Posted on 09/08/2005 11:36:07 AM PDT by TaxRelief
I sent an email to Alvarez and Marsal (business managers of New Orleans Public Schools) and asked them why they did not make the school buses available to evacuate the citizens of New Orleans.
Their answer:
Thank you for your question. School buses were not used as all the NOPS transportation employees were also individuals who evacuated the city. Thanks.The answer is cryptic, but to the point.
bttt!
Have the media begun to pick up on this yet?
Just for the record, A&M had terminated all the part-time drivers in their big July layoff.
They never resolved the issue of using school buses in hurricane evacs, despite at least a year of discussion with the City.
There are multiple FR threads documenting this.
The City had offered the School Board to allow drivers to bring their families, as well as supplying police protection on each bus.
That's expressly and unambiguously discussed in the June 9 School Board meeting minutes, which are posted elsewhere here on FR.
"Bump for MSM attention "
Fat chance....The MSM has only one objective...BASH BUSH.
They are just one step short of accusing him of creating Katrina.
Speaking of college students, why is it that all of the universities were able to successfully evacuate 100,000+ students and the city of N.O couldn't even get the elderly out of nursing homes?
True enough, they may have.
But the City had previously offered to let the drivers bring their families along on the buses, as well as police protection for each bus.
The School Board (e.g., Phyllis Landrieu) continued to stonewall as is clearly proven in the June 9 School Board meeting minutes.
I have no sympathy for Nagin - he's been grossly incompetent as a Mayor - but the School Board also was continuously negligent on the topic of school bus use in the City evac plan.
As of June 9 2005, there were no provisions in either the City or the School Board's hurricane prep planning to use school buses for evac, however there were extensive ongoing negotiations to do just that as indicated in the minutes.
And it was the School Board that was stonewalling, not the City. Not Nagin.
Let's put the responsbility where it belongs.
Because they had no official authority to do so, due wholly and completely to the negligence and dithering of the Orleans Parish School Board.
Nagin also had no authority to use the buses except under declaration of emergency, a problem the City had been trying to resolve in its negotiations with the (stonewalling) School Board.
They didn't want to use School Board gas for a City evacuation anyway, as is indicated in the June 9 2005 School Board meeting minutes.
"hese folks were idiots. Let the drivers bring their families."
Exactly what I was thinking! Get your stuff, your family, get on the bus and GET OUT!!!!! SHEESH!!!
(If I read much more of this idiocy, my head really is going to explode!)
Local and state officials were required to file an emergency plan so that could get access to Federal $$$$s. But, it is apparent now that the only reason a plan was drawn up was to get the money and not to actually be used to safe lives and evacuate a city. GREED.
They may not have resolved it, but they did put it in the published plan they were to follow.
The Orleans Parish School Board certainly could have shown some brains and some initiative and ordered its buses to be used. But the responsibility under Louisiana law and New Orleans ordinances, belonged to Nagin as of Saturday morning.
He did not have to "negotiate" with the School Board, as you suggest. He had, and should have used, the power to order those buses to roll. Immediately. And as of Saturday morning there was enough time, barely, to get every man, woman and child out of New Orleans before Katrina hit the following morning.
Congressman Billybob
We do not know if those keys were available.
Except that parts of it are a lie. The kid isn't 18, he's 20 and a car thief. He's also told multiple stories on how he got the bus, including that a police officer handed him the keys.
But I guess he could step in front of the camera and say "Yeah, I stole the bus. I knew how to do it because auto theft is my career. i've had a lot of pratice hot-wiring vehicles."
http://www.wdsu.com/news/4869342/detail.html
NO could have used 200 + kids that think like him. A lot more people would have gotten out a lot sooner.
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