Last year, State Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, earned national infamy with his proposal to pay female welfare recipients to get sterilized. He was duly punished for his tribute to the eugenics movement and homage to former Metairie legislator David Duke: He was removed from his seat on the Health and Welfare Committee to demonstrate Louisiana’s […]
Posted inEnvironment
Green groups press council members for promises
Environmental groups from eastern New Orleans took representatives from four City Council members’ offices on a tour Wednesday to show them the problems of illegal trash dumping, the burdens of land-exhaustive borrow pits, and the blight of failed housing developments built upon landfills. When it was over, the activists wanted to know whether their elected […]
Posted inInvestigations, Land Use
City's double standard hangs up dozens of Road Home sales and renovations
By Karen Gadbois – staff writer – State and city redevelopment authorities have suspended a program to sell Road Home properties until New Orleans permit officials resolve a problem that has thwarted would-be renovators by requiring costly home elevations. Dozens of property closings across the city are on hold while the matter is resolved. It’s […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Bill to punish law clinics could unexpectedly hit medical care
A bill to stop university law clinics in Louisiana from filing lawsuits and seeking monetary damages against businesses and government agencies, would financially penalize not only university violators, but also residents seeking health services if the bill passes. The bill by state Sen. Bill Adley, R-Benton, is aimed at the environmental law clinic at Tulane […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
Let’s get high! (On the latest marijuana prohibition news)
It’s 4/20, brah. That means it’s time to breathe in some of the latest in the surging movement to decriminalize or legalize marijuana. All around the country, states and municipalities are considering measures that would ease restrictions on marijuana possession and use. Not only are some local governments pining for the revenue that could be […]
Posted inEnvironment
State releases long-awaited lead cleanup money, but city takes no action for daycares
After the state took nearly a year and a half to approve a city proposal to remove lead from childcare facilities, the program is stalled with the city, where it’s sat for the past three months. Still, environmentalists are happy that the money is finally free of the state’s tight grips with hopes that work […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Trouble in the moonlighting
In addition to everything else going on with the local men and women in blue last week, a veteran NOPD detective, Herman Franklin, was charged with payroll fraud. The Times-Picayune notes that there is some controversy over the prosecutor’s decision, at first, to remand the detective and another officer to an alternative sentencing program that […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
City is $8 million behind in payments to contractor MWH
The city is seven months — and $8 million dollars — behind on payments to the company managing most of its recovery projects, according to a letter sent Wednesday by the company to New Orleans Inspector General Edouard Quatrevaux. The letter was part of the city’s official response to criticisms of the company’s billing practices […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Friday Cop News Drop
1. Fourth NOPD officer charged in Danziger Bridge shooting and cover up Officer Robert Barrios was charged in a bill of information Friday, which could indicate that – like Michael Lohman, Michael Hunter, and Jeffrey Lehrmann before him – he will plead guilty. Additionally, Marion David Ryder, the civilian who posed as a deputy sheriff […]
Posted inGovernment & Politics
I hate to name-drop, but Nagin dropped my name!
In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. Looking through the most recently released e-mails out of Mayor Ray Nagin’s office, it is interesting that he feels the need to define his post-Katrina role: “I am leading this city to full recovery.” In the e-mail to a […]