Environment
The Louisiana Coast: Last Call — The Master Plan | WWNO – Lens reporter Bob Marshall’s WWNO series on the coast concludes today. “The area has one last chance for survival: That hope is the state’s Master Plan for the coast.”
Levee armoring method should get independent review, east bank levee officials say — NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune – “Any Army Corps of Engineers plan for armoring New Orleans area levees to assure they don’t erode and fail if topped by storm surge should undergo an independent external peer review, members of the authority that oversees levee districts on the east bank of the Mississippi River said Thursday. “
World’s fish have been moving to cooler waters for decades, study finds – The Washington Post | This struck me as having ominous implications for the productive Louisiana fisheries in warming Gulf waters. (Via The Times-Picayune newspaper)
Criminal Justice
Mother’s Day shooting suspects have ties to 7th Ward gang, police say | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
Akein Scott, 19, and Shawn Scott, 24, are accused of raining a hail of bullets on an unsuspecting crowd as a second-line celebration passed Frenchmen and North Villere streets Sunday afternoon. Police said the Scotts are members of the Frenchmen and Derbigny Boys, or the F and D Boys. The area surrounding that intersection is where the gang is known to sell drugs, according to sources familiar with the group.
They — New Orleans Slate | Sam Jasper contends the media is covering alleged Mother’s Day second-line shooter Akein Scott differently than it has other recent mass shooters.
Government & Politics
“New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head threw in the towel Thursday on her recently passed ordinance to loosen the city’s highly restrictive regulations for food trucks. Saying she saw little chance she could have mustered the five votes needed to override Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s veto, Head asked the council to defer a vote on the override, thereby killing the measure.”
New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau to be petitioned to be responsive to public records requests – HumidCity | It might surprise people to learn that the influential New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau does not respond to public records requests because it is a a private, nonprofit corporation. Blogger lunanola reports on a lawsuit to make the bureau more transparent.
La. Congressman John Fleming Wants To “Audit The IRS” — 96.5 fm KPEL | From a political perspective, I like Congressman Fleming’s framing of this issue. In essence, he claims it’s actually worse if the potential scandal regarding the Internal Revenue Service’s extra scrutiny of conservative 501(c)(4) groups doesn’t extend to the upper echelons of the Department of Justice or the White House:
“What’s especially stunning is that the President, the Attorney General, and the IRS are all suggesting that this was not a coordinated attack on conservative groups or individuals. No one was in charge directing this effort. Instead, they claim this was just the misguided work of low-level employees. If that’s true, then our worst fears about the IRS may be true: countless IRS agents are going rogue and using their government-backed power to carry out personal and political vendettas.”
(Via The Dead Pelican)
Jindal’s state salary provides main income in 2012 — The Advocate | One item stood out: Gov. Bobby Jindal claims he has no property exceeding $2,000 in value. After seeing the old Ford Taurus he used to drive when he was a U.S. Congressman in Kenner, I believe him. Many complain about Louisiana pols “getting rich,” in suspicious fashion, while they’re in office. Jindal isn’t doing that, to any discernible degree.
Schools
RSD says ReNEW owes more than $250,000 for school meals due to paperwork problems — The Lens | The federal government should have paid for most of the meals, but months passed before ReNEW provided the proper documentation. Since then, RSD has been trying to get the money from ReNEW.
Morris Jeff charter school board embraces new teachers union — The Lens | The board of directors at Morris Jeff Community School approved a teacher’s union, which is the “first charter teachers group to formally organize since the Orleans Parish School Board decided not to renew a collective bargaining agreement for the city’s schools after Hurricane Katrina.”
School officials changed grades from failing to passing — The Columbus Dispatch | Investigators found that administrators of at an academy in Ohio altered large amounts of testing and attendance data before it was sent to the state.
LA schools suspension ban part of education trend — 89.3 KPCC
A decision by Los Angeles schools to ban “willful defiance” suspensions is the latest effort by districts around the nation to curb “zero tolerance” policies and find alternatives to keep disruptive kids in school. … Studies that show children kicked out of schools have a much greater chance of getting into trouble with the law.
Land Use
New Orleans needs a better approach to storm runoff, experts say — The Advocate | Storm water drainage and urban water management is gaining more attention in New Orleans as an important “third line of defense” behind levees and coastal restoration.