Posted on 10/14/2005 5:47:47 PM PDT by Libloather
Fired New Orleans city workers get final paychecks
20 minutes ago
Final paychecks were issued to thousands of New Orleans city workers laid off in the wake of ruinous hurricanes, according to city officials. A message posted on the city website provided further details of the layoffs from Mayor Ray Nagin, seen here 6 October(AFP/Getty Images/File)
NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - Final paychecks were issued to thousands of New Orleans city workers laid off in the wake of ruinous hurricanes, according to city officials.
"In addition, all employees who are part of the layoff are asked to turn in any city property immediately, including cell phones, cars and fuel cards," Mayor Ray Nagin said in a message posted Thursday on the city website.
Aftershocks from hurricanes Katrina and Rita continued to batter New Orleans despite signs the crippled city was limping back to life.
"There is no last minute reprieve," Nagin spokeswoman Tammy Frazier told AFP. "This is the last paycheck they will receive."
While bars, restaurants and other businesses were gradually being reopened in the mostly desolate city, most of the residents were still gone and the once-bustling streets were deserted.
Bar operators in the city's famed French Quarter were threatening on Friday to host a midnight party to protest a 12:01 am to 6:00 am curfew they complained is stifling the traditionally festive neighborhood's revival.
The absence of businesses and residents stripped the city of its tax base, prompting Nagin to lay off some 3,000 "non-essential" city workers, about half of the New Orleans workforce.
Nagin tried in vain to get multi-million dollar loans from banks to keep the city workers on payroll, according to Frazier.
"As we look toward a brighter future for our beloved city, we are faced with difficult decisions," Nagin said in a written release.
"We sought funding from every possible public and private source, but unfortunately, we did not receive enough to meet all our needs."
Police, fire and emergency medical personnel remain on the payrolls, with US federal funds paying the bill for overtime.
Nagin expected the cutbacks will save the city between five million and eight million dollars a month.
The layoffs came as stores, restaurants, cleaning and construction companies throughout the New Orleans area went begging for workers.
Local stores were offering to pay from nine to 12 dollars hourly for the usually minimum-wage jobs such as cashiers and stock clerks. One burger chain reportedly offered "signing bonuses" of 6,000 dollars for counter workers.
Laid off city workers whose homes were ruined have no reason to return to New Orleans, said Jacqueline Edwards, who worked in the New Orleans planning department for 23 years.
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has urged President George W. Bush to modify federal rules to allow federal aid to pay the wages of local government employees in communities whose tax bases have been wiped out by the storms.
She has also asked Bush to give Louisiana businesses priority in hiring and contracting for the reconstruction effort.
Bush has responded by saying the burden of rebuilding should fall to the private sector.
At least 1,260 people were killed by Katrina when it ripped through the southern United States on August 29, including 1,025 in Louisiana, the hardest-hit state.
NOLA had a culture of crime and curruption that would make any Mid East Sand Savage Sheik feel quite at home.
Until that changes, and I see no real signs indicating that it will, of what use is pumping money into the corruption?
At the risk of being called callous and unfeeling, wasn't Rep. Crockett right when he said that Congress couldn't give money belonging to one man to another for any charitable purpose, as such was not allowed in the Constitution he read and understood?
With all the tax money going into NOLA, the emergency pumps didn't have proper, reliable emergency power sources AND the operators were told to leave.
I don't know. I am sort of shell shocked by what needs to be done here. My opinion is that the tourist district will take care of itself, uptown will, the port will.
I think that someone, somewhere has to get a number and a list of what has to be done. My guess is the water problem will be astronomical,,the levees, canals, pumps, etc.
I don't know if there will be a rebuilding if people sit back and think and plan and estimate the costs.
I guess the state would need help with infrastructure that was destroyed,,water control, port, roads, highways, and clean up. The clean up is going to be unbelievable,,just bulldozing the ninth ward blows me away. How does one do that,,where do you take the garbage? And down in Chalmette,,it is a dump now what with oil spills, etc. It is irretrievable,,who can clean that up when the parish is bankrupt.
The tax base is gone and will be a long time coming back.
It is beyond me. But it seems to me that some planning, some sense of how and what is to be done ought to be done before building starts.
I am not an engineer or a city planner so I don't know.
Yes, the 9th Ward is part of the City of New Orleans and is "under" Nagin, who is Mayor of New Orleans. Orleans Parish and the City of New Orleans are co-terminus .. that is, have the same boundaries, and are both ruled by the city government. The City is sub-divided into Wards ... for example, the ward you live in determines where you vote, etc.
Geography 101:
Giving directions in New Orleans is more complex than in other places; and, thus, a unique way of describing locations has evolved. The City is oriented entirely to the River and Lake Pontchartrain. Instead of N/S E/W, everything is Up-Down or Upper-Lower, River-Lake.
Up or Upper means UpRiver. Down or Lower means DownRiver. The four corners of an intersection can be described as: Uptown-River; Uptown-Lake; Downtown-River; Downtown-Lake.
Basically, Canal Street is the dividing line. Uptown is above (UpRiver) Canal Street. The Garden District, the universities and the Audubon Zoo are Uptown. Downtown is below(DownRiver) Canal Street. The French Quarter, Marigny, Bywater, 9th Ward, etc. are Downtown.
The 9th Ward, about which so much has been said and written, is a civil division of the City of New Orleans. It is DownRiver from Canal Street and the French Quarter. In the early 20th Century, the Industrial Canal was cut between the River and Lake Pontchartrain. The Canal bisects the 9th Ward. Thus, you have the Upper 9th Ward, now more often called Bywater; then the Industrial Canal; and, then, continuing DownRiver, you have the Lower 9th Ward ... one of the areas hit so hard by flooding. This is generally eastward from Canal Street following along the Mississippi River as it flows toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Class is dismissed!
The dems did not bring Katrina ashore.
I dont know who screwed up on the canals and with the breaches. That is yet to be determined.
But you can see this as political. The deaths may have been but I lived in NO and I know how cavalier people are about storms, they don't leave. you cannot blame the dems for not forcing them to leave.
I know socialism fails. I know NO was corrupt, this whole state has a strata of corruption. But corruption did not cause the storm. And it did not cause that city to be established in that place,,that was oveer two hundred years ago. The population built up all around just like it has in earthquake areas and along the coasts. That isn't political.
BTw the tough cajuns you so love, voted for Blanco and helped put her in office. They are democratic to the core.
Some never change CJG no matter what the subject matter is. It is a cancer of bitterness that eats at them. Combine that with drinking the MSM kool-aide and there you have it. Just pass them by - you have better fish to fry. :o)
are you really suggesting that the half million people, human beings, who lived in NO were all criminals and corrupt?
If you are, you are indeed a fool.
And NO has a culture that is far wider than crime and corruption. As do most cities.
Living in Mississippi, and directly affected by Katrina, I have read many derogatory statements made by those that are not living this nightmare. While Blanco, Nagin, and Landreau were certainly at fault in many ways, there are many fine people living in Louisiana that are working to make it a better place.
The same goes for my state. We have the dims on the run, and hopefully the only place one will be able to see a dim in the future will be in the Jackson Zoo (behind bars)!
I just wanted you to know your Mississippi cuzin's are with you!
LLS
Dang, you are good. I never heard it explained better!!
Absolutely spot-on!
I appreciate that,,my family was in Mississippi before we came here in 1802!! We have cousins there. Lauderdale county, Greene County.
I don't get it lately. It is a knee jerk, pop off, smart aleck appraisal of things with quick judgements and a lack of appreciation of complexity. Plus politics, all the time. Every issue is a dem/pub issue. And lately I am sick of the demonizing of democrats,,they are people too. It just seems so, well, paranoic. Maybe bitter is the word.
No! Not what could have been..., but, what can be and should be...! All they need to do is to figure out how. But, I agree that the present leadership is totally effete.
Hon, my refuges came and my heart was broken for them. Then guess what!! My refugee father was a personal injury lawyer,,I kid you not. Sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.
But the odd thing is that we talked alot. I would get home and he would be sitting outside watching his children play ball {I loved having those kids around} and we would chat. He was just devastated,,his office was flooded, he had left files on the floor all around, all got ruined. And he didn't have computer back up. But we talked and got to be friends. I actuallly liked him and his wife. And his cat was fabulous! They left last week and we have new ones coming next week. We had an engineer in a spare bedroom coming and going,,he was great, clean and neat and sort of interesting.
Ha Ha!
It's the illegal doing the work. Too Funny!
No doubt there is much need that is very real, but I think that many otherwise compassionate people have been soured by the whining and demanding, by the ridiculous cries of "racism" and the shameless political grandstanding, as well as by the crime and corruption that was revealed under the national spotlight. Nagin and Blanco just look and sound pathetic and have done, and continue to do, a great disservice to the good and decent people of Louisiana.
I got my fill of them last year, when the hurricanes hit Florida, three of them passing within 20 miles of my house. Week after week after week of "why should I have to pay so Granny can have air conditioning at her Bingo game", "anyone who lives in Florida deserves to lose everything they've got, and we'd better not spend one dime rebuilding it - just leave it to the snakes and the gators", etc., etc., etc. To say it got tiresome would be quite the understatement - I came real close to quitting this site for good last summer. It was very hard for me to deal with posters here running down hardworking, good people I have known and lived with for over 32 years as a bunch of morons, welfare slackers and losers.
One thing I have yet to hear any member of the "not one red cent" crowd address; let's just say the next hurricane comes along and we all suddenly see the light and decide to be as smart as you and abandon Florida forever. Like it or not, Florida is the fourth largest state in the union (by the 2020 census it will overtake New York as the third largest). It's a gigantic chunk of our national economy, and virtually irreplaceable as an agricultural resource. There are eighteen million of us living and working down here. Are you going to take us into your communities, let us take your jobs, crowd your roads and schools, buy your homes, drink your water and use your electricity, etc?
Why do I have a feeling that a huge portion of you will be telling us to stay the hell out of your communities, and that you'll still be calling us welfare bums and losers and equating us to illegal immigrants?
You want to tell me and the rest of the people in Florida (or Louisiana) where we can and cannot live, you'd better be ready to deal with the consequences. Because having us sit around waiting to die in the storm (the only way you can avoid what I touched on above) is not an option.
Blanco did an immoral thing. She is stupid and venal.
The MSM played up minor things,,who really gives a damn what Mary Landrieu, another dumb venal person, wants. The MSM has made things so much worse.
I am personally soured on Blanco and Landrieu, the media and all that. But I am equally soured by the blanket judgements about the people here, the "not my taxes" whine. FR has been as sour a place in the last year as DU in my opinion.
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