[StBernard] Kenneth Feinberg meeting in St. Bernard with officials

[Westley Annis]

Kenneth Feinberg meeting in St. Bernard with officials

Published: Friday, January 28, 2011, 11:30 AM     Updated: Friday, January 28, 2011, 11:33 AM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Gulf oil spill claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg has arrived in St. Bernard Parish and parish officials are meeting with him at "in an undisclosed location" but that private meeting is being steamed live and projected in the Parish Council chambers for the public to view.

Earlier this morning, fishermen and others with BP claims issues wrote their problems on sheets of paper that St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said parish officials would hand deliver to Feinberg. Taffaro also mediated a question-and-answer session with him in the parish chambers.

That session, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. and run through 10 a.m., started about 9:20 a.m. and lasted about 20 minutes.

Taffaro told the crowd that Feinberg had made clear when agreeing to come to St. Bernard "that he wasn't going to do a town-hall format."

"He said he thought the town hall format was not creating solutions to the problems that he was hearing about," Taffaro said.

About 10 a.m., Feinberg pulled up in a black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows, got out and walked into the parish chambers.

But when he saw it was the wrong venue, he quickly walked away, stopped briefly to talk with the media that encircled him, and then he returned to his vehicle.

At that point, he was asked why he wasn't meeting with the St. Bernard citizens publically, and he responded, "As you all know, I would meet with people here in Louisiana every week if I could."

Then about 10:15 a.m. an image came on the large screen in the parish chambers. At first the sound was off, then only a slight murmur could be heard as councilmen introduced themselves to Feinberg.

Then suddenly Taffaro's voice boomed through. He briefly gave an introduction, telling Feinberg some of the issues the members planned to ask him.

Taffaro mentioned wanting to know when a consistent formula for payments will be made public - that was something that Feinberg already said on Thursday during a Congressional hearing would occur by Tuesday. Feinberg reiterated that claim today.

Feinberg also briefly explained that while he thought it would be more helpful to initially address questions in a smaller group, that he would "be happy in the next couple weeks to meet in a town hall."

He said he's gotten used to "walking into the lion's den."

The video streaming into the council chambers froze at times, the audio skipped and often was too soft or garbled to understand. Several people walked out saying they couldn't hear anything, and as the video began to freeze more and more about half way through the presentation, more people left.

Soon people in the audience, which had no supervision, began loudly speaking to one another, that loud murmur further covering the voices on the screen.

One man with a camouflage baseball cap had fallen asleep and snored loudly in the back of chambers.

Mainly Feinberg repeated information from his Congressional testimony and did not address many specifics to the St. Bernard community.

He said that about 2,500 St. Bernard individuals and businessmen have received about $45 million in the last five months alone.



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