The water next time
21st August 2017 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
New Orleans just can’t catch a break. Damaged turbines, flooding in the French Quarter, the spillage of diesel fuel, a fire at the Sewerage & Water Board in the midst of the peak of hurricane season and more questions and revelations every day about who knew what about the weaknesses of the drainage system and when.
So much for turning on the television to escape reality.
If the master plan was to totally distract residents from the pain, suffering and sadness that usually accompany Katrina anniversary observances, it’s working.
Folks are too busy triple-checking storm drains, getting updates on the city’s poorly managed water drainage system, getting price comparisons on canoes and small boats and wondering why the City hasn’t used millions of federal dollars earmarked for improving the area’s drainage system to even give Katrina a second thought.
Given the sorry state of the Sewerage & Water Board and the many residents and business owners who are paying the price for the duplicity and incompetence of elected and appointed officials in this city, I do not blame furious residents for showing up and showing out at hearings on the matter.
Twelve years after being left to fend for themselves in the wake of the levee breaks, being written off and left for dead by the white business community, fighting tooth and nail to rebuild their homes, lives and businesses and being shortchanged by the Road Home program, these folks have a right to answers about the recent flood and why it is still so hard for the Landrieu administration and the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board to tell the truth.
A thumbs-up to those who have asked why this city’s top elected official, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, has not come out of his cubbyhole to face the people of this city who were most heavily impacted by the recent flooding. It’s one thing to schedule a press conference and discuss ongoing issues with the S&WB and quite another to stand up and look angry residents in their eyes and listen to their stories and issues.
It takes thick skin, courage, character and a willingness to listen to the truth even when it makes you question everything you see, say and do.
Instead, we saw a mayor who decided to hold a press conference to tell the people of this city that the buck stops with him, as if that hadn’t occurred to residents wading through waist-high water and the owners of places like the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, Willie Mae’s Scotch House and the Circle Food Store.
We knew that, that’s why so many of us flooded City Hall with phone calls and showed up at hearings on the flooding.
We aren’t buying that the mayor didn’t know what was going on at the S&WB and that he, like many of us, were purposely kept in the dark.
As the mayor of this city and as the head of the S&WB, it is Landrieu’s job and responsibility to be smack dab in the middle of the S&WB’s business. As long as he is the steward of the Crescent City and a S&WB member, the board’s business is his business. How else could he diligently protect the residents of this gumbo bowl in the Deep South that lies far below sea level?
It is an insult to the intelligence of every resident of the city when the mayor tells the public that he did not know what was and is going on at the S&WB.
This mayor has more deputy mayors than any mayor has had over the 300-year history of this city but can’t find the time to stay on top of what’s going on with the S&WB. Why is that?
And why does he have time for very public spats with Civil Court judges, firefighters, taxicab drivers, the sheriff and the criminal clerk, but no time to either monitor conditions within the S&WB or find someone who can? The mayor would have us believe that he has time and energy to seek the elimination of judicial seats and to be in every other agency’s business and to tell every other elected official in the city, including the district attorney, how to do his or their job but no time to make sure that the S&WB is doing what it is supposed to do.
Are you buying any of that?
This is not what integrity, transparency or even competence looks like. This is what happens when you decide to ignore every voice but your own and think it is okay to make up the rules as you go.
It is unacceptable and will forever be remembered as a water stain on the legacy of this mayor.
May the Creator bless and protect the people of New Orleans as we continue to search for a mayor who understands what it means to be a public servant.
This article originally published in the August 21, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
