Citizens’ City Hall

Several weeks ago I responded to a short note on the Unified Nonprofits listserv. A pair of IT experts from DC were coming down to New Orleans and looking for some needy nonprofits to assist with pro bono tech help.

Well we’re nothing if not needy, so I sent in a brief description of our work and our vision for the future. Before I knew it I was meeting with Ann Yoders and Andrea Barnhart, two of the most enthusiastic, entertaining, and socially minded women I’ve met since Katrina. They’re the kind of people who make me realize that the concept of Katrina Fatigue is something of a fiction.

Within a week or two, they’d reached out to their colleagues for resources to support our work. Doug Casler, a senior consultant with Community IT Innovators, responded immediately - and donated a video camera that has already proved invaluable in our efforts to democratize recovery information. Thanks so much, Doug!

But that’s not all. Andrea and Ann are also working to migrate Squandered Heritage to a new server and connect us with web designers and others who can create the vessels for bringing the lessons learned in New Orleans to communities throughout the country. In particular, we’ll be working with Lisa Oswald to design a website that highlights citizen-driven recovery.

Thanks so much CITI! New Orleans’ distinctive culture makes our city a place for joyous, authentic living. But all too often it also makes us feel isolated from the rest of the country. You remind us that we’re not alone.

Help Levees.Org in its efforts to demand transparency and accountability surrounding the federal levee breaches.

The 8/29 Investigation is vital to reestablishing public trust. This is not about placing blame, but about moving forward. The citizens of American deserve a levee investigation they can truly trust, and taxpayers need a full return on the investment dollars that Congress authorizes.

by K. Brad Ott, Committee to Reopen Charity Hospital

“This was a victory not only for me, but for everybody here in the city.”

A state judge affirms the suit challenging the closure of Charity Hospital

Advocates working to challenge the 2005 closure of New Orleans’ Reverend Avery C. Alexander Charity Hospital have marked a significant milestone – our lawsuit’s defendants, venue, and standing to proceed has been legally affirmed.

A state judge May 23 refused to throw out our lawsuit claiming that LSU Health Science Center-New Orleans violated state law in closing the art deco medical landmark without gaining necessary state legislative approval. Also affirmed was that the case is to be heard here.

Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Ethel Sims Julien agreed that the seven plaintiffs in the case known as “LeBlanc, et al v. Thomas, et al” – all of whom were patients at “Big Charity” had filed suit against the correct party – LSU Health Sciences Center-New Orleans (LSUHSC-NO) as the legal operator of the hospital. Attorneys for LSUHSC-NO contended that it was not a “political subdivision” and therefore they could not be sued. Instead, they suggested instead that the LSU Board of Supervisors in Baton Rouge would’ve been the proper defendant.

Leonard Aragon, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued that LSUHSC-NO was a political subdivision – and the one mandated under state law to operate Big Charity Hospital as well as seven other Charity hospitals in Louisiana. He also successfully argued that since the decision to close the hospital following Hurricane Katrina was made in New Orleans by officials under the direction of LSUHSC-NO, that the plaintiffs were targeting the proper defendants, including LSUHSC-NO Chancellor Larry Hollier, Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans CEO Dwayne Thomas, and Acting CEO of the LSU Health Care Services Division Michael Butler. Both Thomas and Butler work for parts of the system which are directly answerable to LSUHSC-NO.

Attorneys for LSUHSC-NO attempted to newly introduce additional cases which backed their legal contentions. Yet these were not made available for advance review by both Judge Julien and the plaintiff attorneys. Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Steven Jupiter, immediately objected. His colleague Aragon suggested that were these new cases to remain, that plaintiffs would still argue our case with the case law already presented. He reiterated that LSUHSC-NO saw to the closure of Big Charity following the August 29, 2005 storm, and that the decision to do so was made and effected in the city – hence affirming that New Orleans was the proper legal venue.

Judge Julien affirmed the plaintiff’s motion to have the case remain in her New Orleans’ court. Additionally, she struck down attempts by LSUHSC-NO to void the suit because of “vagueness.” The court hearing lasted just over thirty minutes. In addition to plaintiff attorneys, two of the seven plaintiffs, along with more than twenty community supporters were present, filling to near capacity the chairs inside the third-floor courtroom located adjacent to New Orleans’ City Hall.

The reason that launched the suit in the first place against LSUHSC-NO – that it failed to secure state legislative approval to close Charity Hospital following Hurricane Katrina, was not answered by them. Indeed, LSUHSC-NO attorneys took deliberate pains to exclaim that “We are not here today to argue the merits of the case,” just the venue and the appropriateness of the designated defendant. Judge Julien quickly remarked then that their charge that the case was “vague” could not be sustained, and tossed out this pleading. Giving no indication whether there would be an appeal, LSUHSC-NO spokesperson Marvin McGraw said later to the Associated Press: “Today’s ruling had nothing to do with the merits of the case, it was a procedural hearing.”

Plaintiff attorneys and their community supporters were jubilant following the hearing. Plaintiff and former Charity Hospital patient Lucille Moore beamed to ABC 26 News: “I am happy. I am ecstatic. I am glad I am going to have somewhere local to go. I am going to see everything back to normal. This is great. This was a victory not only for me, but for everybody here in the city.”

Plaintiff attorney Steven Rosenfeld said that “this is a major victory.” He noted that there would be no time wasted to proceed with trying this case, suggesting that by year’s end we would have a decision. In addition to affirmation of the New Orleans court venue and LSUHSC-NO as the proper party for the suit, Rosenfeld said the ruling today opens the door immediately for discovery motions by plaintiffs to find out why Charity Hospital was closed.

Case supporter and former Charity Hospital nurse Alice Craft-Kerney remarked that “now we can find out where the money went.” She noted that while thousands of workers were laid off and the hospital was closed, the state had already appropriated funds for the same medical positions and hospital operations in its 2005-2006 fiscal year budget.

Dozens of supporters joined plaintiffs and their attorneys in a celebratory reception held at the McKenna Museum for African-American Art. The legal victory today was on top of two other significant events within the past ten days: the May 13 announcement that an internationally renowned architectural firm has been hired to conduct the first independent study of whether Charity Hospital can reopen as a medical facility, and the May 20 announcement that Charity and its adjacent Mid-City neighborhood has been designated as one of America’s eleven endangered historical sites by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-39/121157094624060.xml&storylist=louisiana

Panel members Matt Candler, CEO, New Schools for New Orlean; Flozell Daniels, Chair, Urban League of New Orleans; Barbara MacPhee, Past Principal, New Orleans Science and Math High School; Tony Recasner, Principal, Green Charter School; and Charlotte Matthew, Principal, Benjamin Franklin Elementary School talk about challenges in rebuilding the city’s school system.

The public responds to school reform.

Monday night Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans hosted a forum on the future of public education in New Orleans. Among other things, the event was an opportunity to distribute The State of Public Education in New Orleans, The Cowen Institute’s 2008 report on our city’s school system.

Our friends at the Beacons of Hope need your help to continue their fantastic work.

We have an immediate need! Can you help us find a sponsor or matching donor?

Dear fellow nonprofits, partners and constituents,

A major part of the Beacon’s work is CLEAN UP. We make neighborhoods viable with basic cleaning of New Orleans yard by yard and neighborhood by neighborhood. Our efforts have been crippled due to mechanical difficulties. We are continuing our efforts but the grass is moving quicker than we are. Our fearless volunteer director and equipment manager will do what they have to do to get the equipment to our worksites, BUT need a TRUCK! Our volunteers are on the way; help us get the tools to them. Any help or donation will be gladly displayed on our “truck” to roll with us thru New Orleans.

Needed: V8, automatic transmission, ¾ ton chassis, TRUCK and sponsorship!
IF you can help, call Tina, Heather or Nikki at the Beacon of Hope Resource Center
504-309-5120 or email tina@lakewoodbeacon.org

By Sarah Elise Lewis

How many conversations have started with the line “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but…….”?

I love those conversations because you can bet that they will be either insightful or totally misguided and entertaining. Either way it’s a ride.

I say this by way of introduction to some research I’ve been doing about Moton Elementary School, which I’ve been following for some time. That’s the school that has sat open and abandoned for nearly three years, with giant sink holes forming around its perimeter. It also just happens to be located on the contaminated soil of a former Superfund site.

I went back to Moton yesterday to take a few pictures. Soon after getting out of the car I met the woman who lives across the street in modest home with the FEMA Trailer aesthetic that’s become so familiar in working class neighborhoods since the flood. Seeing us peeking into the auditorium door, she shouted to me, “Hey. They gonna open the school back up?” Her children now attend elementary school Uptown, and she drives them there every day. From across the street to a world away.

She was hoping her children could attend Elementary School in a place that very well may cause cancer. Because it is better than the situation they’re in now.

And so I am angry. Not that the school is ungutted, unsecured, and still full of its contents nearly three years after Katrina, but because a neighborhood was ever built there in the first place. Who would benefit from placing homes on an incinerator site? Here is what we’ve found so far:

In the late 1960s the then director of HANO targeted the Agriculture Street Landfill site as a possible location for constructing public housing in the city. A group called the Desire Community Housing Corporation proposed plans to develop the site and mitigate the environmental hazards, although the remediation was never completed.

In 1986 Moton Elementary School was completed. Ellenese Brooks-Simms, a Board Member of Desire Community Housing Corporation, became its longtime principal and later served on the Orleans Parish School Board. Notably, she recently plead guilty to accepting bribes from Rep. William Jefferson’s brother Mose Jefferson in return for directing School Board contracts to a company Jefferson represented.

Indeed, this was not Brooks-Simms first brush with impropriety. During her tenure at Moton, she received criticism for directing school uniform contracts to Statewide, Inc., a company owned by Mose Jefferson and listing his sister-in-law, Carolyn Gill-Jefferson, as a registered agent.

I’m not conspiracy theorist, but….