Posted on 03/28/2006 7:31:36 PM PST by Pikamax
Starved for cash, the New Orleans school district is taking a long shot and hoping to sell its flooded, unsalvageable school buses on eBay.
Some submerged to their roofs in the black flood waters, the yellow school buses were widely photographed in the days after Hurricane Katrina and have become an icon of the city's devastated school system.
School officials acknowledge the sale of the buses on the Internet auction site may puzzle some people used to more traditional school fundraisers like bake sales.
"There's no shame in it. Not one bit," said school board president Phyllis Landrieu. "This is a new mechanism for selling things. I think it's very upbeat what we're doing."
Only 23 of 117 Orleans Parish public schools have reopened. They face a $111 million shortfall - about a quarter of the district's $430 million annual operating budget. The district also has $264 million in outstanding debt, carried over from before Hurricane Katrina.
A total of 85 schools flooded, and wind damaged many more. It took three months for the first public school to reopen. Now, the schools that are holding classes have around 9,500 students, about 15 percent of the 60,000 enrolled before the storm.
The school district plans to put one bus up for sale on eBay this week. If it succeeds, more of the 259 ruined buses will be offered.
"It's an example of how bad the situation is that we would have to come up with this idea," said Richard White, schools spokesman.
The district plans to contract out its student transportation.
Mitch Landrieu, who won the 2003 lieutenant governor's race, brings to an already crowded field of candidates his 16 years of experience as a state representative and unmatched name recognition in the city: His father, Moon Landrieu, was mayor from 1970-78; his sister, Mary, is a U.S. senator, former state representative and ex-state treasurer; and his aunt, Phyllis, is president of the Orleans Parish School Board.
Perfect campaign tour vehicles for challengers to Nagin and Blanco.
We on the coast ought to buy them and clean them up. There may not be any free little houses left after the next storm blows in.
….rarely used....low mileage....never driven in rain....a real creampuff....
Why don't they just make them part of the levee system?
Well known that everyone in LA is related to everyone else ;-)
I think this is a great idea. Finally, someone in NO is using their noggin. Heck, I'll bid on one!
"I need 500 buses, man," he told WWL. "One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here."
Nagin described his response:
"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
"Talk about incestuous:"
Their last name might as well be Corleone. Jindal better strap it on tight if he wants to mess with this bunch.
Just glad I don't pay taxes to that bunch anymore.
ping a ling...
I think Phyllis is the senator's mother.
Gee, if the bids aren't high enough maybe they'll demand that the federal government pay them for their losses.
See Post No. 18.
Oh goody! They even come with that authentic 'school bus' smell!
Actually I read about a guy who buried old schoolbuses in his back yard as a storm/fallout shelter.
If I knew how much it would cost to transport one to TN, if I had land with enough dirt to bury a school bus, I'd buy one as a tornado shelter.
Where is the Ebay link?
The laughter never stops!
Sure there is. They represent a failure of leadership and civic responsibility.
Up next on the block, Nero's fiddle.
Remember that kid that drove a school bus out with a bunch of babies? It was after the storm, right? That bus was running.
Odd that they didn't carry insurance on the fleet. Oh that's right, they finance things with OPM (other peoples' money).
oh, LAWDY
Rename it the SS Ray Nagin.
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