From The Archives
» Click Here For The Latest Posts
|
|
Monday, August 28, 2006 | |
|
Democrats, Bush visit one year later
8/28/2006, 4:57 p.m. CT
By BECKY BOHRER
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- As the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
neared, House Democrats toured devastated areas of New Orleans on
Monday and decried the slow pace of recovery, while President Bush
began a two-day visit to the region.
"I think the American public is going to be very, very surprised to
know this recovery is way, way behind what their expectations would
have been," Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said after a tour that took
more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress through the Ninth
Ward, to the site of a levee breach and to the former downtown
department store that now houses a clinic from the flooded-out Charity
Hospital.
Katrina hit a year ago Tuesday, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans,
devastating the southeastern Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts and
killing more than 1,800 people.
In New Orleans, only about half of the pre-storm population of 455,000
is back. Vast stretches of the city remain a wasteland, particularly
the low-income Lower Ninth Ward.
"It's hard to believe this is the United States," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
The Democrats were headed for the Mississippi Gulf Coast later Monday
and planned a Wednesday announcement of their recovery plan for the
region.
Bush, meanwhile, began a two-day swing through the region in Gulfport.
He was to head to New Orleans in the evening and, on Tuesday, attend
events marking the anniversary.
The Democratic visitors did not take direct slaps at the Bush
administration Monday, but the visit comes as their party tries to make
the case that Bush and the Republican Party have failed storm victims.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who was not part of
the group visiting the coast, said Bush's promises of help for Katrina
victims and changes to the federal response effort remain largely
unfulfilled.
A telephone message left for a spokeswoman with the Republican National Committee was not immediately returned Monday.
Democratic members of the House Committee on Homeland Security released
a report Monday recapping reports of allegedly wasteful recovery
contracts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and accusing the
administration of an "approach to governance that was content to allow
FEMA's crucial procurement office to operate at just a fraction of its
necessary staffing level."
Congressional Democrats in New Orleans on Monday said the government
could do more to help those affected by the hurricane. Clyburn and Rep.
Adam Schiff, D-Calif., mentioned possible insurance reform to allow for
what Schiff called "mega-catastrophes."
For a year, Clyburn said, people in the city have "been living a real hell."
Congress approved $110 billion in hurricane aid since Katrina; only a
portion of that has been spent. The Bush administration has released
$77 billion to the states, reserving the rest for future needs.
At the rate the recovery is going, Schiff said, he expects it will be a
decade before some hurricane-affected communities come back.
Print | Send To A Friend | Permalink (Learn More) |
|
|
Hoaxters dupe crowd with bogus HUD announcement
Two
members of the Yes Men, a group of environmental and corporate ethics
activists, duped business executives and some news organizations
earlier today when they posed as top HUD officials and announced the
agency planned to renovate several housing developments now slated for
demolition.
One of the men said they set up the hoax after receiving an e-mail
solicitation from Equity International -- the group staging the
conference -- in search of conference speakers. They responded by
saying HUD secretary Alfonso Jackson would like to speak, after which
Jackson was placed in the conference lineup after Gov. Kathleen Blanco
and Mayor Ray Nagin.
The two men, one of whom posed as a HUD "deputy special assistant" Rene
Oswin and the other as Oswin’s press secretary, showed up at the
Pontchartrain Center in Kenner this morning and told organizers that
Jackson couldn’t make the event, and that they would speak in his
place, one said.
Then the man posing as Oswin gave a 15-minute speech saying that HUD
was reversing its policy and would reopen all public housing in the
city. While the speech was under way, the group e-mailed a bogus press
release to major news outlets with the same announcement.
After the speech, the audience of several hundred people applauded, and
the conference organizer thanked Oswin for his comments. A group of
news reporters huddled around the fake HUD officials asking questions
about the apparent policy reversal. Some news organizations sent out
breaking news alerts to the major development before learning it was a
fake.
Shortly after the speech concluded, another member of the Yes Men,
standing outside the Lafitte housing development, said she had called
numerous contractors and told them to gather at Lafitte at 1 p.m. to
learn about millions in contracting opportunities that would spring
from the policy reversal. She refused to give her name. The Lafitte
complex is one of four slated for demolition.
Print | Send To A Friend | Permalink (Learn More) |
|
|
Audit: Jordan's office hasn't saved for settlement
8/28/2006, 4:14 p.m. CT
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan
hasn't set aside money to begin payment of a multimillion dollar
employment discrimination judgment, an independent auditor's report
said Monday.
The judgment currently is valued at about $4 million in lost wages,
benefits and legal fees, according to the report by the Legislative
Auditor's Office. The price will continue growing with interest, which
began accumulating the day the lawsuit was filed in May 2003.
A jury decided in March 2005 that Jordan, the city's first black
district attorney, illegally used race as a factor when he fired dozens
of white employees after taking office in 2003. Jordan fired 53 of 77
white workers who were not attorneys and replaced almost all of them
with black employees.
Jordan's office is appealing the judgment. At trial, his attorneys
argued Jordan had the right to hire and fire at will and that most of
the roster changes were inspired by political patronage.
Jordan said he didn't have the money to pay for the verdict even before Hurricane Katrina further taxed the office.
The audit of Jordan's office was done by New Orleans accountant
Charmaine Philips Platenburg for Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot. It
included an annual financial report for 2004. An accompanying report
said some accounts of the office weren't properly reconciled with other
financial records. Jordan's office said a glitch in accounting software
caused the problem.
Print | Send To A Friend | Permalink (Learn More) |
|
|
|
INSIDE
Top News
» About Weblogs
» Times-Picayune
news index
» NewsFlash
|
|
| FROM OUR ADVERTISERS |
>>
>>
>>
|
|
NEWSPAPER SEARCH 
