Posted on 09/06/2005 6:19:29 PM PDT by angkor
Found this in the Google cache, the minutes from a June 5 meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board.
The Board members had a very specific discussion about releasing school buses to the City Of New Orleans for hurricane evacuations.
Sorry for the length, but it does provide some valuable insights, e.g., what took the City so long to conclude this deal? They'd been talking with the School Board for at least a year.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:-NDJWqbkSEUJ:www.nops.k12.la.us/content/board/minutes/2005/bmin060905.pdf+%22school+buses%22+%22new+orleans+parish%22&hl=en&client=opera
Orleans Parish School Board 3510 General de Gaulle Drive New Orleans, Louisiana 70114
A Committee of the Whole Meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board was held:
Thursday – June 9, 2005
Hurricane Preparedness
Ms. Bartholomew: President Sanders indicated that he wanted this on the agenda because of the Hurricane season. Last year when schools needed to be closed, department heads were unclear because a lot of our school records are still in paper format and not in electronic format. So they didn’t know the proper procedure to follow with maintaining records. In addition, President Sanders also indicated that the City would like us to work with them. If a hurricane should come to the City in order to save the school buses, those assets, the City had asked if we would loan the school buses to be utilized for those persons in New Orleans. A lot of the citizens of New Orleans do not have transportation and have no way of evacuating from the City if a hurricane should come this way. He had been talking with Dr. Kevin Stephens from the Health Department because the Red Cross said that they would not commit to opening any shelters in the City of New Orleans if a hurricane comes this way. It would be all for naught. They wanted to utilize school buses in order to transport those persons out of the City. I believe that the City had agreed to indemnify and hold harmless the School Board if any of those persons got hurt on the buses because that was one of my concerns. But after speaking with Ms. Bowers, who had spoken with certain persons at the City as well, they indicated they would release us of any liability. He wanted the Board to be aware of what the City is doing with hurricane preparedness and I guess initiate the proceeding for the Administration to start taking steps now before we get on the door steps of a hurricane. How are we going to preserve students records? If you cannot come back to the City, the children will need those records to go into new schools in other States or other Parishes. She is here now; he can speak to it.
Mr. Sanders: I first noticed that this current policy, 3651R, a 16 page policy, looks like it was drafted in July 1989. I don’t know if it has been reviewed since 1989 but it probably could withstand review on that sake along. It has a lot of titles in here in terms of people in positions and I wonder if those same titles and positions are still operable. The larger issue is not with the records and that is a major issue. The children are even more important in terms of making sure they are safe. We know many of our children and families don’t have transportation and even though it is a City responsibility to plan for emergencies and hurricane preparedness, we need to look at working even more cooperatively or seeking a more cooperative relationship with the City on behalf of the students that we serve. I did talk with Dr. Kevin Stephens in the Health Department of the City. It is our interest to get buses and other vehicles that we may own out of the City in the event it is being evacuated. So those buses should not be empty. It was also his suggestion and call that they should be filled with families and children that may need a ride out of City and may perhaps designate certain high schools in different neighborhoods as staging grounds for families to go to should the need arise for an evacuation. The City is working on arrangements with different Civic Centers in Houma and depending on where the hurricane is coming from, where we need to go. They are making arrangements with institutions in those areas such as Baton Rouge, Mississippi, or Hammond to wait out the hurricane. I just wanted to bring that to your attention. In the last two years we had evacuations and with this season it is predicted to be another big one. With last year’s storm, Mr. Jerome Smith over in the Treme’ area said there were a lot kids who were just stuck there. They were going to break into or were willing to get in one of our schools in order to be safe. We completely understand. I informed him that a school would not have been a good place to be if a hurricane did come. Only about four or five of our schools would really withstand a category three or higher hurricane. Using our schools as shelters is really not an option. Getting out of the City is the best option. We need to find ways to facilitate that for the kids we serve. Even though it is not our primary responsibility, as such, we need to facilitate those relationships.
Mrs. Landrieu: I just wanted to remind you that if we are going to include buses, which are not part of this plan, then we need to include the personnel and communication with personnel.
Ms. Bowers: We have been meeting with City entities about the hurricane preparedness and we have talked to them about our buses. We still have not defined how many they want. They have agreed to indemnify the School Board for using the buses. They said if our bus drivers volunteer then they will make arrangements to take the families of the bus drivers and offer them secure places. They are talking about having City Officers on buses also. There is a good bit of planning that is underway. Benita Cochran and the head of transportation and the head of Security have been participating in these meetings, too. We are trying to stay on top it. This does need review. Ms. Cochran is reviewing the Facilities plan.
Mrs. Landrieu: Ms. Bowers, please also include in here fuelpreparations.
Ms. Bowers: Okay.
Mr. Sanders:Is there a committee within our school system that will revise the policy? For this month’s meeting, will we be able to have a revised policy?
Ms. Bowers: Yes.
Mrs. Anderson:I acceptably agree that human life is first but the data is important. Who do we ask? Do we ask the Superintendent to ask IT to look at the issue of preserving data and is that being looked at already?
Dr. Watson:Not to the extent that it probably should. All of our SASE and student data is within the Technology so that is safe. But some of the written documents in the schools, the older documents, need to be protected. But all grades, all enrollment, all health records are completely being taken care of by the Technology
Page 13 Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes June 9, 2005
Department. We do have things like books and other things that would be perishable in the schools. We do our best to make them safe in the event of a hurricane. I do want to assure you that the School District has worked with the City and worked with other entities within the community over the years when we are facing a hurricane. But we have always volunteered the use of our buses to evacuate citizens.
Mrs. Cade:I know that this policy is a little out dated. As the Chair of the Policy Committee, I will be getting with my Policy Committee, so that we can go through it and update it. Even in it’s present state, I would like to request that the Administration go over with your staff. All staff personnel should become knowledgeable of what the policy and procedures are
Posted earlier in this thread, School Board member Phyllis Landrieu is related to Sen. Landrieu in some manner (cousin?, sister?).
She was clearly running the Board on June 9.
Check the earlier posts in this thread.
This thread and the "hurricane minutes" have propagated into the blogosphere.
Some blogs linked to the original Google cache URL in Post#1, which (strangely, very strangely) is now dead. Nothing there.
Whatsup Google???? Access problems to the cached version of the minutes were reported - publicly - within 24 hours of the original post. And now they are GONE.
Other blogs have included the excerpted "hurricane preparedness" minutes from Post#1, en toto, e.g. cut and paste the entire text.
But several Freepers have stored the entire unexcerpted set of June 9 2005 minutes locally - on their own local hard disks - and can repost if necessary.
Anyone who has a newsie, send them here.
Many thanks- I missed this one.
wow. great find. save it!
Howlin, I hope I'm remembering correctly that you had found maybe another area where school buses were....aside from the one picture of the buses which floated around quite a bit on various threads (no pun intended!). Anyhow, thought you'd find this interesting. (if I'm wrong...ignore this!)
Google is a gaggle of unapologetic liberals. They make no attempt to even disguise it.
And here is an article from June 6, 2005 saying
More than a week after four Orleans Parish School Board members voted to hire an outside firm to take over the district's finances, the same Board members voted Tuesday to sue President Torin Sanders to force him to sign the agreement to hire the firm. Sanders wrote a letter to the state Board of Ethics last Tuesday, saying the 4-3 vote to hire New York consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal was a breach of the Board's fiduciary responsibility. Lourdes Moran, Phyllis Landrieu, Jimmy Fahrenholtz and Una Anderson voted to hire the firm; Sanders, Cynthia Cade and Heidi Lovett Daniels voted against it. Sanders said he wanted to wait to sign the agreement until the state Board of Ethics approved the deal.So here we have the school board faction dominated by Senator Landrieu's aunt Phyllis installing A&M to take over management of the district, which means that A&M could be counted on to do exactly what the Landrieu clan wanted. Sanders was earlier installed by Landrieu, so I guess he wasn't playing ball to her liking, and she decided this was the only way to effectively remove him from control
The only inconsistency in the theory, is that Alvarez & Marsal have an extraordinary reputation for turn-around success, that it would be highly unlikely that they would jeopardize it for their cronies.
Hyatt and Hilton hired their own bus fleets to accomodate their staff and guests.
The Great Southern Saga...
complete with Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Dubois for Governor.
Here is the follow-up from June 13, 2005:
Crunch time came last week for the Orleans Parish School Board to address its troubled finances.Sanders made the mistake of thinking Blanco would help him.
School Board President Torin Sanders, who had called on the governor for help while refusing to ratify an agreement to bring in a New York accounting firm to handle the school district's muddled finances, signed on to the deal.
The agreement was reached after the governor's office stepped in to help with negotiations between the state Department of Education and Sanders.
State Superintendent of Education Cecil Picard had demanded that the OPSB hire New York professional services firm Alvarez and Marsal to come in to organize the district's finances. He threatened to withhold millions in federal money for the school district if OPSB did not.
Now we can put this behind us, said School Board member Jimmy Fahrenholtz. We can move forward and start teaching kids again. It's time.
Rebecca Baker, spokeswoman for Alvarez and Marsal, would not comment on how many employees would be on the job or what it entails until after the contract is signed, as expected this week. Although Sanders signed an agreement to hire the firm, a contract still must be negotiated and signed by the state, the OPSB and the firm.
Alvarez and Marsal is delighted that progress is being made and things seem to be moving forward, Baker said. It's a good thing.
Minutes from a June 2005 Orleans Parish school board meeting show that the city and school district have been wrangling over a plan to use school buses for hurricane evacuations for some time. The minutes have been archived here.
http://home.comcast.net/~ashley_tate/bmin060905.htmhttp://home.comcast.net/~ashley_tate/bmin060905.htm Thanks to Bilges Blogspot. http://bilges.blogspot.com/2005/09/painfully-right-on-buses.html The buses may sit waterlogged instead of having been used to ferry people from the city because no one knew who's budget would be billed for driver time or fuel costs; or there weren't any licensed bus drivers available; or someone was worried about insurance liability or security for the drivers or some other simple consideration that wasn't detailed finely enough in the evacuation plan.
They are here. http://home.comcast.net/~ashley_tate/bmin060905.htm
Nagin was waiting for Greyhounds.
Because he hadn't gained the authority to use the school buses.
I'm defending Nagin - he's incompetent - but it's important to be factual and accurate.
I'm not defending Nagin - he's incompetent - but it's important to be factual and accurate.
"The buses couldn't be used because they were under water." Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, 9/11/05
Ping...
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