I listened in to Mayor Nagin’s town hall meeting today on WWL.com (you can listen to the live stream of Garland Robinette’s afternoon show if you go there and click on the appropriate link). Nagin had some good information and handled things well. Here are some key points:
- they are looking for 5,000 spots for travel trailers to house displaced people
- they are looking at putting some in ‘communities’ that might be in places like City Park and Lakewood Golf Course
- The first people that they plan to put in these communities are the policemen and firefighters who are currently being housed on cruise ships
- they are looking at reclaiming unused and underutilized properties (i.e. blighted and ‘adjudicated’ properties) to use to receive trailers; they think that there are about 800 spots that fit in this category.
After the conference some woman pushed her way to the front of the line to ask a question before the other people who were patiently waiting. She screamed her question, and was then summarily removed from the meeting. The WWL reporter who was talking about what was happening said he would try to offer her question for her. Sigh. Do I even need to point out why we don’t want to reward the behavior that this woman exhibited?
The best thing that I heard was Nagin’s statement that, as we decide where to put the trailers, those who have not had damage to their homes need to be willing to accept trailers in their neighborhoods. "We don’t to hear people saying ‘don’t put them here,’" Nagin said. The time is ripe for us to all come together and help each other.
Amen. And let’s try to keep our emotions in check as much possible.
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