Louisiana's coastal areas hardest hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 may find some relief if rules proposed Monday are approved. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is considering forgiving those disaster loans. The Associated Press reports that communities which meet certain criteria would need to apply and could avoid paying some or all of the loan, depending on whether the community has met its operating costs within the last three years.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency made available nearly $1.3 billion in loans to communities in Louisiana and Mississippi after the 2005 hurricanes devastated the region — about $1 billion more than it says it had released in community disaster loans for nearly all of the 30 years prior to the two major storms.
As of March 16, $831 million in loan funds had been drawn down. FEMA had no estimate on how much of the loaned money may be forgiven.
In 2007, Congress authorized the agency to forgive the loans under certain conditions. But the rules proposed on Monday were the first specific steps moving that process forward.
Although the loans don't come due until next fall, the AP reports only two communities have voluntarily repaid theirs with interest — Mandeville and Forrest County, Miss.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to offer shares of its stock to the public for the first time.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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