State Wants FEMA to Help Fix Superdome

www.13wham.com ^ | 10/02/05 | United Press International

[CajunConservative]

The Astrodome couldn't be used as a shelter of last resort because of the glass roof I think. It was more of a safety/liability thing. It isn't safe in a major hurricane.

[CajunConservative]

Well since they can't win they can stay in San Antonio.

[Roccus]

Let me think about this for a minute. Hmmmmmmm. NO

[kcvl]

Tim Coulon, chairman of the Superdome Commission and the lead negotiator for Gov. Kathleen Blanco


When the Saints held a press conference in the auditorium of their headquarters last month, rolling out their vision for the team´s future in New Orleans, it was a spit-and-polish affair. After nearly an hour of testimony and well-burnished plans, Benson returned to the stage and cut right to the point:

"Let me make this clear," he said. "I don´t want to move, and I don´t want to sell. We have three choices: We can build a new stadium, renovate the Superdome, or tell us to leave."


The state owes the Saints $15 million next July 5. The annual payment increases to $23.5 million by 2009.

Louisiana rated low in economic ´report card´

Louisiana´s economy again received low marks in an annual report by a national study group that said the rating masked some improvements in the situation faced by workers in the state.

But the Washington-based Corporation for Enterprise Development said Louisiana has lost ground in its ability to get small businesses to start and grow in the state.

CFED, an economic think tank, put Louisiana at the bottom or just above the bottom of three major ratings used to measure state economies:

Using a scale of A to F, Louisiana scored:

• F in economic performance, which included such measures as employment growth, the unemployment rate, mass layoffs, pay, health coverage, the poverty and crime rates and environmental measurements.

• D in business vitality. The state was ranked third in manufacturing investment, but its rating for entrepreneurial businesses fell during 2004.

• F in development capacity, which measures the quality of workers through education, financial resources available for businesses and such factors as the number of doctoral scientists and engineers, households with computers, university research and patents issued to inventors in the state.

Dan Juneau, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state´s major business lobby, said he did not put much stock in the report, questioning the methodology used to compile the ratings.

[rerat0120]

I wonder, would it be better to turn the whole NOLA region into a national park? The people, of Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, and some other states, are not allowed to use the resources in their state, because of Washington's need to seize lands.

[uncbob]

Let all the NFL Gallionaires kick in and fix it

[noblejones]

The Lousyana state motto: "Be Gimme Dat."

[2nd amendment mama]

OMG...ROTFLMAO It's a good thing I turned my head or you'd owe me a new keyboard (mouthfull of water). Only a liberal could get away with being "stuck on stupid" like this.

[blam]

"Sounds like the state continues to not have a clue what FEMA is for."

Nor here either:

FEMA Approves $4 Million For Berm

"Dauphin Island -- besieged again this year by beach erosion during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- will receive $4 million in federal dollars to rebuild the sand berm intended to help protect homes, officials said Tuesday."

Mayor Jeff Collier said he is under the impression that newly announced money is in addition to the $4 million the Federal Emergency Management Agency already had promised after Hurricane Ivan."

[WasDougsLamb]

The idiots that chose not to evacuate the people (Nagin,Blanco) should use some of that illegally gained money and do it their damn selves.

[RightWhale]

FEMA should be doing management rather than signing purchase orders. If they are doing preparation they should change their name to Federal Emergency Preparation Agency. FEPA. But, straying into gray areas seems to be the trend for gov't agencies.

[skr]

Forget it, that's up to the locals' bank accounts. That goes for alligator farms and all the other rigmarole the LA senators have cobbled together.

[Ellesu]

Good! We could not afford them before Katrina either.

[jeffers]

Publicly, he wants "enlarged concourses and new restrooms".

We won't hear about the new luxury suites until the "financing" has been arranged, if then.

There's no way New Orleans can be rebuilt by those now in charge. It is a mathematical impossibility.

They are unable to see past their own greed and artifice. It has been bred too deeply into them to ever change. A Darwinian process has been applied over tens of decades, until only the most corrupt seek office or have a chance of being elected.

Any and all money they are given now or in the future will be used for their own personal gain, and New Orleans will be consumed by mold and more mold until a responsible authority is given financial oversight.

[JohnBovenmyer]

to help make it hurricane-proof

Weren't they claiming it was hurricane-proof before Katrina, while they were advising everyone to go there? That claim was correct, there weren't any Superdome injuries or deaths from the weather. The problems were the local politicians and their welfare state slaves. Making the dome liberal-proof will take more than money.

[NavVet]

At least she's being honest. The Dims need to maintain a large population of poor in need of government handouts. That, and the anti-american lunatic fringe, is their base.

[Ellesu]

http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20021111h

Inside Track
By Michael O'Leary
November 11, 2002





Coulon In Trouble

Many Jefferson Parish Republicans were shocked when Parish President Tim Coulon endorsed Senator Mary Landrieu. One member of the legislature called the GOP Chief Executive's decision to break party ranks, "treason."

As this State Representative, who asked not to be named, stated, "This is about control of the United States Senate. It's not some local election. It is about the future of the country. To endorse Mary Landrieu is treason."

The legislator also revealed that he and several of his colleagues planned a retaliatory action against Coulon and that this action will be directed at, of all people, his son.

Chris Coulon has his eyes on the State Representative seat currently held by Jennifer Sneed. The Old Metairie and Bucktown district is a prefect fit for a scion of a prominent Republican, and since Ms. Sneed intends to run for the Jefferson Parish Council, vacating the post, a Coulon victory seemed likely.

This has all changed however with the elder Coulon's endorsement of Landrieu. A group of Jefferson GOPers is planning a direct mail piece, which will read, "Like father, like son. The father supported Landrieu. Will the son support her policies?"

Coulon friend Hippo Katz defends the Jefferson Parish president by saying, "Tim was grateful to Landrieu for the drainage money that she provided. He wanted to thank her. He was not concerned by the politics. It is just not who Tim is."

Katz continued, "I don't think Chris will ultimately run. He is looking at other jobs right now."

[Ellesu]

You are so right, and they will continue to try to get the rest of the nation to pay for everything they can think of. LA special session in October and I know Blanco will not cut one wasted dime from the state budget. Instead she will raise taxes and continue demanding the feds pay for pork. Nagin said last week he had received 102 million dollars, and that it might last a few months. Where is that money going? How much has La gotten already? What did they do with it?

"We can't afford to pay the Saints, can't afford to pay the Hornets, can't afford these rounds of golf(below article), can't afford teacher pay raises" etc....and they will expect the nation's taxpayers to pay for it all.


http://www.nola.com

La., promoters seek changes to contract with golf course -
State owes unexpected $1 million subsidy
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
April 29, 2005
Author: Robert Travis Scott
Capital bureau
Estimated printed pages: 4

BATON ROUGE -- After announcing last week that the state owes an unexpected $1 million subsidy to the new privately owned PGA Tour golf club in Avondale, state officials and convention promoters are negotiating with the course’s owners to avoid tapping taxpayers for similar payouts in the future.

The Tournament Players Club of Louisiana, a joint development of the state and private firms that opened a year ago and is currently hosting the Zurich Classic, exceeded its overall expectations by recording 28,328 rounds of golf in the past 12 months. But only 1,748 of those rounds were booked through local hotels, falling short of a state guarantee that hotels would book at least 10,000 rounds in the course’s first year of operation.

Course owners wanted that pledge as a way of assuring healthy numbers of out-of-state golfers, who pay higher fees than locals. But many hotel patrons who played the course booked rounds directly with the club or through their convention groups. So, while the course attracted tourists, most did not meet the contract’s definition of a hotel booking, putting Louisiana taxpayers on the hook for the subsidy.

The state’s contract says that Louisiana must pay $125 for each round under 10,000 that is not booked by a local hotel during the first year of operation, minus some accounting adjustments. The shortfall for the first year, which ends this month, means the state owes the course owners close to $1 million.

The guarantee for the second year is 12,000 rounds at $130 per round. It escalates through the fifth year, when the state guarantees 14,500 rounds of hotel-booked golf at the club at $135 per round. The maximum state obligation in the fifth year is nearly $2 million.

The contract says that in each year, the maximum state obligation can be no more than the financial loss of the club. That means if the club breaks even or makes a profit, the state would owe nothing, no matter how short the club falls on bookings through hotels.

’Never formally notified’

Part of the problem this year was that the New Orleans hotel industry was never informed of the state guarantee or approached to help find a way to meet the goal.

"We were never formally notified of the need for such a structure or else we would have been doing it," said Bill Langkopp, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association. "We will do whatever we can to assist in correcting this issue."

Maris LeBlanc, an attorney for the division of administration, said the state would like to open a discussion with the club owners about the terms of the contract. She would not say specifically what the state will ask to renegotiate.

Stephen Perry, president and chief executive of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he has been in talks with club officials to organize a better marketing effort and to redefine what constitutes a round of golf that would count toward the state’s guarantee.

He said club executives are agreeable to including a wider variety of bookings in that definition, such as rounds booked by destination marketing companies, by associations sponsoring meetings in New Orleans and on the bureau’s Web site. That broader definition would be used in the second year and probably would not affect the state’s first year obligation of $1 million, he said.

Perry helped negotiate the state’s contract when he was Gov. Mike Foster’s chief of staff in 2001.

Chris Smith, director of public relations for PGA Tour, a parent firm of the golf course, said, "Obviously, it’s unfortunate that there was that shortfall."

But he said the state guarantee was a critical part of the agreement. "Without it we wouldn’t have done the deal," Smith said.

In all, the course exceeded its expectations for the first year, but the bookings through hotels and by visiting groups were less than expected, he said.

Smith said the PGA’s talks with the convention bureau have been positive, and that the key to preventing another state payment is to get the local hospitality and tourism industry involved in bringing more visitors to the course. He said his firm did not want to renegotiate the state deal. Smith said the PGA’s focus is on driving up golf tourism, not changing the definitions of the contract.

Langkopp said the hotel association had discussions with the course developers years before the course was built. The association at the time would not commit to guarantee rounds at the course and the hotels were not part of the state’s agreement that followed.

True numbers unclear

Club documents submitted to the state this month do not specify how many tourists have played the course. Records show that 1,748 rounds were booked by hotels. Nonresidents and those paying daily fees, which are categories that would include many tourists, played 4,920 rounds, but those did not count toward the state guarantee. Players with annual passes, their guests and a broad category called "Louisiana residents" accounted for 14,160 rounds in the first year.

Other categories of paying players, mixed with locals and visitors, amounted to 5,337. The course provided 2,163 free rounds.

The state contributed $12 million toward the development of the $28 million club, which replaced English Turn as a venue for an annual professional golf tournament.

Private firms made a $4.5 million investment, plus a donation of the land to the state. Other investors backed the project without an ownership stake. The state leases the land back to the owners, who do not have to pay property taxes.

The club must submit financial reports to the state division of administration, which can request additional information and audit the club’s books.

[larryjohnson]

Pro sports teams should pay for building,maintaining and refurb of their stadiums. Not the taxpayer!

[pepperhead]

WHAT doesn't this state want FEMA to fix and have taxpayers fund?

Repair to republican officials offices.