More Red Tape in Rebuilding Louisiana

OK, Like this is suppose to be news? Yet, most everyone I talk to seem to think that everything has been rebuilt and all is well in LA. Hardly. Well, in today's NYT, there's this:

NEW ORLEANS — If rebuilding anything in this storm-scarred place could possibly qualify as simple, surely it would be the administration building in City Park.

The two-story structure, built in 1992, does not have any of the features that can complicate restoring public buildings. No special historic, environmental, cultural or political significance. No history of poor maintenance or other damage (aside from the five feet of water that filled it after the levees failed). No need to be merged, moved or reimagined in response to changes after Hurricane Katrina.

Yet after almost two years of federal inspections and studies and reviews filling more than 90 pages, the administration building has been neither repaired nor replaced. And there are dozens of similarly incomplete projects at the park, hundreds in the city, thousands across the state of Louisiana.

In fact, the federal government has agreed to pay $2.3 billion so far for rebuilding Louisiana public works like schools, sewers and police stations. But so far, only $650 million — 28 percent — of that money has been spent. In Mississippi, only 27 percent has been spent of the $1.1 billion of federal tax dollars set aside to replace government infrastructure there.

There are many reasons for the slow pace of rebuilding, including antagonism between state and federal officials, and the difficulty some local leaders have had deciding exactly what to rebuild and where and how. New Orleans, in particular, released a detailed rebuilding plan only in October, and City Hall often appears understaffed and overwhelmed.

Read the whole tale here.

Michael Chertoff should be in jail.

More later.
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