Key To New Orleans Recovery

It is time for City leaders to take note:

Researchers for the Virginia-based Mercatus Center are reporting the neighborhoods that rebounded the fastest generally had the strongest community leaders -- not the most government help.

Mercatus proposes that New Orleans do more to encourage expansion of neighborhood associations, which it says are better equipped to oversee local redevelopment than centralized city planning departments.

Mercatus said the future of New Orleans is dependent on the city government giving more flexibility to local neighborhood organizations to develop recovery plans that suit their special circumstances.

What they have been doing has not been working so why not try and follow this approach.

Bill Clinton & Brad Pitt Meet In 9th. Ward

Former President Bill Clinton met with actor Brad Pitt and hundreds of volunteers in the Lower 9th Ward on Sunday at the site where a foundation headed by Pitt plans to begin building affordable homes for Hurricane Katrina victims.

Pitt and Clinton walked a street as hundreds of volunteers on either side, wielding shovels and rakes, prepared the land for homes. For hours, they cleared overgrown grass and weeds that were covering street drains and sidewalks.

The Lower 9th Ward was one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in New Orleans when Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, causing the city's levee system to fail with devastating flooding.

Will New Orleans Receive The Help?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and all seven City Council members will lead a delegation to the nation's capital Wednesday and Thursday to lobby federal officials for more help with the city's recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Nagin and the council members will be joined by officials from the Regional Transit Authority, Sewerage & Water Board, Chamber of Commerce and other groups.

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Let's hope everything works out.

Survey: Most Don't Want To Return To New Orleans Public Housing

Seven out of 10 public housing residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina want to return to the city, but only a third want to go back to subsidized homes, according to a study released Thursday.

Researchers at the University of Texas in Arlington interviewed 2,109 displaced public housing residents for the report. The study was commissioned and paid for by the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), which has been under the control of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for several years.

The study showed that 72% of respondents wanted to return to New Orleans, but only 35% of all displaced residents were willing to accept government-subsidized housing.

RTA Gets New Buses

I am pleased to hear that the Regional Transit Authority is getting new buses. Some people, in New Orleans, depend on public transportation and these new buses will make their lives a little easier.

By May 1, the RTA hopes to receive the first of 39 new coaches equipped to use cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel. The full complement of environmentally friendly buses should be on hand by summer's end, marking the first major move by the financially crippled agency to replace vehicles destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

Powell Quits Gulf Recovery Job

The Bush administration's federal coordinator of long-term hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast resigned unexpectedly yesterday, acknowledging frustration at the slow pace of rebuilding but expressing confidence that the foundation for progress is in place.

"It was just a good time" to go, said Donald E. Powell, 66, a major Texas backer of President Bush who took the Katrina post in November 2005, after serving as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Powell's announcement came nine months before the executive order establishing his position expires -- and 30 months after Hurricane Katrina's landfall on Aug. 29, 2005.

Katrina Activist Gets Probation

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An activist who has been a leader in efforts to rebuild a New Orleans neighborhood destroyed by Hurricane Katrina was sentenced Wednesday to five years of probation for his role in a loan fraud scheme.

Robert Green had pleaded guilty in April to federal felony charges stemming from a scheme in which he prepared false tax returns attached to fraudulent home loan applications from as early as 2001.

Before word of his guilty plea surfaced in December, Green had been championed by actor Brad Pitt to be among the first to receive a home through Pitt's Make It Right program.

He could have been sentenced to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, but U.S. District Judge A.J. McNamara said he was impressed because Green had turned his life around since Katrina.

Linkin Park To Help Rebuild Homes In New Orleans

After Tuesday's show in Nashville, TN, alt-rock band Linkin Park will head to New Orleans to help families that were affected by Hurricane Katrina. The band, along with Coheed and Cambria, will be helping out Music for Relief, and Habitat homeowner families from New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, building homes in an undisclosed hurricane-affected area.

Music for Relief was formed by Linkin Park as a nonprofit organization that provides aid to victims of natural disasters. Since the organization was formed in 2005, over $2.5 million dollars was raised for the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Hillary Defends Super Delegates'System

While Hillary Clinton was in New Orleans Saturday, she gave the following view concerning super delegates:

Clinton said this is the first time she remembers the system, in place for decades, becoming an election issue. She said super delegates play an important role in the selection process. They are like "party elders" who have relationships with the candidates that regular voters cannot match, she said when asked whether the system is fair.

Do you think the system is fair?

Clinton To Speak At Black Forum

Presidential politics will take center stage in New Orleans on Saturday at the annual "State of the Black Union" symposium, where the hottest topic is likely to be which candidate is there and which one isn't.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will address a largely African-American crowd of thousands in New Orleans' Ernest M. Morial Convention Center -- where thousands of the city's poorest residents sought shelter in squalid conditions after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Clinton's Democratic rival, is skipping the event. He'll focus instead on campaigning in Texas and Ohio in hopes of delivering a knockout blow to Clinton in those states' presidential primaries March 4.

The Republican presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also declined to attend the symposium, which Tavis Smiley, the TV and radio talk show host, organized and will host.

Justices reject flood insurance plea

The nation's highest court dealt a blow Tuesday to property owners who want insurance companies to pay for damage from levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina, but the Louisiana Supreme Court is poised to tackle the issue later this month.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from Xavier University and dozens of other Louisiana policyholders who sued several insurers for refusing to cover water damage from the levee breaches that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans following the August 2005 hurricane.

The plaintiffs were asking the justices to review portions of an August 2007 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans that insurers aren't obligated to cover water damage from a levee failure.

The 5th Circuit had refused to certify the issue as a question for the state Supreme Court to consider, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that decision Tuesday.

Loyola University Receives High Marks In Campus Safety

Loyola University, in New Orleans, has earned an "A" as one of the safest campuses in the country, according to the March issue of Reader's Digest.

Loyola ranked 37th in a survey last year of 291 colleges and universities, which were ranked on such factors as residence-hall security, emergency plans and preparation for handling safety and security problems.

Times Picayune Explains Nagin Photo

A photo in some Metro sections and on Nola.com on Wednesday showed a laughing Mayor Ray Nagin pointing an M-4 rifle at Chief of Police Warren Riley at a news conference to announce new crime fighting equipment purchased by the New Orleans Police Department.

A review of a video taken at the event shows that the mayor momentarily pointed the gun at the chief as he was lowering it but he did not deliberately point it at Riley.

Barack Obama - In New Orleans

Here is an excerpt from Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama's, speech in New Orleans today:

When I am President, the days of dysfunction and cronyism in Washington will be over. The director of FEMA will report to me. He or she will have the highest qualifications in emergency management. And I won't just tell you that I'll insulate that office from politics - I'll guarantee it, by giving my FEMA director a fixed term like the director of the Federal Reserve. I don't want FEMA to be thinking for one minute about the politics of a crisis. I want FEMA to do its job, which is protecting the American people - not protecting a President's politics.

And as soon as we take office, my FEMA director will work with emergency management officials in all fifty states to create a National Response Plan. Because we need to know - before disaster comes - who will be in charge; and how the federal, state and local governments will work together to respond.

But putting up defenses is not sufficient. Because renewing trust with the people of New Orleans is not just about stronger levees and pumping systems - it's about people.

New Orleans' Homeless Not A Priority

Everyone at some point, in their life, has reached out to those in need. Can you imagine a City with funds to help the homeless does not feel it is an important enough issue to release the funds? Well, that is exactly what is going on in New Orleans:

UNITY is living up to its end of the deal, but its cash coffers are nearly empty. That's partly because of delays by the city, which has not delivered $264,000 it promised for UNITY's efforts.

On Thursday, Mayor Ray Nagin said the city will make good on its obligation.

"All UNITY has to do is submit the invoices and they will get their reimbursement," he said.

According to mayoral spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett, UNITY had submitted all of the necessary paperwork as of Wednesday. The mayor said he wasn't aware of that, and that he has instructed his staff to expedite the process.

Um...how are other funds handled?