Nagin slams New York

[noisdead]

The chocolate nut is at it again! What a vile thing he is.:mad:

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWL082406tpnaginswipe.305e8f6c.html

[lofter1]

Can you point out what is NOT true in Nagin's statement?


Nagin responded by questioning New York’s recovery at the World Trade Center.

“That’s alright,” he said. “You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later, so let’s be fair.”

[Ninjahedge]

No, but that is like saying that NYC can't get people to stop having highly publicised political debates on every facet of the construction.


Construction and reconstruction can go very fast when there is a clear line drawn, but when politics come into the picture (or in this case both politics AND insurance companies) it will take a while.



So, while I do agree with the basics of his statement, pointing a finger at anothers failure does not absolve him of the job he is doing.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Nagin overlooked one critical difference.

While the hole in the ground remains, New York City has fully recovered. New Orleans is still a mess.

[lofter1]

How was NYC doing on 9.11.2002 ???

[eddhead]

Can you point out what is NOT true in Nagin's statement?
I don't think the question is weather or not he is correct, but instead "so what?" To justify the lack of local (or for that matter federal and state) action in New Orleans by saying "NY is just as bad or worse" is ridiculous. It is like saying I should not go to jail for robbing a bank because others have gotten away with it.

I would also point out that he made those remarks to a reporter in response to a direct question. Ther reporter is not a govt. official and is not accoutable for what is happening at the WTC site. It is an inappropriate comment to make to the reporter.

But more to the point... how about answering the original question which was along the lines of what is taking so eff-ing long, and what are you doing about it? Where is the accountablility? That city is dying and nobody in govt seems to care. Instead, this moron trys to deflect the attention elsewhere

[Hof]

Next to NYC,New Orleans is my favorite city (...at least it used to be...),and I've probably visited there as much as I have the City.I even have family there,although they have actually been staying here in Florida for almost a year,living the life of legitimate Katrina refugees....

NOLA has a bigtown ambiance and a critical mass of human street traffic that few cities in the USA possess,and it has (or,it had) a great,classic architectural backdrop,draped in history--not unlike the Big City.Also,just try to find a parking place in New Orleans.Or a five-dollar beer.So many similarities.

It has/used to have a great public transportation system,and although the whole route of the historic NO streetcars wouldn't equal three stops in Queens,the trolleys took you all over,through the city's most interesting neighborhoods,and they were a hoot to use.It's a very dense,compact city,like Brooklyn and the streetcars were an essential part of the fabric.

The food is great,equal to,or(gasp) better than what you can find in New York,the party atmosphere is filled with music,drink and endless possibilities,like The Village twice over.It has a strong urban feel in it's core,and it is as dangerous in some places as the scariest parts of NYC.
Some parts of the city,like the Garden District are drop-dead gorgeous,loaded with recently gentrified mansions on brick streets under ancient Elms that all date back to when NY was a fishing village.
Another part,like the French Quarter,rivals Times Square for sheer urban delights.
It's the kind of a place that,when you are packing to leave,you're already planning your next trip there.It's that good.

It also has a political history as corrupt and bureaucratically self-serving as the worst of the Tweed Cartel once had in NY.Anyone who studies New Orleans (AND Louisiana) politics will learn the true meaning of graft,populism and favoritism.If you are going to get elected there,you MUST provide the graft money and favors,or else get out of the way.
Forever,the Mayor of New Orleans was a little emporer,an elected mafiosi,the go-to guy for political grease in the Big Easy,or else he was a token to the guys moving the money around,a virtual mayor who was kept in a corner somewhere and trotted out by his handlers whenever he needed face time with the public,or to sign a check or maybe promote someone.

Ray Nagin is the latest in a procession of slimey Dixie politicos who'll do anything to get elected then shamelessly suck up to disparite groups to presreve their position after cutthroating their way into the NO mayor's office.He's nothing new.

When Nagin first won the office,he did it by switching parties.He WAS Republican,(a businessman with no political history,he was president of New Orleans' sole cable provider) but he realized that New Orleans' black voters,historically Democrats,would be lost to him if he didn't change parties before everyone voted,and blacks are 70% of the population.Just before he began his campaign,he switched.
Interestingly,the black vote and the white vote for him were about equal,so he actually didn't have to play the race card after all.

Why he wanted to run NO,with it's broke-all-over infrastructure is still a mystery to me.It's one of the worst-run cities on the Continent,and it has been steadily getting worse.
Before Katrina,as other cities everywhere were experiencing the (recently departed) Real Estate boom,New Orleans' property valuations DROPPED.The Police Dept was one of the poorest performing municipal services anywhere,the streets were 1975-Bronx-terrible and for years maintainence was deferred on the entire city budget and all it supported.Crime is hair-raisingly prevalent,gangs rule,taxes are stifling,schools are the pits,the middle class--what was left--is diminishing and nearly 50% of the population is still on Welfare,eight years after Clinton did away with it in the rest of the country.It has the worst urban murder rate in the country and some of the lowest wages.At least it has the French Quarter and a Casino.

Ray Nagin did not do a damn thing to change the status-quo in The Big Easy during his first 3 years in office.Nothing.Actually,status-quo got worse.
Under Nagin's watch,New Orleans actually lost population,corporations and jobs.A lot of the towers in the Business District and the warehouses along the River are mostly empty.Government there is a financial basket case,near bankrupcy.
But,Nagin's constituiency,mostly poor,black and dependant on the City for their sustinance,voted for him again and would have even if he was caught on Bourbon Street buying crack from an underage transvestite.The rest of New Orleans need him to sign those checks,so he was surprisingly re-elected last fall and immediately went to his corner.

I've followed this guy's path since he first flashed on my radar in a "Time" article about America's best and worst Mayors.What column do you suppose Ray Nagin's name was in?

Then came Katrina.

I'm under the ironic delusion that the Federal guys got a bad rap over Katrina.The first providers,whenever a disaster hits a city are the LOCAL authorities,not the Federal crowd,right???I only need refer to Giuliani,five years ago,to provide good example and dispel some of the delusion.

Nagin had no idea what to do when disaster came calling,despite having DAYS to prepare.He advised his citizenry about the hurricane(by then,the strongest one EVER in The Gulf and coming right at them) by telegraphing an almost casual approach to the emergency,then he left town and sent thousands of his citizens to a place where there was no food or water and the toilets immediately stopped working.Once the city flooded,they were trapped in hell.
New Orleans,and Ray Nagin,simply had not been prepared for ANYTHING.

There were no stashes of food and water placed around town,no way to transport the carless,no place to put up the dispossesed,no means to help anybody get through the bad times.His cops fled with the rest of the 85% who got out,so there was no authority.Ray Nagin never thought of any of that.There probably wasn't any money to do it right anyway,but he was really asleep at the switch.

Ray moved his family to Dallas before Katrina,then he hid in a hotel and was just...not around for a couple of days after the storm hit.He could not reach anybody from the hotel because there was absolutely NO way to communicate,so he just stayed in his room punching numbers into a dead phone as he watched from the seventeenth floor while the water filled his city.
Below,his cops were looting stores and boosting Cadillacs.The hospitals were flooding;the fire dept was useless,as were the pumps that try to keep the city dry.Canal Street,three blocks away from Ray's room,was looted.
At the Superdome and the Convention Center,his constituiency,mostly black and poor,were suffering through unimaginable horrors--his entire city was in dire straits and he was in charge of nothing.

Then,after all the nasty parts were over,he started saying smarmy,Casey Stengel-like malapropisms ( "get your ass down here"..."chocolate city" etc)and made it very evident that he is a woos of a mayor,someone who gets trotted out by his handlers to say stupid things and pander a few million from the Government or from whomever so he can sign a few more of those damn checks.He is NOT the guy who is going to get New Orleans back to life.

Five years to fix a hole,indeed,Ray.You've had those same five years to learn the Mayor trade.And you haven't learned a damn thing yet,nor have you got the garbage picked up.

Be thankful for Bloomberg.

[ablarc]

^ Worthy of publication, Hof.

[ZippyTheChimp]

How was NYC doing on 9.11.2002 ???Actually, pretty good.

All the debris from the WTC collapse was removed ahead of schedule, and while the city was still in recession, there were good indicators.

The removal of the WTC debris and reopening of the streets and subways is what Nagin should be comparing the New Orleans cleanup to, not to what is essentially a real-estate battle.

The recovery of New Orleans is long term, but there should have been a sense of urgency over the last year to at least get more of the population back and provide a sense of normalcy.