Posted on 11/08/2005 10:38:24 PM PST by ncountylee
Gov. Kathleen Blanco's top adviser on rebuilding Louisiana after this year's hurricanes said Monday that Blanco and the commission she appointed to oversee recovery planning "will continue to make sure the state's most important city is front and center in the recovery process."
Andy Kopplin, formerly Blanco's chief of staff and now director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, addressed a meeting of Mayor Ray Nagin's parallel recovery agency, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission.
Kopplin said the state authority has no more important task than helping to bring back "one of the great cities of the world" and promised that the state's infrastructure will be rebuilt "from east to west," placing New Orleans in prime position for early reconstruction work.
But when developer Joseph Canizaro, a member of Nagin's commission, asked whether Blanco would be willing to give the city one-third of the $150 million she hopes to tap this year from the state's rainy-day fund, Kopplin said the administration would be willing to discuss the issue but suggested that chances of winning approval by two-thirds of each legislative house are questionable when the state faces a huge budget deficit.
Canizaro said the city needs the money to help fill a 2006 hurricane-induced budget deficit that Nagin recently estimated at more than $200 million. The figure is smaller in actual dollars than the state's deficit but a much larger percentage of the city's former budget.
Help on a much more modest scale came from Federal Emergency Management Agency official Carl Cook, who said his agency will pay for an unspecified number of planners to join the depleted staff of the City Planning Commission.
The commission was cut from 24 to eight employees after the city laid off 2,400 workers last month to save money.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
PLEASE come back!
Without you low-rent welfare queens and crack dealers and gang-bangers, I might have to quit sucking the public teat and get a real job!!!!
Nagin is the piggy who built his house out of straw.
"Without you low-rent welfare queens and crack dealers and gang-bangers"
Great thanks for telling me who lived in New Orleans didn't know you went door to door and did a census.
profileranger
Since Nov 7, 2005
Listen newbie troll, I lived in LA for the first 25 years of my life, and worked for the NOLA Levee Board for my last three years there.
I know EXACTLY what I am talking about, and I know EXACTLY who was at this townhall meeting in BR at a church on North Street.
These were residents of the lower 9th Ward and Gentilly - the Welfare, Gang, and Drug capitol(s) of Louisiana.
Pi$$ off.
If your calling all the people from that area that it includes family and friends. Who were not on welfare or in gangs or on drugs. I grow up there lived there until I joined the military(I never sold drugs, my mother is a LPN and never was on welfare and my family memebers and friends never on drugs) and when I got HONORABLY discharged in jun 05 I moved back. People who lived there were of professions and races. As for me being new to this site and posting it means nothing because i'm not new to life or false information and stereotyping which you are doing.
If you truely knew what you were say then you would know that there were good neighborhoods mixed in with the bad. Just like any other city. If you just look at something with a closed mind you'll only see what you want to see. Only half seeing you just from your post one thing can be said but I truely looked that view of you might change.
The Army showed me alot about people I who I stereotyped. Even if 9 out of 10 people were what you said they were your judging that 1 person because of other 9.
Oh by the way it's Veteran who fought for your freedom to call me a newbie troll( NOT JUST NEWBIE TROLL)
Maybe so, and your points are well taken. I hope you understand that my point of view has nothing to do with race and everything to do with content of character.
Before I say anything else, please allow me to thank you for your service to our Nation. We all owe you a deep debt of gratitude. I served in the Army at one time myself, so I can appreciate the sacrifices you have made for all of us. Thank you again.
As for NOLA, however, you are correct: not ALL people living in those areas are gang members, welfare recipients, or drug dealers. Again, however, there was a large percentage of the aforementioned there, and the citizens of those areas AND THEIR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES seem not to have given a shizzle about the cesspools those spots had become.
Katrina and Rita flushed a giant toilet; I am not sorry to see 90+ percent of that area demolished.
Good folks like yourself and your family SHOULD move back when/as you are able. However, this time, don't allow your neighborhoods to fall apart by forgiving and excusing lawlessness and continuing to elect corrupt politicians.
Thank you for the correction
Why come back when they're getting paid so much to stay away?
I'd like to thank you as well for your service to the country.
But as a resident of northern Louisiana, I hope the 9th Ward is bulldozed and never rebuilt. Not only would additional billions of dollars have to be wasted to make it truly safe but many of Louisiana's political troubles can be attributed to the fact that it(9th Ward)has provided a 45-50,000 reliable vote margin to a corrupt Louisiana Democrat party in statewide elections. The school buses are humming all day long on election day in "the ward".
98% of Meemaw BLANK-O's margin of victory came from this area. 100% of Katrina Mary Landrieu's margin of victory in her first senatorial race came from the 9th ward.
Our only hope of beginning the process of changing the way this state's been governed over the last 100 years is for those people scattered about the country by Katrina to decide that their lives can be better and more prosperous where they are now rather than returning to a crime infested, high poverty area with terrible schools.They'll do themselves a favor and the rest of us as well.
Nagin had better learn to speak "Espanol".
Not everyone is getting paid trust me.
Most people are emotionally attached to the city. My family, my parents, and lil brother are all staying together in temp housing giving to us by one of the colleges in Ma. I still see my mom and wife crying every so often cause they miss being home. How would you feel having to give up all you worked for and loved and having to start over somewhere else. You lose your comfort zone. Not rebuilding the 9th ward won't fix the problem. They will find another way to get in they always do. These are American citizens and it's their choice what they do. How can stay helping people rebuild their lives cost to much. It's like people are passing the buck to another state ("WE DON'T WANT YOU BACK SO STAY AWAY"). Again I say put yourself in their shoes. They are rebuilding in Mississippi, Texas, and Florida but were going to say no to the 9th ward. What message are you sending to the people of that area? If this was a major terrorist attack would that change things or would people still be happy they are gone.
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