Buisson has said he would expect the Federal Emergency Management Agency to repay Jefferson for the cost of the ads, mainly because they were part of a larger objective to overhaul the area's hurricane protection.
The ads, he said, were informational, not political, and therefore should not have been financed from the $139,087 that Broussard reported to the state Ethics Board in February he had in his campaign account.
But a FEMA spokesman said the parish's Katrina ads most likely do not qualify for the agency's "public assistance" reimbursement program, which compensates local governments only for money spent directly "to protect the life and safety of people."
"If the parish had to put a legal notice in the paper about sandbagging . . . or about a deadline for debris removal, that would be reimbursable," spokesman Kim Pease said. "This particular ad, in the opinion of the people who control the purse strings, would not qualify."
Of course, it was a CAT 2 when it hit NO.
Still waiting to see the media report that N.O. was required by law to have "annual practice evacuations."
Curious that N.O. officials never anticipated that their emergency responders would also be evacuated.