Posted on 09/03/2005 5:29:16 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
Posted on Sat, Sep. 03, 2005
New Orleans mayor deals with a natural disaster and some criticism
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD AND THOMAS FITZGERALD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - Mayor Ray Nagin was swept into office three years ago as a political outsider, a business executive who was going to save the city from corruption and modernize its baroque government.
Now he's a mayor without a city.
Most of New Orleans is covered in dirty brown floodwaters. Its police are besieged by armed mobs and looters. Flames flare from broken gas lines. Stranded residents have been living in squalor, with no electricity or fresh water. Dead bodies float in the streets.
Some question whether the city can ever be rebuilt, but Nagin, 49, soldiers on from the darkened and shattered Hyatt hotel downtown, trying in his methodical way to impose order on an apocalypse. He uses runners to communicate with the remnants of his government, though most top officials have decamped to Baton Rouge, La.
On Thursday, three days after Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Nagin had been pushed far enough, and he went on the radio and told the federal government to "get off your asses and let's do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."
He broke down in tears.
Those who know him say the outburst was uncharacteristic for a calm technocrat who likes to make lists of problems and solve them. They also said it was about time.
"It was possibly the highest moment of my life right now," said Jackie Clarkson, a city councilwoman and political ally who represents the French Quarter. "I was listening and I was going, `Yes, yes, yes!' I loved it."
Amid the sternest test of leadership imaginable, Nagin faces heavy criticism for failing to evacuate the poorest New Orleans residents swiftly. Supporters are sticking with him, however, saying he's doing the best he can in an impossible situation.
Unlike former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani guiding his citizens through the darkness of Sept. 11, Nagin hasn't had a commanding media presence. Those who remain in his city have no power and can't see him on television anyway.
That may have hurt him in the first crucial hours of crisis, when the leader of a city can either be seen as rising to the challenge or not seen at all.
After nearly a week in subhuman conditions in the city's shelters of last resort - the Superdome and the convention center - many were seething with resentment over the way they'd been treated, and some lashed out at Nagin.
U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat from New Orleans, defended the mayor.
"His job was to sound the alarm down here and he has done that, from the violence to the rescues to stopping the levee breach," said Jefferson, who supported one of Nagin's opponents in 2002. "Nobody has done everything exactly right around here, but he has applied himself and shown great leadership."
A more experienced politician might have avoided twisting the president's tail. But Nagin's frank talk appeared to get action. By Friday, President Bush was in New Orleans and, after meeting with the mayor, he pledged 7,000 more troops and better coordination of relief.
"In politics, I always feel like I'm bridled," Nagin said Friday after the meeting. "I just took the bridle off. I'd had enough."
Two things made him see red, he said. First was the condition of the Superdome. Then he heard stories about women who were trying to give away their babies to get them out of town.
Nagin, an African-American, had no political experience before he won office in 2002 by besting 14 other candidates. He'd been a cable TV executive at Cox Communications, making $400,000 a year, the darling of the city's business elite, a fresh face with a shaved head (one local columnist called him a "hottie") who promised change.
Nagin was born in 1956 in New Orleans' Charity Hospital, a legacy of Depression-era populist Gov. Huey P. Long that provides free health care to the poor. Now the hospital is out of food and water, and thugs shot at rescuers who were trying to evacuate its remaining patients last week.
During his campaign, Nagin milked his humble origins for all they were worth. His mother managed a Kmart lunch counter. His father was a fabric cutter in a clothing factory on the day shift and worked as a City Hall custodian at night.
In high school, Nagin was a lanky baseball pitcher, a left-hander known for a big curve ball and an ability to put the ball exactly where he wanted it. He won a scholarship to Tuskegee University, a historically black college in Alabama, graduating in 1978 with a degree in accounting.
At various times during his first three years in office, Nagin has vowed to sell off the city's airport, take over the troubled school system and cut the city bureaucracy. None of that has happened, but New Orleans' problems with poverty, unemployment and crime have continued.
Those failed promises pale in comparison with the challenges of Katrina.
Critics say Nagin has made some serious missteps. Concerned about the legal ramifications of ordering people to leave their homes without enough adequate shelters, Nagin didn't issue a mandatory evacuation until Sunday morning, less than 24 hours before the storm hit, meaning that up to 100,000 people were stranded.
In the aftermath, it became apparent that the city hadn't stockpiled enough fuel for rescue vehicles and boats.
Admirers see Nagin's staying in the city as courageous, like a captain staying with his ship. Others say it's pure stubbornness, and point out that he might have been in a better position to coordinate relief efforts with improved communications in Baton Rouge.
"He's a hands-on person, so Nagin is probably going to get blamed no matter what," said David Bositis, an expert in urban politics at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "He's not someone whose political support is so deep he'll be able to rely on that."
Nagin, who has a master's in business administration from Tulane University, said he learned long ago to tackle a long list of problems three at a time. When you accomplish them, he said, you move problem number four to the top of the list.
For now, he's focused on his list: transferring control to the military, completing the evacuation of the city, containing the floodwaters and then draining them. Federal officials say the last could take six months.
Nagin never thought he'd be called on to lead his city through its rebirth. With almost no tax revenue coming in, the government will be broke in two weeks. He's concerned about mosquitoes, and that no one knows yet how many people have died. The list of problems is endless.
"I was living a pretty good life," Nagin said of his pre-storm days. "I could not imagine this in my wildest dreams."
---
The first in many coats of whitewash. Nagin is a hero for getting the feds to do something. Hillary better watch her heinie, by the time the Democrats and MSM (distinction w/o a difference), get done spinning this thing, Nagin will look like outstanding presidential material.
you aint kidding puff piece
I hope the people of NO's don't fall for this. This is not his job. His job was to prepare the city for a Hurricane. He did that poorly, and in large part is a reason why the state and feds had such a hard time playing catchup.
It seems on one higher up the chain of command thought the authorities in NO and those responsible for NO would simply sit on their duffs as a Cat 5 was bearing down on them
"He broke down in tears"
"I was living a pretty good life";Nagin said of his pre-storm days;"I couldn't imagine this in my wildest dreams"
Same story,short version.
For Nagin,it's all about him,and it's never gonna be his fault.He was robbed,don't you see.
bump
Nagin needed to delegate some of the responsibility to the hands of bus drivers.
That might be all that is keeping the mob from killing him!
People get blamed for little mistakes and people get blamed for BIG mistakes.
This was a BIG mistake.
He didn't do too well with straightening out the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board
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, .
Payoffs involved in S&WB (Sewerage and Water Board) process, feds say Executive accused of taking kickbacks, Sunday, May 15, 2005 By Gordon Russell Staff writer
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.And he didn't do too wel with straightening out his sonThe 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.
[excerpt]
Mayor's Son Busted At Bloomies November 28, 2002 -- The teenage son of New Orleans' crime-busting mayor has been arrested in an elaborate credit-card scam at Bloomingdale's.
Cops say Jeremy Nagin, 18, and a pal tried to make off with $800 in clothing and a $500 cell phone by using an altered credit card.
[snip] Authorities say Jeremy Nagin and Nantambu began their scam by stealing a credit card and using a decoding device to decipher its confidential data.
Then, they allegedly used a computer program to graft those numbers onto another credit card, which was used in the Bloomie's theft and in booking a room at the Courtyard by Marriott.
The two were charged with grand larceny, criminal impersonation, criminal possession of stolen property and forgery.
[snip]
Take another look. It's not such a bad article!
Two can play at this game. And, danged if I'm not having a ball!
"Now he's a mayor without a city."
"...police are besieged by armed mobs and looters. Flames flare from broken gas lines. Stranded residents have been living in squalor, with no electricity or fresh water. Dead bodies float in the streets."
"...remnants of his government, ...though most top officials have decamped to Baton Rouge, La."
"...three days after Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Nagin had been pushed far enough"
"...he went on the radio and told the federal government to "get off your asses"
"He broke down in tears."
"...calm technocrat who likes to make lists of problems and solve them." MUST HAVE LOST THE LIST THAT HAD THE DEFINITION TO MANDATORY EVACUATION.
"It was possibly the highest moment of my life right now," said Jackie Clarkson, a city councilwoman and political ally who represents the French Quarter."
"...faces heavy criticism for failing to evacuate the poorest New Orleans residents swiftly."
"...hasn't had a commanding media presence."
"...the leader of a city can either be seen as rising to the challenge or not seen at all."
"...nearly a week in subhuman conditions in the city's shelters of last resort"
"...many were seething with resentment over the way they'd been treated, and some lashed out at Nagin.
"U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (CLINTON? lol), a Democrat from New Orleans, defended the mayor."
"His job was to sound the alarm down here..."
"... might have avoided twisting the president's tail.
"In politics, I always feel like I'm bridled," Nagin said..."
"Two things made him see red, he said."
"...a cable TV executive at Cox Communications, making $400,000 a year, the darling of the city's business elite...(one local columnist called him a "hottie") who promised change.
"...born in 1956 in New Orleans' Charity Hospital...the hospital is out of food and water, and thugs shot at rescuers who were trying to evacuate its remaining patients last week."
"...Nagin milked his humble origins for all they were worth."
"...a left-hander known for a big curve ball..."
"At various times during his first THREE YEARS in office, Nagin has VOWED to sell off the city's airport, take over the troubled school system and cut the city bureaucracy. NONE OF THAT HAS HAPPENED, but New Orleans' problems with POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT AND CRIME HAV CONTINUED."
"Those failed promises pale in comparison with the challenges of Katrina."
"Critics say Nagin has made some serious missteps."
"Concerned about the legal ramifications of ordering people to leave their homes...Nagin didn't issue a mandatory evacuation until...less than 24 hours before the storm hit, meaning that up to 100,000 people were stranded."
"In the aftermath, it became apparent that the city hadn't stockpiled enough fuel for rescue vehicles and boats."
"He's not someone whose political support is so deep he'll be able to rely on that."
"Nagin... said he learned long ago to tackle a long list of problems three at a time. When you accomplish them, he said, you move problem number four to the top of the list."
"For now, he's focused on his list: transferring control to the military, COMPLETING THE EVACUATION OF THE CITY (OH, IS IT MANDATORY NOWWWWWWWWWWW?!), containing the floodwaters and then draining them."
"With almost no tax revenue coming in, the government will be broke in two weeks. He's concerned about mosquitoes, and that no one knows yet how many people have died. The list of problems is endless." (BUT HE SAID HE CAN ONLY HANDLE THREE AT A TIME.)
"I was living a pretty good life..." (SO WERE ALOT OF OTHER PEOPLE. IS THIS ALL ABOUT YOU?")
"soldiers on" GIMME A BREAK
No, Demwits, his job was to IMPLEMENT THE FREAKIN EVACUATION PLAN. It even took Bush to sound the alarm. Nagin was watching the Jeffersons at the time.
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