[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish President hopes Obama will crossparish line next time

[Westley Annis]

Cross the parish line???  Fat chance...don't hold your breath.

 

-----Original Message-----
St. Bernard Parish President hopes Obama will cross parish line next time By
Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune October 15, 2009, 12:31PM

President Barack Obama's top environmental advisor ventured past Jackson
Barracks this morning to discuss coastal restoration, but Parish President
Craig Taffaro says the president needs to come back to hear St. Bernard
Parish's story firsthand.

Obama was a few miles away at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in
the Lower 9th Ward, but his itinerary didn't include a tour of the
47-square-mile parish that was completely inundated by Hurricane Katrina's
floodwaters.

"If this is the only visit to deal with recovery, then we've missed a great
opportunity," Taffaro said. "But if it's the prelude to more visits, then
that will be a positive thing."



The chairwoman of Obama's Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley,
was in the St. Bernard Parish Council chambers this morning to meet with
state officials and non-governmental advocates for coastal restoration.
Sutley went straight from that meeting to view the degraded Bayou Bienvenue
Central Wetlands Unit behind the Florida Avenue floodwall in the Lower 9th
Ward.

Taffaro said viewing the wetlands is a necessary step, but he pointed out
that "As much as any of that, I want them to understand and see actual faces
of people, so that the recovery is personalized to the actual citizens it
affects."

"We are certainly not the only area, but we are an area of the Gulf Coast
region in which a lot of lessons can be learned," he said of St. Bernard
Parish. "The productive part of him being president and us having an
opportunity to talk is to be able to explain how the processes or the
bureaucratic system works - or doesn't work.