[StBernard] Obama keeps close tabs on New Orleans recovery -- from a distance

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Sun Aug 23 09:48:46 EDT 2009


Obama keeps close tabs on New Orleans recovery -- from a distance
by Jonathan Tilove and Bruce Alpert, The Times-Picayune
Sunday August 23, 2009, 6:55 AM
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, Barack Obama was a fresh face on the
national scene, a man of uncommon eloquence, and the only African-American
in the U.S. Senate.

It was hardly surprising then that in the immediate aftermath of the storm,
Obama emerged as one of the most compelling critics of the Bush
administration's handling of the disaster.


In the years that followed, and in five post-Katrina trips to the city,
Obama honed his critique and an alternative vision of what he would do if he
were in charge, culminating in a campaign speech at Tulane University on
Feb. 7, 2008 in which he asked the overflow crowd to "have the imagination
to see the unseen, and the determination to work for it."


Obama hasn't been back to New Orleans since, nor, in the seven months of his
presidency, has he turned his oratorical gifts more than fleetingly to the
continuing struggle to bring the city back from the brink. Unlike his
sweeping pronouncements at Tulane in 2008, his approach to recovery along
the Gulf Coast as president has not been one of bold strokes or grand
gestures.

But his administration has shown a dogged dedication to bending the federal
bureaucracy in what Flozell Daniels Jr., president and CEO of the Louisiana
Disaster Recovery Foundation, describes as a "kinder, gentler" direction.

With "federal agencies finally working as partners and not adversaries, "
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, said, "in its first seven months, the Obama
Administration has made significant progress toward making the Gulf Coast
recovery effort quicker and more efficient."

"I would say what they have demonstrated in this first year is a low-key but
genuine commitment to accelerate the business of recovery, " said Amy Liu,
deputy director of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program,
which publishes an annual New Orleans Index, detailing the city's progress
since Katrina.

Or as the president put it in an Oval Office interview in advance of the
fourth anniversary, of Katrina: "In terms of rebuilding, two of my best
Cabinet members, Secretary Napolitano of Homeland Security and HUD Secretary
Donovan, have been spending an extraordinary amount of time thinking about
how to deal with the blockage of assistance in the region."

"As a consequence of their efforts, " the president said, "we have already
seen a billion dollars that had already been appropriated, but was stuck,
now released. Projects like Southern University of New Orleans now getting
million of dollars for reconstruction. Schools, they are now getting the
help they need, police departments, fire departments, infrastructure
projects finally getting on line."

Obama may have not visited New Orleans as president -- though he says he
will by year's end -- but in the first six months of his term, half his
Cabinet has visited the Gulf Coast, with 19 senior administration officials
making a total of 30 trips to the coast, 20 to Louisiana.

And so Zach Rosenburg, co-founder and CEO of the St. Bernard Project, which
is helping homeowners rebuild their homes, said he recently found himself
spending four or five hours with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan discussing ways
to expedite reconstruction efforts.

"There seems to be a sense of light and doing right that was not there
before, " said Pam Dasheill, co-director of the Lower 9th Ward Center for
Sustainable Engagement and Development. "For me there's a trust that's never
been there before, a sense that somebody has our back."

In the view of Paul Rainwater, who as the executive director of the
Louisiana Recovery Authority is the state's chief hurricane recovery
adviser, the Obama administration has exhibited an understanding of
something fundamental about Hurricane Katrina that the Bush administration
never did: that this was not another disaster, but a catastrophe beyond
"anything anybody's ever seen before."

"They appreciate that recovery is recovery and that it doesn't always fit
into a nice, neat package of rules, it's a messy business, and it's tough,
and if you really want people to come back you have to look at it in a
different way, " he said.

A turnaround at FEMA

After Katrina, FEMA became a four-letter word along the Gulf Coast, and
Obama said his administration's new direction in the Gulf "starts with Craig
Fugate, " his new FEMA administrator. "We got someone with 25 years of
emergency response experience, bipartisan praise of his selection and he is
already moving to make sure that there is a timely, resilient response to
any hurricanes or natural disasters, " Obama said.

As important for the rebuilding in Louisiana, by most accounts, was Janet
Napolitano's decision to name Tony Russell as the new head of the FEMA
Transitional Recovery Office in New Orleans.

"I think we've seen a sea change there," Rainwater said. "There is no doubt
they truly want to work with us and help the city rebuild."

Gov. Bobby Jindal also praised the new team, saying, "Day to day we have a
great working relationship from Craig Fugate to Secretary Napolitano to the
HUD officials we work with.

It's "like night and day, " said Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, a Republican, citing
as one example the brokering by FEMA and the Louisiana Recovery Authority
last week of a $27.8 million settlement for St. Mary's Academy in New
Orleans to help the school consolidate its badly damaged 11 campus buildings
into a single education building. Under FEMA's recent decision, rather than
having to replace contents "book for book, " the school can lump
replacements needs into four broad categories -- making the replacement
efforts not only easier but more responsive to St. Mary's current needs.

When Paul Vallas, head of the Recovery School District, learned that the
formula in the stimulus package for apportioning money for teaching
disadvantaged students would have cost the district nearly $40 million
because it relied on a depleted student census for the post-Katrina 2007
school year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who succeeded Vallas as head
of the Chicago schools, worked to make up the difference by including money
targeted for hurricane-affected districts in the 2010 budget.

Last month, prodded by Landrieu, HUD ruled that Neighborhood Stabilization
Program funds, aimed at helping communities struggling with foreclosures,
could also be used to redevelop blighted properties for housing purposes, a
boon for New Orleans.

Administration has critics

But Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, said he was disappointed that the
"administration had to be brought in kicking and screaming" to implement a
more flexible arrangement to allow essential building in flood-prone
communities such as Grand Isle.

Both Vitter and Jindal faulted the administration for not redesigning a
Medicaid funding formula that will dramatically shortchange Louisiana
because it counts Road Home and insurance money as if it represented a real
and permanent increase in income. "I don't think anybody feels we should
lose federal health care dollars because they were victims of an awful
event, " Jindal said.

According to the Obama administration, the formula is enshrined in law and
requires a legislative fix.

Jindal also said the administration had missed an opportunity to settle the
ongoing dispute over Charity Hospital, which has been closed since Katrina.

In his Tulane speech, Obama promised, as president, to "build new hospitals,
including a new medical center downtown."

Asked about Charity, Obama cited disagreements within Louisiana about the
Jindal administration's plan for a new Mid-City teaching hospital. "The
problem has not been an absence of resources. This is a classic problem
where coordination in terms of siting, in terms of disputes between state
and local players and activists have gotten in the way of us going ahead and
moving forward."

To date, FEMA has refused to pay Louisiana the $492 million it claims it is
owed to replace Charity, and the dispute is now likely headed to a new
arbitration panel established by the administration under the direction of
legislation authored by Landrieu.


"It was important for us not to try by fiat to solve the problem, " Obama
said. "The key was to make sure that there was a process where everybody
felt they were heard. We came up with a sensible resolution, and I think
that's what's going to happen and the nice thing is we know within 60 days
it's got to happen."

On flood safety, the president said that Category 5 storm protection "is
still an aspiration, " while Jindal and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson,
said it is essential. Scalise said he hopes Obama will expedite the release
of oil and gas revenue sharing to help pay for coastal restoration, for
which Jindal said he has yet to see evidence of a strong federal financial
commitment.

Asked about the status of Category 5 protection and coastal restoration,
Obama said there is an interagency working group on the issue.

"Music to my ears, " said Anne Milling of Women of the Storm, who said she
had been frustrated in her efforts to get the new administration "to move
forward to look to the future. If we don't solve this problem, we are going
to wash away."

Reinventing New Orleans

Four years after the storm, Amy Liu of Brookings said she detects a broader
shift in thinking in and about New Orleans.

"I think there's a real desire to now get past disaster recovery and really
help New Orleans reinvent itself with some signature transformative
initiatives, " Liu said. "That's what happened after the Los Angeles
earthquake. That's what happened after the Chicago fire."

Liu said the administration's priorities -- urban policy, transportation,
health care, global warming, green jobs, economic recovery -- are ripe for
testing in New Orleans, and that Obama won't be able to mark the fifth
anniversary if he hasn't etched a vision for New Orleans on a broader canvas
than a FEMA public assistance worksheet.

As Obama put it in remarks on the Senate floor just days after Katrina
struck. "I hope we realize the people of New Orleans were not just abandoned
during the hurricane, they were abandoned long ago -- to murder and mayhem
in their streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to
inadequate health care, or a pervasive sense of hopelessness.'"

"We know the president took over an unbelievable mess, " said Jacques
Morial, a brother of former Mayor Marc Morial who works as an organizer on
health care and social justice issues for the Louisiana Justice Institute.
"I think after the economic meltdown, people were realistic -- save the
economy first, because if you don't we certainly don't have a chance."

But as time has worn on, he said, "we're respectfully impatient."




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