won't have enough to actually fix the house," said Price, 36, noting he has no need for the program's $150,000 maximum benefit. "If I could get $25,000 to $30,000, I could finish everything."
Price is one of 51,033 Orleans Parish residents who have registered for assistance in the state Road Home program, according to recent figures released by the LRA, the state agency overseeing the plan. Four months since the program began taking applications, Orleans Parish residents make up about 58 percent of the 87,738 applicants statewide. Registering does not mean a homeowner is eligible for a grant: It simply means the case will be reviewed.
The high numbers of New Orleans registrants are not a surprise, said Mike Byrne, Road Home manager for ICF International, a contractor hired by the state to screen applicants. "Orleans is kind of a no-brainer. It's obvious what's there. We have enough data to know what kind of a presence we need to have in Orleans Parish."
Of the people who had applied for assistance through June 26, 13,264 were from St. Bernard Parish, 9,194 were from Jefferson Parish, 5,416 from St. Tammany and 3,352 from Plaquemines.
LRA officials caution that the figures are probably inordinately high because many people who have registered are not eligible for assistance, and the number might include duplicate applications. For example, based on FEMA data, the LRA thinks 53,474 Orleans Parish residents are eligible for assistance. The number of applications filed so far represents 95 percent of the total eligible homeowners in the parish, a scenario that officials think is unlikely.
Checking the numbers
While it was expected that Orleans Parish residents would make up the majority of applicants -- almost 70 percent of the 63,410 homes that suffered severe damage statewide were in Orleans -- LRA officials are skeptical of the high registration rate.
"That alone gave us pause," LRA spokeswoman Catherine Heitman said of the high number of Orleans Parish residents listed on the early returns. "Those numbers may not be exactly right. We hope to have them cleaned up soon."
To be eligible, homeowners must have lived in a unit that was categorized by FEMA as having been "destroyed" or having suffered "major" or "severe" damage.
The high registration numbers are not necessarily a problem because state officials have encouraged all homeowners who think they might be eligible to apply. They plan to cross-check data with FEMA lists to determine eligibility, Heitman said.
The Road Home program will provide residents up to $150,000 to rebuild or sell houses severely damaged by the storms. Using Community Development Block Grants overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the program will pay homeowners for repair costs above what was covered by insurance policies, FEMA grants and Small Business Administration loans. But while the program allows up to $150,000 per homeowner in additional money, the total payout -- insurance plus the grant -- cannot exceed the home's pre-Katrina value.
About $7.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants is devoted to a program to aid homeowners affected by the storms.
About 123,000 homeowners are thought to be eligible for the program, state officials said. About 87,000 have already applied by phone or online. Two other programs are targeted for rental development.
Officials think it will take six to eight weeks to process routine cases and that they will begin issuing checks by late summer.
Confusion among owners
The program averaged about 3,000 registrants per week for the first four months, but Heitman said the pace has accelerated as news spread of congressional approval of a $4.2 billion appropriation bill for Louisiana recovery needs.
Heitman said LRA officials will continue to seek to reach about 30,000 or so other homeowners who likely would qualify for the program but have yet to apply. She said many homeowners have expressed confusion about their eligibility at recent LRA neighborhood outreach sessions. She said some eligible homeowners failed to register because they thought they made too much money or did not receive enough damage to their homes.
"There are some misconceptions out there," said Walter Leger, chairman of the LRA's Housing Task Force. "I hear, 'I make too much money' or 'I had plenty of insurance' all the time. That's got nothing to do with it."
The confusion hasn't been restricted to citizens. LRA officials contacted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his chief information officer, Greg Meffert, this week to correct them about erroneous information they had spread about the program in recent public appearances.
At a meeting with elected, business and civic leaders in Algiers on Wednesday, Nagin said only about 15,000 to 16,000 homeowners from Orleans Parish had applied for assistance. Meffert quoted similar numbers in a story on WWL-TV this week.
LRA officials said city officials were drawing conclusions from incomplete and outdated information. The data Nagin and Meffert referred to were supplied by the LRA reflecting only online registrants through June 14.
"All the data we are going by at this stage can be categorized as anecdotal," Byrne said. "We're just not there yet."
Those who registered online also were asked to answer a survey about their intentions in the program. Of the 27,958 respondents, 53 percent said they want to repair their homes, 12 percent said they want to tear down the home and rebuild on the same site and 10 percent said they want to sell. The other respondents were unsure or had other plans.
LRA officials said the sampling is not an accurate reflection of the entire registry because it does not include phone applicants, who make up more than two-thirds of the registrants.
"The data itself is still broader and more general than we need to draw into it any conclusions," Byrne said. "If we put too much emphasis on any one area, it would skew the way we look at things. I think four months from now, we're going to have a much clearer picture and be able to make some intelligent decisions."
Homeowners 'on edge'
The LRA recently launched a pilot program to begin scheduling appointments at a housing assistance center in Baton Rouge. The LRA will open 10 other centers statewide by late August. The centers are available for appointments only. Registration is only allowed over the phone at 1-(888) 176-3253 or online at http://www.road2la.org.
Property owners are pleased to hear that the Road Home program is now fully financed, but they expressed frustration at uncertainty over how the awards will be calculated and how long the application process will play out.
"Everybody is on the limb, on edge, wondering will it be denied," said Gregory Smith, 44, a former mechanic who is a paraplegic because of a motorcycle accident many years ago. "I was hoping that whenever it comes through that I will be in the first group of people they will call, since I registered early."
With no insurance coverage for his home, Smith has used money from disability payments and tapped help from relatives and volunteers in starting renovations to his flooded home in eastern New Orleans. But he still needs $40,000 to $50,000 to finish the work, and he hopes that margin will be covered by a Road Home grant.
"I did the best I could with what I had. I got the walls up," said Smith, who is living in the home with his wife. "I think they (state officials) are doing the best that they can to help people get back home. I wish that the government would have acted earlier."
Last edited by Audrey2Katrina on Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Veteran NOPD officer faces inquiry
Investigation linked to earlier spa case
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Walt Philbin
A highly decorated and respected New Orleans police commander is under investigation after his vice squad officers raided a French Quarter spa whose employees were scheduled to testify about an alleged shakedown by officers from another unit.
Tim Bayard, 50, a 31-year veteran cited as a hero for his actions during Hurricane Katrina and a highly respected street commander before that, was transferred by Superintendent Warren Riley to administrative duties in the communications unit pending the outcome of a criminal investigation, police said in a news release Friday.
Bayard is being investigated by the New Orleans Police Department Public Integrity Bureau on state charges of obstruction of justice, police sources said.
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said he wasn't free to comment about whether Bayard was also a target of a federal investigation.
Bayard, citing department policy, said he was not free to comment.
But three officers who have spoken with him and are familiar with the case said he admits he made a "bonehead move," but had no intention of obstructing a federal investigation. Bayard understands and "welcomes" Riley's investigation as a necessary step to clear the department of any appearance of impropriety the raid created, the officers said.
The officers said Bayard was cooperating in the federal investigation into an alleged shakedown by two 8th District officers on the Bangkok Spa at 509 Iberville St.
Quincy Shelling, 28, and Joshua Burns, 28, along with a Metairie civilian, are accused of participating in the shakedown of the French Quarter massage parlor June 8. The two officers were booked with armed robbery and malfeasance in office.
Burns, Shelling and Lamar Dersone, 28, are accused of entering the parlor, roughing up five women employees and demanding cash, police said. The officers were off-duty and not in uniform. Though they did not pull their guns, they face armed robbery charges, because they were carrying the weapons, police said. Police did not say how much money was taken.
On Monday, Bayard had spoken with Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike McMahon about his impending testimony before the grand jury, scheduled for Wednesday this week, according to the three officers. Essentially, Bayard, who supervises vice and narcotics officers, was to tell the panel that the vice squad didn't authorize Burns and Shelling to be involved in any undercover operation on the day they were allegedly shaking down the business, the officers said.
According to Bayard's conversations with fellow officers, deputy chiefs of police had ordered stricter enforcement to suppress incidents of prostitution that had apparently spread while the vice squad had concentrated its efforts on narcotics and other violent crimes.
Not thinking when an officer under his supervision said officers were taking a new undercover officer to spas near Canal Street, including the Bangkok, Bayard approved the sweep, the officers said.
The undercover officer was allegedly offered oral sex, and in the ensuing raid the woman and three other employees were arrested, police said.
It was only that night, as he remembered he was testifying the next day to the grand jury about the Bangkok, that he realized he had used "horrible timing," the officers said. "It was good routine law enforcement but horrible timing," they quoted him as saying.
Bayard went directly to Letten the next morning and told him what he had done. By that time, however, the suspects, all of them witnesses to the alleged shakedown, had been shaken up and were concerned for their safety, their attorney said.
Investigation linked to earlier spa case
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Walt Philbin
A highly decorated and respected New Orleans police commander is under investigation after his vice squad officers raided a French Quarter spa whose employees were scheduled to testify about an alleged shakedown by officers from another unit.
Tim Bayard, 50, a 31-year veteran cited as a hero for his actions during Hurricane Katrina and a highly respected street commander before that, was transferred by Superintendent Warren Riley to administrative duties in the communications unit pending the outcome of a criminal investigation, police said in a news release Friday.
Bayard is being investigated by the New Orleans Police Department Public Integrity Bureau on state charges of obstruction of justice, police sources said.
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said he wasn't free to comment about whether Bayard was also a target of a federal investigation.
Bayard, citing department policy, said he was not free to comment.
But three officers who have spoken with him and are familiar with the case said he admits he made a "bonehead move," but had no intention of obstructing a federal investigation. Bayard understands and "welcomes" Riley's investigation as a necessary step to clear the department of any appearance of impropriety the raid created, the officers said.
The officers said Bayard was cooperating in the federal investigation into an alleged shakedown by two 8th District officers on the Bangkok Spa at 509 Iberville St.
Quincy Shelling, 28, and Joshua Burns, 28, along with a Metairie civilian, are accused of participating in the shakedown of the French Quarter massage parlor June 8. The two officers were booked with armed robbery and malfeasance in office.
Burns, Shelling and Lamar Dersone, 28, are accused of entering the parlor, roughing up five women employees and demanding cash, police said. The officers were off-duty and not in uniform. Though they did not pull their guns, they face armed robbery charges, because they were carrying the weapons, police said. Police did not say how much money was taken.
On Monday, Bayard had spoken with Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike McMahon about his impending testimony before the grand jury, scheduled for Wednesday this week, according to the three officers. Essentially, Bayard, who supervises vice and narcotics officers, was to tell the panel that the vice squad didn't authorize Burns and Shelling to be involved in any undercover operation on the day they were allegedly shaking down the business, the officers said.
According to Bayard's conversations with fellow officers, deputy chiefs of police had ordered stricter enforcement to suppress incidents of prostitution that had apparently spread while the vice squad had concentrated its efforts on narcotics and other violent crimes.
Not thinking when an officer under his supervision said officers were taking a new undercover officer to spas near Canal Street, including the Bangkok, Bayard approved the sweep, the officers said.
The undercover officer was allegedly offered oral sex, and in the ensuing raid the woman and three other employees were arrested, police said.
It was only that night, as he remembered he was testifying the next day to the grand jury about the Bangkok, that he realized he had used "horrible timing," the officers said. "It was good routine law enforcement but horrible timing," they quoted him as saying.
Bayard went directly to Letten the next morning and told him what he had done. By that time, however, the suspects, all of them witnesses to the alleged shakedown, had been shaken up and were concerned for their safety, their attorney said.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Mandeville may fell lakefront live oaks
Dead trees could become dangerous, City Council told
Mandeville is considering cutting down several lakefront live oaks that have died since Katrina.
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Bruce Hamilton
Mandeville is considering cutting down several of its majestic lakefront live oak trees that apparently have died and now pose a potential hazard.
Malcolm Guidry, an arborist who has served as a consultant for the city for several years, told the City Council about the problem at its monthly meeting Thursday. He said the eight dead oaks have been deteriorating for many years, and at least three others are under severe stress.
"They have been falling apart," he said. "It's just been a long, slow decline." Although it's difficult to pinpoint the cause of death, he said the effects of Hurricane Katrina might have been a lethal blow. "It's sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back."
A group of seven dead trees are near the mouth of No Name Bayou, Guidry said. Another tree at the end of Lafayette Street is also dead. Guidry said two others by the curb and gazebo are stressed and that one across from the former Bechac's restaurant is severely stressed.
Winds from the storm tore away the trees' leaves, stripping them of the ability to photosynthesize, the process by which trees feed themselves. Storm surge also inundated them in salt water for long periods, adding another level of stress.
Because falling limbs can injure residents or their property, city officials say they might have to take action.
"The trees need to come down," Mayor Eddie Price said Friday. He said he trusts Guidry's assessment, but he plans to get a second opinion from a similar expert.
Public Works Director David deGeneres said he is trying to find out whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay to remove the trees under its current program that covers storm-damaged trees. "Now is the time to do it so the city doesn't get stuck with a big price tag," he said.
The city's debris contractor, Ceres Corp., could do the work for the Army Corps of Engineers if the trees qualify. "If we could save them, we would, but I think we're past that point now," deGeneres said. "We have done due diligence to try to save them."
But City Councilman Denis Bechac suggested more could have been done, and he said the city should do everything it can to save the oaks.
"It's just a shame to see these trees die, or be allowed to die," he said. "It seems like more could have been done to protect them." The councilman noted some of the trees are more than 200 years old, predating the city's founding in 1840.
Bechac said prolonged drought might have been a factor in the trees' decline. He urged the city's fire chief to water the trees, and workers did.
"But I think it's too little, too late," he said.
Others said there's nothing more to be done.
"I think they're a treasure," said Council President Trilby Lenfant. "Ideally, I'd like to see them thrive and come back to life. I just don't see that happening.
"I'd like to see the city invest in replanting along the lakefront. There will be money in the budget for that. We'd all like to see the trees replaced."
The mayor said it will be at least two weeks before any action is taken on the trees, and deGeneres said the matter likely will be discussed at the City Council's next meeting.
Dead trees could become dangerous, City Council told
Mandeville is considering cutting down several lakefront live oaks that have died since Katrina.
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Bruce Hamilton
Mandeville is considering cutting down several of its majestic lakefront live oak trees that apparently have died and now pose a potential hazard.
Malcolm Guidry, an arborist who has served as a consultant for the city for several years, told the City Council about the problem at its monthly meeting Thursday. He said the eight dead oaks have been deteriorating for many years, and at least three others are under severe stress.
"They have been falling apart," he said. "It's just been a long, slow decline." Although it's difficult to pinpoint the cause of death, he said the effects of Hurricane Katrina might have been a lethal blow. "It's sort of like the straw that broke the camel's back."
A group of seven dead trees are near the mouth of No Name Bayou, Guidry said. Another tree at the end of Lafayette Street is also dead. Guidry said two others by the curb and gazebo are stressed and that one across from the former Bechac's restaurant is severely stressed.
Winds from the storm tore away the trees' leaves, stripping them of the ability to photosynthesize, the process by which trees feed themselves. Storm surge also inundated them in salt water for long periods, adding another level of stress.
Because falling limbs can injure residents or their property, city officials say they might have to take action.
"The trees need to come down," Mayor Eddie Price said Friday. He said he trusts Guidry's assessment, but he plans to get a second opinion from a similar expert.
Public Works Director David deGeneres said he is trying to find out whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay to remove the trees under its current program that covers storm-damaged trees. "Now is the time to do it so the city doesn't get stuck with a big price tag," he said.
The city's debris contractor, Ceres Corp., could do the work for the Army Corps of Engineers if the trees qualify. "If we could save them, we would, but I think we're past that point now," deGeneres said. "We have done due diligence to try to save them."
But City Councilman Denis Bechac suggested more could have been done, and he said the city should do everything it can to save the oaks.
"It's just a shame to see these trees die, or be allowed to die," he said. "It seems like more could have been done to protect them." The councilman noted some of the trees are more than 200 years old, predating the city's founding in 1840.
Bechac said prolonged drought might have been a factor in the trees' decline. He urged the city's fire chief to water the trees, and workers did.
"But I think it's too little, too late," he said.
Others said there's nothing more to be done.
"I think they're a treasure," said Council President Trilby Lenfant. "Ideally, I'd like to see them thrive and come back to life. I just don't see that happening.
"I'd like to see the city invest in replanting along the lakefront. There will be money in the budget for that. We'd all like to see the trees replaced."
The mayor said it will be at least two weeks before any action is taken on the trees, and deGeneres said the matter likely will be discussed at the City Council's next meeting.
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Audrey2Katrina
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Jefferson deputies are stretched thin
Despite 13% raise, Lee can hardly replace those who go
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Hunter
East Jefferson bureau
When Sheriff Harry Lee went public six months ago with his fear that the five-minute response time -- the hallmark of his 27-year career as Jefferson Parish's top cop -- was history, the culprit was the exodus of deputies and a shortage of applicants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Since then, sheriff's officials have been battling to slow the employee hemorrhage with a 13 percent pay raise and a new merit-based pay scale. Generous overtime policies and the temporary reassignment of detectives to the patrol division have given deputies a bit of help in handling the ever-rising population in Jefferson Parish.
"We can't guarantee it, but we're still striving for the five-minute response time," Lee said.
That's because even with a pay raise and other enticements, officials say the Sheriff's Office is treading water at best, losing almost as many employees as it hires.
The patrol division is still down 11 percent, with 32 open positions, including 15 slots being filled by traffic officers and plainclothes detectives donning uniforms, Personnel Director Robert Palermo said. Departmentwide, the Sheriff's Office has 131 empty jobs out of an authorized strength of 1,417.
And that figure of 1,417 is down about 14 percent from the pre-Katrina staffing level of 1,645 employees because of budget and staffing concerns.
Although crime has fallen since Katrina, arrests in Jefferson Parish are on the rise. With another hurricane season under way, officials are worried about burnout among the deputies who have remained.
Metrowide problem
The situation is not unique to Jefferson Parish. Most New Orleans area law enforcement agencies are facing similar staffing shortages, forcing a recruiting face-off for a limited pool of certified police officers. Chief Deputy Newell Normand predicted the battle will turn into a salary war. But money is not the issue for the Sheriff's Office, Internal Auditor Paul Rivera said.
"We have the money to hire people. We just can't find anybody to hire," he said.
Within a month after Katrina made landfall Aug. 29, 106 employees either resigned or were fired, including 59 correctional officers and 25 deputies, Palermo said. Since the storm, a total of 336 people have left the Sheriff's Office.
Thanks to a nationwide law enforcement shortage that existed before Katrina, certified police officers with training and experience can easily pick up a job in almost any part of the country, Normand said. Many of the recent deputy departees have done so to follow displaced family members, wives or husbands who landed in another city after Katrina, found a new job and decided to forgo the worries of rebuilding and another storm season.
In the parish's four patrol districts, where Lee says staffing is critical to the five-minute response time, the department is down 32 deputies out of an authorized strength of 283. The focus has been to shift personnel into the patrol division and maintain neighborhood beats.
While the subbing has helped the districts, it has decimated the already short-staffed investigations bureaus, especially the juvenile division. Officials also plundered the traffic division, meaning fewer deputies are on hand to write citations and take care of accidents, said Deputy Chief Craig Taffaro, commander of the operations bureau.
Crime down, arrests up
The crime rate in unincorporated Jefferson Parish was down 23 percent for the first two months of the year when compared with the same time period in 2005. But the number of arrests has increased from 110 to 115 a day before Katrina to about 125 to 135 daily, Normand said.
Although the department's Street Crimes Unit was disbanded in 2004, the department used overtime pay to reconstitute the group to tackle a surge in violent crime and narcotics-driven killings.
But deputies are starting to feel the pinch, according to Taffaro, who said: "It's getting rough out there for the guys. It's hard to work the hours they're working."
To recruit new deputies, the Sheriff's Office implemented a more than 13 percent pay raise in April, bringing the starting salary from $26,460 to $30,000, Palermo said. And the department created three new promotion levels, allowing deputies to earn pay increases through longevity, educational credits and supervisor recommendations. A deputy who maxed out at $34,860 after 10 years can now make $42,000, Palermo said.
Higher pay elsewhere
Officials said the raises aren't enough to recruit police officers from other states, where starting salaries outdo most of those in metropolitan New Orleans. But they hope it's enough to keep the deputies they have and perhaps siphon a few from other local departments.
"There's a limited amount of police officers in this area," Palermo said. "That's a whole bunch of hands dipping into the same pot."
But the scarcity of labor isn't limited to deputies. The Sheriff's Office suffered the greatest losses at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna, which slashed its authorized strength from 409 employees before the storm to 323 after. The jail is still down 52 positions, Palermo said.
And that has forced the Sheriff's Office to drop the number of inmates who can be housed at the jail from 1,200 to 744. When the jail gets overcrowded, officials release arrestees with nonviolent offenses and a criminal history that points to a low propensity for violence.
For the public, the problem becomes most acute when those suspects make their way back onto the street not long after their arrests. Deputy shortages are also compounded when East Jefferson patrol deputies have to take two or three hours to transport suspects across the river to Gretna jail because staffing and budget concerns shuttered the East Jefferson lockup in Metairie after the storm.
Civilian competition
Low pay and a one-month-long hiring process that includes a background check, a polygraph, a written test and a physical usually eliminated most prospective applicants, Palermo said. Since the storm, the Sheriff's Office has had to do battle with fast-food restaurants, construction companies and home improvement stores not just for new workers but to keep the ones it has.
"I just lost five of my 10 cooks to Wendy's, Burger King and Boomtown," Rivera said. "It's difficult to hire a correctional officer for $12 an hour when they can gut a house or put on a roof for $15 to $20 an hour."
While not everyone received the 13 percent increase in pay, the entire department received some sort of raise, Rivera said. Normand said the sheriff has preliminarily approved another salary increase that the department hopes could take effect this year.
The Sheriff's Office also started an new training academy in June with 23 cadets who are expected to graduate in mid-November. Rivera said the department is also considering a nighttime academy that will run for nine months, allowing citizens to train and keep a daytime job until they earn their certification.
With those measures in place and the department on the lookout for a way to raise salaries, officials hope they can get a handle on their personnel problems.
"I think we're starting to fill the vacancies," Taffaro said. "But (we) have a little ways to go."
Despite 13% raise, Lee can hardly replace those who go
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Hunter
East Jefferson bureau
When Sheriff Harry Lee went public six months ago with his fear that the five-minute response time -- the hallmark of his 27-year career as Jefferson Parish's top cop -- was history, the culprit was the exodus of deputies and a shortage of applicants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Since then, sheriff's officials have been battling to slow the employee hemorrhage with a 13 percent pay raise and a new merit-based pay scale. Generous overtime policies and the temporary reassignment of detectives to the patrol division have given deputies a bit of help in handling the ever-rising population in Jefferson Parish.
"We can't guarantee it, but we're still striving for the five-minute response time," Lee said.
That's because even with a pay raise and other enticements, officials say the Sheriff's Office is treading water at best, losing almost as many employees as it hires.
The patrol division is still down 11 percent, with 32 open positions, including 15 slots being filled by traffic officers and plainclothes detectives donning uniforms, Personnel Director Robert Palermo said. Departmentwide, the Sheriff's Office has 131 empty jobs out of an authorized strength of 1,417.
And that figure of 1,417 is down about 14 percent from the pre-Katrina staffing level of 1,645 employees because of budget and staffing concerns.
Although crime has fallen since Katrina, arrests in Jefferson Parish are on the rise. With another hurricane season under way, officials are worried about burnout among the deputies who have remained.
Metrowide problem
The situation is not unique to Jefferson Parish. Most New Orleans area law enforcement agencies are facing similar staffing shortages, forcing a recruiting face-off for a limited pool of certified police officers. Chief Deputy Newell Normand predicted the battle will turn into a salary war. But money is not the issue for the Sheriff's Office, Internal Auditor Paul Rivera said.
"We have the money to hire people. We just can't find anybody to hire," he said.
Within a month after Katrina made landfall Aug. 29, 106 employees either resigned or were fired, including 59 correctional officers and 25 deputies, Palermo said. Since the storm, a total of 336 people have left the Sheriff's Office.
Thanks to a nationwide law enforcement shortage that existed before Katrina, certified police officers with training and experience can easily pick up a job in almost any part of the country, Normand said. Many of the recent deputy departees have done so to follow displaced family members, wives or husbands who landed in another city after Katrina, found a new job and decided to forgo the worries of rebuilding and another storm season.
In the parish's four patrol districts, where Lee says staffing is critical to the five-minute response time, the department is down 32 deputies out of an authorized strength of 283. The focus has been to shift personnel into the patrol division and maintain neighborhood beats.
While the subbing has helped the districts, it has decimated the already short-staffed investigations bureaus, especially the juvenile division. Officials also plundered the traffic division, meaning fewer deputies are on hand to write citations and take care of accidents, said Deputy Chief Craig Taffaro, commander of the operations bureau.
Crime down, arrests up
The crime rate in unincorporated Jefferson Parish was down 23 percent for the first two months of the year when compared with the same time period in 2005. But the number of arrests has increased from 110 to 115 a day before Katrina to about 125 to 135 daily, Normand said.
Although the department's Street Crimes Unit was disbanded in 2004, the department used overtime pay to reconstitute the group to tackle a surge in violent crime and narcotics-driven killings.
But deputies are starting to feel the pinch, according to Taffaro, who said: "It's getting rough out there for the guys. It's hard to work the hours they're working."
To recruit new deputies, the Sheriff's Office implemented a more than 13 percent pay raise in April, bringing the starting salary from $26,460 to $30,000, Palermo said. And the department created three new promotion levels, allowing deputies to earn pay increases through longevity, educational credits and supervisor recommendations. A deputy who maxed out at $34,860 after 10 years can now make $42,000, Palermo said.
Higher pay elsewhere
Officials said the raises aren't enough to recruit police officers from other states, where starting salaries outdo most of those in metropolitan New Orleans. But they hope it's enough to keep the deputies they have and perhaps siphon a few from other local departments.
"There's a limited amount of police officers in this area," Palermo said. "That's a whole bunch of hands dipping into the same pot."
But the scarcity of labor isn't limited to deputies. The Sheriff's Office suffered the greatest losses at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna, which slashed its authorized strength from 409 employees before the storm to 323 after. The jail is still down 52 positions, Palermo said.
And that has forced the Sheriff's Office to drop the number of inmates who can be housed at the jail from 1,200 to 744. When the jail gets overcrowded, officials release arrestees with nonviolent offenses and a criminal history that points to a low propensity for violence.
For the public, the problem becomes most acute when those suspects make their way back onto the street not long after their arrests. Deputy shortages are also compounded when East Jefferson patrol deputies have to take two or three hours to transport suspects across the river to Gretna jail because staffing and budget concerns shuttered the East Jefferson lockup in Metairie after the storm.
Civilian competition
Low pay and a one-month-long hiring process that includes a background check, a polygraph, a written test and a physical usually eliminated most prospective applicants, Palermo said. Since the storm, the Sheriff's Office has had to do battle with fast-food restaurants, construction companies and home improvement stores not just for new workers but to keep the ones it has.
"I just lost five of my 10 cooks to Wendy's, Burger King and Boomtown," Rivera said. "It's difficult to hire a correctional officer for $12 an hour when they can gut a house or put on a roof for $15 to $20 an hour."
While not everyone received the 13 percent increase in pay, the entire department received some sort of raise, Rivera said. Normand said the sheriff has preliminarily approved another salary increase that the department hopes could take effect this year.
The Sheriff's Office also started an new training academy in June with 23 cadets who are expected to graduate in mid-November. Rivera said the department is also considering a nighttime academy that will run for nine months, allowing citizens to train and keep a daytime job until they earn their certification.
With those measures in place and the department on the lookout for a way to raise salaries, officials hope they can get a handle on their personnel problems.
"I think we're starting to fill the vacancies," Taffaro said. "But (we) have a little ways to go."
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Audrey2Katrina
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GOOD CAUSE CELEB
Brad Pitt lends his name, fame to promote N.O. rebuilding projects
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Almost year after Hurricane Katrina ruined her Holy Cross neighborhood with floodwaters pouring through blocks of cheerfully ornamented, historic homes, Pam Dashiell found herself staring into national news cameras Friday while sitting next to a man once named the sexiest one alive.
Like so many things in post-Katrina New Orleans, having superstar actor Brad Pitt within arm's length during an afternoon news conference to announce the next step in a Lower 9th Ward rebuilding project defied all logic for Dashiell, who heads the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.
But that doesn't mean she didn't squeal like a teenager at the notion that Pitt, who was in town this week judging architects' entries to design an environmentally friendly redevelopment project in Holy Cross, had visited her house and even gave her a little hug during the news event.
"I never met a movie star before," Dashiell said after the session at Gallier Hall. "The first time I saw 'Thelma & Louise,' it was like: 'Oh my God, he's beautiful.' "
Pitt renewed his pledge Friday to a long-term interest in making sure New Orleans is rebuilt safer, smarter and in a more ecologically sound way.
"It's a bit shocking," Pitt said of the miles upon miles of ravaged neighborhoods that he traversed during his two-day visit this week. "It's a bit disturbing. There's a lot of limbo -- a pervasive feeling that there's little direction."
New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents the storm-shattered Lower 9th Ward and who toured the area with Pitt, said she was impressed by the actor's empathy and his interest in the plight of Katrina survivors who still are waiting for government grants to reimburse them for uninsured losses.
"He's really trying to connect to the enormity of the problem and understand the people's pain. He's studying this," Willard-Lewis said.
The councilwoman also admitted being more than a little starstruck while walking the city streets with a Hollywood heartthrob who played the hero of the Homeric epic in the 2004 movie "Troy."
"This is Achilles," she said.
It was just weeks after Katrina that Pitt lent his celebrity to the efforts of Global Green USA, a national organization committed to stemming global climate change and other efforts.
Pitt and the organization eventually called for a contest to plan "a 1.25-acre site that focuses on a green, healthy, multifamily building with a community center and single-family housing" in the Holy Cross neighborhood. A jury that included Pitt and world-renowned architect Thom Mayne was in town this week whittling down 126 entries to five finalists and an honorable mention, which are slated to be unveiled Monday.
Mayne said his own eminence in the world of architecture along with Pitt's worldwide fame is likely to draw interest and donations to the project. He added that in casting a net for a "green" design that could be replicated tens of thousands of times across the flood-ravaged city, Pitt has become a leader of New Orleans' revival.
"You forget he's just a guy and he's got resources," Mayne said. "Then, the fact that he has people power, that he's a star, is very good."
Dashiell, who also served on the jury, said the entries were impressive and that none looked exactly like the post-World War II housing that spanned much of the Lower 9th Ward's most devastated sections or like the 19th-century homes that line the streets of Holy Cross. The designs, however, did honor New Orleans' rich architectural styles, she said.
"They echoed them without copying them," Dashiell said.
Pitt, who spent considerable time in New Orleans while filming scenes for the 1994 movie "Interview with the Vampire," said the new homes and public buildings will not simply be new versions of the city's familiar structures.
"It is impossible to replicate the past . . . but the idea, with New Orleans being so rich architecturally, is: How do you take this to the next level? How do you use the vernacular that is there?"
Dashiell admitted that selling such a model could prove challenging. "People don't like change," she said. "But if there were ever a time for it, this is it. We know that it can never the same."
Outside the side door of the St. Charles Avenue building, women in business attire hovered long after the 3:30 p.m. event, hoping to catch a glimpse of Pitt through a window or strolling down the sidewalk on the way to his car.
"I just want to see him," said Susan Tagariello of Slidell, who works as a secretary at the state Attorney General's office downtown. "I just want to thank him for helping us."
Tagariello, who waited patiently in the afternoon heat with two of her colleagues, also had considered proffering an invitation to the megastar.
"I'd also like to see what he's doing tonight," she said. "It's Friday night."
Brad Pitt lends his name, fame to promote N.O. rebuilding projects
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Michelle Krupa
Staff writer
Almost year after Hurricane Katrina ruined her Holy Cross neighborhood with floodwaters pouring through blocks of cheerfully ornamented, historic homes, Pam Dashiell found herself staring into national news cameras Friday while sitting next to a man once named the sexiest one alive.
Like so many things in post-Katrina New Orleans, having superstar actor Brad Pitt within arm's length during an afternoon news conference to announce the next step in a Lower 9th Ward rebuilding project defied all logic for Dashiell, who heads the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.
But that doesn't mean she didn't squeal like a teenager at the notion that Pitt, who was in town this week judging architects' entries to design an environmentally friendly redevelopment project in Holy Cross, had visited her house and even gave her a little hug during the news event.
"I never met a movie star before," Dashiell said after the session at Gallier Hall. "The first time I saw 'Thelma & Louise,' it was like: 'Oh my God, he's beautiful.' "
Pitt renewed his pledge Friday to a long-term interest in making sure New Orleans is rebuilt safer, smarter and in a more ecologically sound way.
"It's a bit shocking," Pitt said of the miles upon miles of ravaged neighborhoods that he traversed during his two-day visit this week. "It's a bit disturbing. There's a lot of limbo -- a pervasive feeling that there's little direction."
New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents the storm-shattered Lower 9th Ward and who toured the area with Pitt, said she was impressed by the actor's empathy and his interest in the plight of Katrina survivors who still are waiting for government grants to reimburse them for uninsured losses.
"He's really trying to connect to the enormity of the problem and understand the people's pain. He's studying this," Willard-Lewis said.
The councilwoman also admitted being more than a little starstruck while walking the city streets with a Hollywood heartthrob who played the hero of the Homeric epic in the 2004 movie "Troy."
"This is Achilles," she said.
It was just weeks after Katrina that Pitt lent his celebrity to the efforts of Global Green USA, a national organization committed to stemming global climate change and other efforts.
Pitt and the organization eventually called for a contest to plan "a 1.25-acre site that focuses on a green, healthy, multifamily building with a community center and single-family housing" in the Holy Cross neighborhood. A jury that included Pitt and world-renowned architect Thom Mayne was in town this week whittling down 126 entries to five finalists and an honorable mention, which are slated to be unveiled Monday.
Mayne said his own eminence in the world of architecture along with Pitt's worldwide fame is likely to draw interest and donations to the project. He added that in casting a net for a "green" design that could be replicated tens of thousands of times across the flood-ravaged city, Pitt has become a leader of New Orleans' revival.
"You forget he's just a guy and he's got resources," Mayne said. "Then, the fact that he has people power, that he's a star, is very good."
Dashiell, who also served on the jury, said the entries were impressive and that none looked exactly like the post-World War II housing that spanned much of the Lower 9th Ward's most devastated sections or like the 19th-century homes that line the streets of Holy Cross. The designs, however, did honor New Orleans' rich architectural styles, she said.
"They echoed them without copying them," Dashiell said.
Pitt, who spent considerable time in New Orleans while filming scenes for the 1994 movie "Interview with the Vampire," said the new homes and public buildings will not simply be new versions of the city's familiar structures.
"It is impossible to replicate the past . . . but the idea, with New Orleans being so rich architecturally, is: How do you take this to the next level? How do you use the vernacular that is there?"
Dashiell admitted that selling such a model could prove challenging. "People don't like change," she said. "But if there were ever a time for it, this is it. We know that it can never the same."
Outside the side door of the St. Charles Avenue building, women in business attire hovered long after the 3:30 p.m. event, hoping to catch a glimpse of Pitt through a window or strolling down the sidewalk on the way to his car.
"I just want to see him," said Susan Tagariello of Slidell, who works as a secretary at the state Attorney General's office downtown. "I just want to thank him for helping us."
Tagariello, who waited patiently in the afternoon heat with two of her colleagues, also had considered proffering an invitation to the megastar.
"I'd also like to see what he's doing tonight," she said. "It's Friday night."
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Audrey2Katrina
- Category 5
- Posts: 4252
- Age: 75
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- Location: Metaire, La.
State opposes Nagin on landfill
It should remain open, DEQ says
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
A day after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he will let a controversial eastern New Orleans landfill close next month, the state's Department of Environmental Quality said the landfill is still needed and should remain open.
The agency issued a statement saying the landfill "poses no threat to public health" and "is needed to clean up New Orleans in an environmentally sound and timely manner."
"Closing this landfill would slow down the (post-Katrina) cleanup process significantly," said Chuck Carr Brown, assistant secretary of the environmental agency.
Nagin, who issued an executive order in February letting the Chef Menteur Highway landfill open on an emergency basis to speed the removal of hurricane debris, said Thursday that he will not renew his order when it expires Aug. 14.
Nagin's order, issued under his post-Katrina emergency powers, let the construction and demolition debris landfill open without the conditional-use permit from the City Council it normally would need.
The announcement from Nagin's office that he would not renew the landfill's emergency permit said the site would close Aug. 14.
But Marc Ehrhardt, a spokesman for the landfill's operator, Waste Management of Louisiana, said Thursday it would be "completely premature" to declare the landfill dead because of Nagin's action.
Ehrhardt said Friday he had not seen the DEQ statement. He said the company was still "assessing the situation and reviewing its options."
Nagin signed an affidavit pledging not to renew his executive order after four eastern New Orleans residents filed a lawsuit in Civil District Court, claiming that under the City Charter, he lacked the authority to exclude the City Council from land-use decisions, even under a state of emergency.
Judge Ethel Simms Julien held a hearing Friday on the residents' request that she declare the mayor's original order illegal, but she ruled that the request was moot in light of Nagin's action Thursday.
The plaintiffs also asked her to order the city's Department of Safety and Permits to rescind the permit it issued to the landfill under Nagin's order, but a department official said no such permit was issued.
Kyle Schonekas, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said they will file an amended suit Monday asking Julien to order the landfill closed. A hearing on that request probably will be held within 10 days, he said.
Schonekas said that after seeing Nagin's announcement Thursday, he tried to get a commitment from Waste Management that it would close the facility Aug. 14, but the company refused. Schonekas said the company is taking the position that Nagin's February order authorizing the landfill to open is effective indefinitely, not just for six months.
Should Waste Management decide to seek a permit for the operation through normal channels, its chances of success appear slim.
The City Planning Commission has rejected plans for a similar landfill at the site twice in the past decade, and seeking a permit for one under normal city procedures, even if successful, would take several months, long past Aug. 14.
Perhaps most important, City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents eastern New Orleans, is a vocal opponent of the facility, which she and residents of the nearby Village de l'Est community fear is a danger to residents' health, even though DEQ has said tests prove otherwise.
The residents' position is supported by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
It should remain open, DEQ says
Saturday, July 15, 2006 TP/NOLA.com
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
A day after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he will let a controversial eastern New Orleans landfill close next month, the state's Department of Environmental Quality said the landfill is still needed and should remain open.
The agency issued a statement saying the landfill "poses no threat to public health" and "is needed to clean up New Orleans in an environmentally sound and timely manner."
"Closing this landfill would slow down the (post-Katrina) cleanup process significantly," said Chuck Carr Brown, assistant secretary of the environmental agency.
Nagin, who issued an executive order in February letting the Chef Menteur Highway landfill open on an emergency basis to speed the removal of hurricane debris, said Thursday that he will not renew his order when it expires Aug. 14.
Nagin's order, issued under his post-Katrina emergency powers, let the construction and demolition debris landfill open without the conditional-use permit from the City Council it normally would need.
The announcement from Nagin's office that he would not renew the landfill's emergency permit said the site would close Aug. 14.
But Marc Ehrhardt, a spokesman for the landfill's operator, Waste Management of Louisiana, said Thursday it would be "completely premature" to declare the landfill dead because of Nagin's action.
Ehrhardt said Friday he had not seen the DEQ statement. He said the company was still "assessing the situation and reviewing its options."
Nagin signed an affidavit pledging not to renew his executive order after four eastern New Orleans residents filed a lawsuit in Civil District Court, claiming that under the City Charter, he lacked the authority to exclude the City Council from land-use decisions, even under a state of emergency.
Judge Ethel Simms Julien held a hearing Friday on the residents' request that she declare the mayor's original order illegal, but she ruled that the request was moot in light of Nagin's action Thursday.
The plaintiffs also asked her to order the city's Department of Safety and Permits to rescind the permit it issued to the landfill under Nagin's order, but a department official said no such permit was issued.
Kyle Schonekas, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said they will file an amended suit Monday asking Julien to order the landfill closed. A hearing on that request probably will be held within 10 days, he said.
Schonekas said that after seeing Nagin's announcement Thursday, he tried to get a commitment from Waste Management that it would close the facility Aug. 14, but the company refused. Schonekas said the company is taking the position that Nagin's February order authorizing the landfill to open is effective indefinitely, not just for six months.
Should Waste Management decide to seek a permit for the operation through normal channels, its chances of success appear slim.
The City Planning Commission has rejected plans for a similar landfill at the site twice in the past decade, and seeking a permit for one under normal city procedures, even if successful, would take several months, long past Aug. 14.
Perhaps most important, City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who represents eastern New Orleans, is a vocal opponent of the facility, which she and residents of the nearby Village de l'Est community fear is a danger to residents' health, even though DEQ has said tests prove otherwise.
The residents' position is supported by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
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Audrey2Katrina
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- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
Suspect in murders of five has long arrest record
7/15/2006, 12:45 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 19-year-old man accused of killing five teenagers in a massacre that returned the Louisiana National Guard to the city has been arrested 11 times in less than three years on charges including extortion, armed robbery, attempted murder and drug distribution offenses.
Michael Anderson was acquitted by a jury in 2004 on two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer when a co-defendant pleaded guilty and testified on Anderson's behalf, said Leatrice Dupree, spokeswoman for the Orleans Parish district attorney.
Court records show two convictions: one for felony possession of crack cocaine and one for misdemeanor possession of marijuana.
Eleven days before the fatal shootings, Anderson was arrested on charges of aggravated criminal damage, illegal use of a weapon and aggravated assault with the discharge of a weapon, court records show. He appeared in magistrate court and was released on bond.
On March 28, Anderson had been arrested on possession and distribution of heroin charges. He was released on $5,000 bond. An arraignment in that case is scheduled for July 27.
Rafael Goyeneche, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a private watchdog group, called Anderson a career criminal with little fear of the New Orleans criminal justice system.
"He knows how to work the system better than some of those who work in it, better than some police and prosecutors," Goyeneche said.
New Orleans police and federal authorities have worked together in the past to keep violent offenders in major cases behind bars by charging them federal offenses when the circumstances and crimes permit. So far, U.S. no federal charges have been filed against Anderson, but authorities are monitoring the case, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said.
Anderson entered the criminal justice system a couple of weeks after he turned 16 in 2003 after being caught with a stash of crack cocaine, court records show. He now faces five counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of brothers Arsenio Hunter and Markee Hunter, 16 and 19; Warren Simeon, 17; and Iraum Taylor and Reggie Dantzler, both 19.
"In the last 2 1/2 years, Anderson has 11 state arrests," Goyeneche said. "It's obvious from looking at his record that he is involved in the drug culture, and we know that a lot of people involved in the drug culture are involved in violent activity."
The quintuple shooting hastened the resumption of Louisiana National Guard and Louisiana State Police patrols in uninhabited parts of the city to assist a police department that is stretched thin.
Officials said their presence has helped free up New Orleans police to make more arrests.
7/15/2006, 12:45 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 19-year-old man accused of killing five teenagers in a massacre that returned the Louisiana National Guard to the city has been arrested 11 times in less than three years on charges including extortion, armed robbery, attempted murder and drug distribution offenses.
Michael Anderson was acquitted by a jury in 2004 on two counts of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer when a co-defendant pleaded guilty and testified on Anderson's behalf, said Leatrice Dupree, spokeswoman for the Orleans Parish district attorney.
Court records show two convictions: one for felony possession of crack cocaine and one for misdemeanor possession of marijuana.
Eleven days before the fatal shootings, Anderson was arrested on charges of aggravated criminal damage, illegal use of a weapon and aggravated assault with the discharge of a weapon, court records show. He appeared in magistrate court and was released on bond.
On March 28, Anderson had been arrested on possession and distribution of heroin charges. He was released on $5,000 bond. An arraignment in that case is scheduled for July 27.
Rafael Goyeneche, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a private watchdog group, called Anderson a career criminal with little fear of the New Orleans criminal justice system.
"He knows how to work the system better than some of those who work in it, better than some police and prosecutors," Goyeneche said.
New Orleans police and federal authorities have worked together in the past to keep violent offenders in major cases behind bars by charging them federal offenses when the circumstances and crimes permit. So far, U.S. no federal charges have been filed against Anderson, but authorities are monitoring the case, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said.
Anderson entered the criminal justice system a couple of weeks after he turned 16 in 2003 after being caught with a stash of crack cocaine, court records show. He now faces five counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of brothers Arsenio Hunter and Markee Hunter, 16 and 19; Warren Simeon, 17; and Iraum Taylor and Reggie Dantzler, both 19.
"In the last 2 1/2 years, Anderson has 11 state arrests," Goyeneche said. "It's obvious from looking at his record that he is involved in the drug culture, and we know that a lot of people involved in the drug culture are involved in violent activity."
The quintuple shooting hastened the resumption of Louisiana National Guard and Louisiana State Police patrols in uninhabited parts of the city to assist a police department that is stretched thin.
Officials said their presence has helped free up New Orleans police to make more arrests.
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Audrey2Katrina
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- Posts: 4252
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- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 10:39 pm
- Location: Metaire, La.
New Orleans evacuee charged in Mobile in baby beating
7/15/2006, 1:24 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A Katrina evacuee from New Orleans has been charged in Mobile with attempted murder in the beating of her baby daughter described by authorities as brain-dead.
Christy Ross, 31, who relocated to Mobile after Hurricane Katrina struck in August, appeared emotionless Friday before Mobile County District Judge Michael McMaken, who denied her bail.
The child, 13-month-old Tawanda Dune, remains on life support in a Mobile hospital. Tawanda's injuries include a broken leg and blows to her forehead and the back of her head.
"The child is on life support, and there was no brain activity when they performed a brain scan," Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich said.
Ross, a mother of eight, is pregnant, Rich said.
Ross, arrested Thursday, brought the injured child — who is a twin — to a hospital, stating that her injuries were caused by a seizure, authorities said.
7/15/2006, 1:24 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A Katrina evacuee from New Orleans has been charged in Mobile with attempted murder in the beating of her baby daughter described by authorities as brain-dead.
Christy Ross, 31, who relocated to Mobile after Hurricane Katrina struck in August, appeared emotionless Friday before Mobile County District Judge Michael McMaken, who denied her bail.
The child, 13-month-old Tawanda Dune, remains on life support in a Mobile hospital. Tawanda's injuries include a broken leg and blows to her forehead and the back of her head.
"The child is on life support, and there was no brain activity when they performed a brain scan," Assistant District Attorney Ashley Rich said.
Ross, a mother of eight, is pregnant, Rich said.
Ross, arrested Thursday, brought the injured child — who is a twin — to a hospital, stating that her injuries were caused by a seizure, authorities said.
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