Land Use
Faith, hope and Big Charity | Gambit – Clancy Dubos writes about the irony that part of Charity Hospital, “the largest piece of blighted property in New Orleans,” might be redeveloped into a medical center if real estate investor Pres Kabacoff’s vision becomes reality.
World Trade Center lease negotiations to begin with Gatehouse | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune – The second place bidder continued to cry foul and referred to the city’s history of corruption as lease negotiations began with the winning developer.
Claiborne study to end after two more community forums | The Louisiana Weekly – The study on whether to retain or remove the Interstate 10 overpass above Claiborne Avenue is running behind schedule, and has cost $2.1 million.
Freret Street beautification project is falling apart brick by brick | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune – “Caramel-colored” bricks forming the new Freret streetscape are falling apart, and work will have to be redone. Business owners on the street are not pleased.
Environment
Second phase of BP trial over the 2010 Gulf oil spill focuses on flow rates, ‘top kills’ and ‘junk shots’ | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune – A comprehensive account of the first day of testimony during the second phase of the BP oil spill trial. The focus: How much oil was spilled why were early attempts to stop it so ineffectual?
Live blog recap: Committee decides not to renominate John Barry to flood authority | The Lens – Former levee board vice chairman John Barry claims members of the nominating committee betrayed the public’s trust yesterday.
Government shutdown would stop some oil permitting | Fuel Fix – The government shutdown will halt onshore drilling permits on federal lands, but offshore permitting will continue.
Government & Politics
Shutdown begins as House/Senate remain divided over ObamaCare | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
The federal government began its first partial shutdown in 17 years at midnight Monday ET, as House Republicans continued to insist that a temporary spending bill needed to keep the government open be tied to restrictions on ObamaCare.
Both Rep. Steve Scalise and Sen. David Vitter describe the Affordable Care Act as a “train wreck.”
Federal shutdown impact on Louisiana | The Advocate – A tabulation of employee furloughs and other actions taken in response to the shutdown.
Fitch revises New Orleans bonds rating outlook to negative | Reuters – Rating agency changes New Orleans bond outlook to “negative” based on looming consent-decree costs and fire department pension concerns.
Schools
Live at noon: John White is ‘taking school reformers to task’ | NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
State Education Superintendent John White thinks his movement has to make some changes to survive. He’s addressing a policy forum at the pro-charter American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday at noon, “taking school reformers to task,” the institute says.
The event will be streamed live on the institute’s website and on NOLA.com. Attendees will be tweeting with the hashtag #FixingK12.
Lack of social services affecting schools, board member says | The Lens – Members of the Choice Foundation charter board are also concerned about the impact of new Common Core standards on performance scores.
Andrea Gabor’s Underhanded Attack on New Orleans Schools | Peter C. Cook – Education consultant Peter Cook says a recent Newsweek report on New Orleans charter schools was biased and “shot through with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and glaring omissions of fact.”
Criminal Justice
Danziger Bridge, getting it right | NOLA.com/The Times Picayune – In an op-ed, Oliver Houck, the Tulane professor of environmental law, asks: “So what do we do when our system, up to the top, goes off the rails?”