[StBernard] EDITORIAL: Challenges for Kopplin

[Westley Annis]

By: The Advocate
September 30, 2005

Challenges for Kopplin 


The rebuilding of Louisiana and New Orleans after the enormous impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will challenge our state in profound ways. 

Are we going to do it right? We must. 

The social and economic challenges facing the state require both intimate knowledge of the localities involved in this catastrophe, and high-level coordination at the state level. 

It's difficult to say what constitutes a credible planning process. After all, nobody's ever done anything like this in the United States. 

Several things seem obvious. 

Louisiana must present a plan that will be credible and cost-effective to national leaders. We can't afford to be seen as raping the Treasury in the name of rebuilding. So the planning process must be focused and intellectually honest. We can't afford the perception that our plan will be just a grab bag from political wish lists. 

While New Orleans' insular political community might not like it, Gov. Kathleen Blanco must be at the table for discussions about rebuilding New Orleans and southwest Louisiana, hurt by Rita. 

New Orleans, of course, is the centerpiece of our rebuilding effort as a state, and New Orleanians -- including the high-level business advisory group in the process of being formed -- must recognize that state government cannot be out of the planning loop. 

State taxpayers will be asked, inevitably, to pay for rebuilding and re-equipping and restaffing state institutions in the Crescent City. Plans for hospitals, universities, museums and other institutions supported by state taxpayers cannot be developed without involving the governor or her representative from the beginning. 

The governor's chief of staff, Andy Kopplin, has been charged with developing the overall state plan. Kopplin is a Harvard-educated star in state government who has served both former Gov. Mike Foster and Blanco. He's intellectually up to the task of getting the best out of the numerous planners and federal experts descending on Louisiana. His appointment is a welcome sign that the governor isn't willing to accept a thrown-together plan for the future. 

At the same time, he cannot be successful if he does not get the cordial support of government leaders across the political spectrum. 

All interests, we believe, are best served by a reconstruction plan that Congress can support. 

Right now, we're looking at considerable support for rebuilding. That support will wane, perhaps inevitably, but it will wane faster if it appears that Louisiana cannot get its act together. 

The president and Congress are being asked to provide unprecedented levels of national funding for disaster recovery. A credible rebuilding effort is more likely to be better funded. And Louisiana will be in a much better position to make decisions about our collective future if Congress is satisfied that merit and good judgment guide reconstruction planning. 


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