LOL!!
Thanks for the reprieve, but I already smacked myself. ;)
Posted on 09/24/2005 11:58:21 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
BATON ROUGE — Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Saturday proposed creating a nonprofit group, funded with nearly $2 billion in federal money, that would provide services to evacuated Louisiana residents, much as refugees are settled in this country after fleeing political persecution overseas.
The Family Recovery Corps would rely almost entirely on federal money, plus some donations, Blanco aides said. It was unclear who would run the noprofit, which relief groups and government agencies would be involved and how contracts with the relief groups would be arranged.
Blanco said the Corps "will certainly not be inexpensive." She contacted President Bush about funding on Thursday, before Hurricane Rita struck, but has not heard back, said Andy Kopplin, Blanco's chief of staff.
"I think (Bush) will welcome this idea," Blanco said at a news conference.
Blanco said she envisioned the Corps as manned by "a cadre of trained workers, trained to know what benefits are available and how families can access those benefits. They will connect benefits to families -- families from all walks of life."
The plan, released to reporters late Saturday, said Blanco will appoint a senior executive from the private sector to lead the group, along with an advisory board, whose members will help with management and fund-raising.
As planned, the Corps would provide a single clearinghouse of information and assistance to the estimated 1.3 million residents who were driven from their homes by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, scattering into shelters and the homes of friends and family members elsewhere in Louisiana and around the country.
Its staff would work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Red Cross and other non-governmental agencies to get help for refugees who need housing, health care, counseling, job training, help enrolling children in school and many other services, said Ann Williamson, head of Louisiana's Department of Social Services.
Since Katrina hit and the evacuations began, Blanco has repeatedly said the refugees need to return so Louisiana's economy, communities and culture can recover from the storms.
"The damage Rita leaves behind makes approving this plan even more pressing," she said.
As budgeted, Blanco's plan calls for spending an average of $4,100 on each family to be served. Each family would also get an average of $1,300 in financial support to cover additional costs.
Williamson said about 5.3 percent of the proposed $1.99 billion budget -- about $100 million -- would go toward administrative costs.
One nonprofit that was involved in creating the plan, and planned to be involved in the Corps, was the Washington, D.C.-based International Rescue Committee, which helps get job training, housing, counseling and other services for political refugees given asylum in the U.S. The group has had representatives in Baton Rouge since the days after Katrina struck, said Christine Petrie, its national resettlement director.
"The sooner we start to serve these individuals, the sooner they will have the opportunity to participate in their plan to return" to Louisiana, Petrie said.
LOL!!
Thanks for the reprieve, but I already smacked myself. ;)
Bold added to make it a true statement
Gov. Blanco can set up this "nonprofit group" (including the salaries) with billions in STATE money.
Let the feds control control Federal money.
"This is nothing more than a Democrat politician trying to create another organization from which to either steal money or to buy votes."
...
Nothing more than nervous nelly democrats hurridly trying to get their voting base back into the state of LA. How Blanco and Nagin think that area is even habitable when there are no services available once again proves their utter incompetence to grasp the reality of the situation.
They are hopelessly stuck on stupid politicing.
This is clearly a partisan effort to try to give Lousiana more Democratic votes.
I guess taxpayers need to fork over $4,000 per Democratic voter to the wishes the Blank Brain of Louisiana -- not to be confused with the Byrd Brain of West Virginia.
No point returning certain people so that they can have 4 votes in every election...
(Note that for Senator Landrieu's 1996 election, voter turnout was about 108% of the voters -- and Landrieu was able to manage the narrowest of victories with the help of the city that her father was once mayor of -- and great Democratic Dictator of)...
Will send my bank account number and run off to pawn everything of value that I own too.
These RATS need help!! They screwed up and maybe no one will vote for them anymore!! Worse than that - the ones who left might not WANT to come back.
Judging from the interviews I've seen on tv some of these evacuees won't go back unless someone puts a gun in their back.
She wants her dem voters back or the conservative part of the state will win next time.
If it was a Pubbie doing this, arguing for someone to go out and retrieve black folks, wouldn't the MSM be screaming racism? Harkening back to the days of slavery? Just asking...
Translation: "Since Katrina lanced the festering pustule that was much of NO Blanco has been desperately scheming to get the pathogens back into it in exactly the same form so the LA DemonRat party will retain its power and the human and social horror that most of NO was will be recreated in all its crime and squalor."
Amen! We need to flood the White House and Congress with concerns about accountability for the massive amount of money La is demanding. I also would like to see some paperwork for the millions already sent down there to fix the levees. What happened to all that money?Maybe we should all send emails to Campbell Brown, asking her to interview her indicted father. I'm sure he could give us lots of answers to that question.
The independent administrator should be ABAD (anybody but a Democrat)
Once the water is finally pumped out of the inundated areas of NO they will still be uninhabitable for a number of months. Almost all of the inundated residences are not economically repairable and will have to be bulldozed.
Then the HUGE environmental issue of what to do with the debris will arise. It's unlikely that the environmentalists will simply want to see it piled up and burned. Since its disposal will at least partly be funded by the Federal government, they will have standing to sue and contest almost every waste disposal decision that's made. Then, once the mess is cleaned up, the next phase of the Second Battle of New Orleans will begin when the politicians, environmentalists, welfare groups, business persons, and everybody else get into a legal and political battle of Stalingrad/Okinawa proportions about what to do with the land that's been denuded.
I'm starting to think that perhaps Nagin and Blanco intentionally kept people in LA before Katrina hit, knowing that if their votes left they would never get them back.
I feel sorry for the "normal" people in LA that have to endure this circus.
I submit that the first ever giant
Golden Pooper Scopper Award go to Gov. Blanco
for her unwavering efforts to keep the crap buried
in her litter box.
scopper = scooper
Must bring back the voters...ASAP...if she can't get 'em back the adults *Republicans* will own lousyana lock, stock and barrel...another blue state turning very RED...
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