A corporate partnership that considered bidding to manage New Orleans' water and sewer operations was secretly paying business executive Gilbert Jackson $1,500 a month because Jackson -- whose employer, the engineering firm Camp Dresser & McKee, was helping draw up the bid specifications -- told company representatives that doing so would help them win the contract, federal prosecutors contend.The revelation, from filings in an unrelated case in Ohio, is the first assertion that payoffs figured in the city's long flirtation with privatizing parts of the Sewerage & Water Board, a five-year process that critics often complained was open to shenanigans.
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NEW ORLEANS -- Announcing the appointment of a new Sewerage and Water Board director, Mayor Ray Nagin said Wednesday that the city has scuttled all plans to privatize the system.Marcia St. Martin, who has served as interim director of the board since 2003, was selected as part of a nationwide search. The announcement ends years of debate over which entity could best handle a crumbling infrastructure and federally mandated repairs. Three groups -- U.S. Filter, United Water and a group of Sewerage and Water Board managers -- were vying for the contract, which would have been worth $1 billion.
The water board is responsible for providing residents with clean drinking water, performing wastewater treatment and disposal and maintaining one of the most extensive and complex drainage systems in the country, Nagin's office said.
Aaaayyyyy! What's a little corruption here, a littl graft there. So what if we don't know what we're talking about. As long as the sound bites are good. We haven't had a major hurricane hit us in ages. So what if the city is surrounded by water and is below sea level. We can always order an evacuation and no one will get hurt. Ooooops!