Lambert Plans To Be Sent To LRA
Many New Orleans residents have been involved in the “Planning Process” since August 28,2005. We planned to stay or we planned to leave, either way our lives have been marked by plans.
Eventually those of us who could return did return, and we have been working ever since in one form or another to rebuild our City for more to return.
Many of us participated in the Lambert Process and at some point in that process we heard that there would be another better process. That the new process would offer the services of Planners to the Neighborhoods, that as Neighborhoods we could vote on a planner. Eventually we learned that a lot of this was a “Pie in The Sky” sales pitch to the public, and once again we were invited to care.
When I say invited to care, I suggest that somewhere people thought that they would have to sell us on the idea of participating, that we would have to be educated about Civic Involvement, when in fact we have been involved and participating all along.
This letter from Sheila Danzey was sent out on Monday. Sheila has been working with Paul Lambert.
bq.. Mayor Nagin has publicly stated that he is not waiting for any other process; he will be presenting to the LRA the City projects, Sewerage and Water Board projects, and your neighborhood plan projects as the City’s official recovery plans.
On Friday, Council President Oliver Thomas authored Motion, M-06-460. The Motion passed by a 7-0 vote. We have attached that Motion for your information. As you can see this Motion accepts the neighborhood plans and directs that with the Mayor projects, the plans sent to LRA and the federal government for funding.
The Mayor is scheduled to present the plans to the LRA on Monday, November 6, 2006. It is important that we show our support to the Mayor and City Council by attending this most important meeting. The meeting will be held at the Alario Center at 2000 Segnette Blvd in Westwego.
My newest plan is to go to Westwego on Monday and see what the LRA has to say.
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When I returned in June, I learned of the Unified New Orleans Plan and that the mayor, the city council, and others had signed a memorandum of agreement intending to use it as the city’s official plan for the LRA. So I committed myself to the UNOP, believing myself involved in plans for the reconstruction of the city. I knew of the Lambert Plan, but it did not include the entire city, so I read it, admired parts of it, but decided to remain with the UNOP. It seemed to me that the BYOB plans were beautiful visions with fewer practical recommendations. Now, abruptly, Mayor Nagin has decided that he “cannot wait” for the UNOP. I am angry. It seems that he has misled me and caused me to waste an enormous number of hours. Yes, there are problems with the UNOP, but I judge the problems to be no greater than with the others. The Lambert Plan is as suspect in its classism as is the UNOP, and since the Creator apparently chose to make a world with socioeconomic classes in it I have to choose how best to mediate the effects of this clearly inept divine planning. I have chosen to do that with the UNOP, and at present I am irritated by the statement that I should support the mayor’s plans and go to the Westwego meeting to support him
Karen?
There was a point today, during the Smackdown at City Hall, where Cynthia Willard-Lewis stated, “Now there’s a new acronym, UNOP. What does that stand for?” Sherman Copeland refuses to acknowledge the existance of the UNOP. Rhetoric, but it recieved a lot of applause.
At the outset, the meeting at the Pavilion of the Two Sisters was such a horrible failure, it lowered trust. Meetings of the CSO are awkward. It’s like a pretend City Council, but no real politicians are in the room, only Concorida.
We’ll get it right next time worn thin, the elbows are showing.
The failure to address repopulation is dangerous.
This position that we go to the LRA and support the Mayor, I’ll back it because at the very least, we don’t have to invent a polling process and accountability mechanism, we can simply hold the Mayor and City Council accoutable.
Did they waste your time? You bet they did. They asked you to participate in a process, but that process was so flawed that it its are unattended and the outcomes are inflammitory.
It’s a crying shame, because I feel the planning teams themselves are all quite capable.
We are scrapping over a very very finite amount of money. Entergy gobbled up a large part and who knows what the Sewerage and Water Board will do. The money will never flow to New Orleans, as we have been told. It will trickle and I believe the truckle should start now.
So far the residents of the City have funded the project of rebuilding, out of pocket or from Insurance proceeds. The Road Home Program and the ‘aid” programs have been far from the shot if the arm we need and deserve.
There are certain indisputable projects that need funding and I say we need to see that happen. NOW.
I just called and did the America Speaks survey and was deeply disturbed by the framing of the questions and the conclusions that one could reach by not being able to guage intent.
I live in the shallow end of the pond here in New Orleans, my Neighborhood will come back it is too close to the dry Neighborhood to not. But my concern is for the deeper wetter more damaged communities. If nothing is on the table for compensation than how can they possibly “vote”. I am deeply offended by the Neighborhood Genocide Game that is being played here, the logic is flawed and it will serve to deepen divides.
[...] In response to questions of peer review. Hal Roark and LaToya Cantrell were bemused. They simply wanted to make sure that the Broadmoor Plan was included in the Friday resolution to take the “Lambert Plans to the LRA“http://thinknola.com/blog/think/2006/11/01/lambert-plans-to-be-sent-to-lra/. Broadmoor was out in force, but so too was East New Orleans. Everyone missed the Friday vote on the Lambert Plans, and thus missed the chance to discuss recovery planning before the real Council. [...]
[...] The LRA agenda has been updated. Thomas and Nagin are not on it. Here is the final agenda. Did someone call their bluff? Or did Stacy convince them to take the time fix all the typos? Broadmoor, Broadmoor Plan, Lambert Plan, Louisiana Recover Authority, New Orleans, Recovery Planning, Think New Orleans [...]
While I think a plan should be submitted to the LRA, I don’t think the council acted in a proper fashion. They sneaked the motion to approve the Lambert plan into an agenda that was supposed to only cover Entergy-related issues. The motion’s upcoming consideration and its final passage was not announced in the media, but was only posted on Lambert’s site.
To add to the confusion, the council voted to approve Nagin’s plan and the Sewerage and Water Board plan… two plans that did not even exist and still don’t. Giving Nagin so much latitude was a dangerous risk and only serves to make one think about what the intentions of the council actually are. Nagin isn’t known for making good decisions; in fact, he is known, more, for the very opposite reason. Passing this type of motion, in this manner, seems questionable by every definition– and that’s using very weak verbiage.