Posted on 09/10/2005 9:09:47 AM PDT by STARWISE
Politics: Louisiana's senior senator, whose brother is lieutenant governor and whose father was New Orleans' mayor, is blaming President Bush for "the staggering incompetence of the federal government." Come again?
It's understandable that on the Sept. 4 edition of ABC's "This Week," Mary Landrieu said of President Bush, "I might likely have to punch him — literally" if he or members of his administration made any more disparaging remarks about local authorities and their pre- and post-Katrina efforts. Some are and were family.
Brother Mitch Landrieu is lieutenant governor of Louisiana. Father "Moon" Landrieu was not only mayor of New Orleans, but also later became secretary of housing and urban development under President Carter.
(snip)
Despite Landrieu's complaints of budget cuts and paltry funding, the fact is that over the five years of the Bush administration, Louisiana has received more money — $1.9 billion — for Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects than any other state, and more than under any other administration over a similar period. California is a distant second with less than $1.4 billion despite a population more than seven times as large.
(snip)
The problem was at the local level. The ambitious plan fell apart when the state suspended the Levee Board's ability to refinance old bonds and issue new ones. As the Times-Picayune reported, Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle "repeatedly faulted the Levee Board for the way it awards contracts, spends money and ignores no-bid contract laws." Blocked by the state from raising local money, the federal matching funds went unspent. By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one-tenth of one percent, or $1.98 million, was dedicated to New Orleans levee improvements. By contrast, $22 million was spent that year to renovate a home for the Louisiana Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I heard there's a lot of levee boards and other political entities governing the levees. Many levees with many boards. It's a patchwork of agencies making for tons of jobs for hacks and friends and family of hacks. Hacks love this gawd awful mess.
I'll bet white Democrats dominate these levee board jobs by a long shot
Whoa.
Hadn't heard about that.
RICO, anyone?
Most people never hear the truth.
"I'll bet white Democrats dominate these levee board jobs by a long shot"
You just know that's the truth. Why black americans continue to support the democratic party is beyond me.
Hey that was my line, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, somebody is reading FR.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1479180/posts?page=287#287 post #293
Investors business daily is a great paper
Yep, do not disagree, but it is startling to see ones own thinking used by smart people.
A better question might be: How long will so-called journalists abuse their freedom of speech with distortions and blatant lies with no apparent purpose but to harm everyone and every effort that is not part of the anti-American socialists' game plan?
And they know this-- HOW?
In fact, we know how the administration responded to these kinds of disasters when we look at how Bush handled Florida and the hurricane there when his brother was governor."
It's more like Jeb Bush is a governor who knows how to handle hurricane emergencies, regardless of who the president is.
He must know all about the political situation there. He's a resident of NO, which I didn't know, till I saw him on tv last week describing how he escaped the city.
He drove his SUV with his 2 cats that he rescued from his house, sounded as if it was pretty harrowing.
IIRC, I think he and his family had stayed at a friend's house which had not been in the flood waters, for a couple of days, and then he made it back to his house, got his cats, and got out of town.
We determined that LHLS/EP did not administer the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant and Unmet Needs Programs in accordance with federal regulations and did not properly account for and use FEMA program funds. As a result, we questioned $617,787 of ineligible management and administrative costs (Findings 7 and 8) and identified other conditions that increased the likelihood that fraud, waste, and abuse occurred without detection. LHLS/EP’s inadequate administration was largely due to the lack of procedures for administering grant funds and staff having minimal program knowledge and experience.Audit Report
Two of the individuals charged, MICHAEL C. APPE, 51, of Mandeville, Louisiana, and MICHAEL L. BROWN, 61, of St. Francisville, Louisiana, are senior employees of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Both APPE and BROWN are charged with conspiracy to obstruct a federal audit; BROWN is additionally charged with making a false statement.
Investor's Business Daily tends to be less liberal than other sources--they are looking to make money on investing in stocks, and sugarcoating things is a good way to lose your investment capital.
Full Disclosure: Still haven't gotten good at identifying "cup-with-handle" though. :-)
3:05 P.M. - Orleans Parish Public School Superintendent Dr. Ora Watson: Katrina, as ugly as it sounds, may have balanced our books…I can’t imagine us starting back up with any more than 40,000 students (about two-thirds the usual number).
How....conveeeenient.
Nine months before Katrina, three top Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness officials were indicted by a federal grand jury in Shreveport and charged, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana, "with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation opportunities throughout Louisiana."
Crooked, hard core liberal democrats.
bump
We very quickly realized that the Orleans Parish School Board was on the verge of running out of cash and would be insolvent by September 2005 unless several immediate steps were taken. At this week"s School Board meeting, the Board approved moving forward with a $50 million financing, which will ensure the district's short-term liquidity.More about financial mess
The bad: About twenty million dollars has allegedly been stolen from the school system over the past decade. And for a system that doesn’t have enough certified teachers to go around, that is a crucial figure. (The amount missing could have paid approximately 600 annual teaching salaries.) The system is also once again on the verge of bankruptcy robbing Peter to pay Paul all at the 11th hour. Financial dire straights continually overshadow the real needs of the schools.Further down the page:
The good: Several people have been indicted in the missing money scandal and the feds are still sitting over in the Algiers office monitoring and taking notes. And New York financial turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal took over the money reins in July after being appointed by the state and after much ado, welcomed by the school board. The firm’s initial estimate is that it will take about one year to clean up the financial mess.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is in town today to speak at the Reading First National Conference. Spellings mentioned that she has will be, "watching the efforts of New York turnaround company Alvarez & Marsal to get control over New Orleans public school finances." And that her inspector general will be closely monitoring Orleans spending of federal funds, as nearly $70 million have been poorly documented in the past.
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