Squandered Heritage

What is the fate of Morris Jeff? And what is the fate of Wheatley? and on and on down the list..

The Times Picayune writes of a building boom but if there is any boom it will be the demolition boom.

For a recap on last night’s meeting as an aside after the meeting I asked Jimmy Farenholtz why he decided that public comment was innapropriate at this time. His answer was aggressive and dismissive.

Why anyone would consider him a viable candidate for anything is beyond me.

Today’s TP

If the demolition of the DeJean house was an isolated act then perhaps the level of anger and frustration would be much less, but months ago a homeowner left this comment on my blog. You would think the City would educate itself to process and procedure by now.

Several paragraphs from the TP stuck out but these 2 more than others.

So it came as a surprise Friday when Erica DeJan, who is nearly eight months pregnant with her fourth child, found a sticker on the house stating that Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration had declared it a public health threat and planned to tear it down. She high-tailed it to City Hall, city-issued building permit in hand, and left with a letter stating that code-enforcement officials would consider her objection and, if they still deemed the property a candidate for the wrecking ball, would schedule a public hearing on the matter

There would have never been a public hearing on this matter because the house was outside of any Historic District. This is just another devastating example of the poor information disseminated by City Hall Employees. This issue is not about red tape or the owners fault to notify them she did not want her house torn down. This is the result of people who 1..Don’t care 2.Don’t know what the rules are.

UPDATE

The City should have provided the family with a “public hearing” which would have been more along the lines of a hearing before Code Enforcement and Safety and Permits. This did not happen and leaves many more questions as to the mechanisms at City Hall. If a building permit is pulled it should render the demolition permit inactive. What are the safeguards?

link to Insitute

“Out of all the stories in the recovery there are none as powerful as the stories of Citizens who came back and demanded more, join us at UNO to hear our stories and tell yours.

I have started to photograph the houses on the NCDC agenda.

One of them is a NOAH house

4516.00 paid to S&A Contracting

Here is the next agenda

I will be adding photos over the next few days. So check back later.

audio of the Mayor at Council

h/t Schroeder

How is it that Matt McBride had the data to support this article and the Office of Recovery Managment is still grappling with this issue.

We have brought this to the attention of the Neighborhood Conservation District as each NOAH house has been apprised for demolition, there was no response to my question of how it was possible that these house were remediated and then demolished. We asked and no one ever answered.

Times Picayune

Last year at this time we were working feverishly on the issue of the illegal demolition of people’s homes.

This year we have been working just as feverishly on the non existant home gutting program.

Our Mayor, strongly admonished the reporter and myself. The Chairman Ed Shanklin was equally as aggresive in his presentation and denial of culpability.

Several Council members asked for answers but some members were noticably absent.

And then today, the NOAH Board met in an Emergency Session and in 5 minutes took action to shut it down. As you can see in the video Mr.Shanklin has much less to say in defense of this organization.

New Orleanians deserve better.

The Mayor has a choice here, he can engage or he can disengage. The Citizens of this City have steadily pushed this Recovery forward. For all the bombastic noises coming from The Mayor’s Office and Our Recovery Office those of us are most actively engaged know who has done the heavy lifting for no compensation other than the rebirth of the City we love.

The Gambit sums it up

This report grew out of the Mayors admonishment that investigating NOAH was hurting the recovery

With further scrutiny the questions continue to pile up.

These last few days have really proven that our Recovery is guided by a person who refuses to accept that the city is owned not by those who wrangle contracts out of City Hall, or those who believe the public is a body to be mocked, scorned and ignored, but rather the Citizens who have worked tirelessly and for no compensation but for the love of a City.

While I was unable to attend today’s meeting I was able to keep stay in direct contact with people attending. The fact that folks came in to jeer at Council members who are trying to uncover this mess leads me to believe those who jeer loudest stand to lose the most. There is no honest and reasonable Citizen in this City who would behave in such a fashion unless they had 1. something to hide/gain 2. were protecting those who have something to hide/gain.

And if anyone of you are reading this I would like you all to look at a photo of this woman.

This photo was taken almost one year ago today, Sarah Lewis and I visited this woman in her trailer. She was trying to sort through her belongings on a hot summer day with no help from anyone but her friends on Conti Street. They had dubbed themselves the 3 Musketeers.

Sarah did her best to get the fetid debris removed from the front of her home, we didn’t tell Miss Dolores the reason we were there was because her house was on a demolition list.

This woman was a perfect candidate for the NOAH program. But of course that program was not created for Miss Dolores, because in order to deal with her NOAH would have had to do actual work.

She died a few months after we visited with her, she had told us she was waiting for help.

For more information visit www.theneworleansinstitute.org

If our reform Mayor is really interested in reform he may want to start with NOAH.

His first stab at reform was in 2002. We are ready for another stab at Governing the City. And if C.Ray can’t do it what about Ed Blakley. In the report last night he said NOAH was something that was enacted before he got here. Well that is not completely true, the funding for this program came through in 2007, and he was here then, correct? The agency itself was {mis}operating before his arrival. But so was the City itself, in another words you can’t shrug off responsibility when it suits you and take the praise when it does.

Watch this report and then tell me that this type of thing can continue?

This is by no means the only agency worth looking at. But it is, as they say,low hanging fruit.

Here is one thing that stuck out in my mind from tonight’s report

I think they did a pretty good job of gutting a lot of the housing in the city, Blakely said. Whether their job was absolutely thorough or pristine, I’m not certain of that.

Well then perhaps they should consider sharing that information.

Be sure to watch this report tonight at 10

Just back from a trip to Netroots Nation in Austin Texas.

The last time I was in the Convention Center in Austin it was to register for Red Cross relief. This time it was under much better circumstances.

Thanks to Al, Eli
John and Marshall for putting together an interesting panel.

Allan got us all on the same page.