Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler is suing FEMA in an effort to recoup the money Louisiana was forced to spend on postponed elections following hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. His rationale? What’s good for the geese in Florida, New York and Mississippi is good for the Pelican State, too.
The Advocate reports that Schedler estimates Louisiana spent at least $1.7 million on postponed elections after the devastating 2005 hurricanes, and if you include the cost of replacing water-soaked voting machines, the figure rises to roughly $3 million.
Schedler points out in the lawsuit that Mississippi was reimbursed for election delays following the same 2005 storms, and Florida was given the same FEMA reimbursement following Hurricane Charley in 2004. According to Schedler, New York got the biggest chunk of FEMA change (almost $8 million) for preserving “the democratic process” after the 9-11 terrorists attacks in New York City:
Louisiana’s secretary of state said in his suit that FEMA has twice rejected appeals of its original denial of the state’s catastrophe-caused election costs.
In the suit, Schedler asked FEMA to “reimburse the state of Louisiana for the same reasons it reimbursed New York, Florida and Mississippi.”
The suit, written by Assistant Attorney General William P. Bryan III, adds: “FEMA’s denial of reimbursement … shows extreme indifference to the citizens of the state of Louisiana.”
FEMA offered no comment on the pending litigation, though the federal disaster agency has been outspoken in recent weeks about its dwindling coffers. FEMA reported less than $800 million in its bank account to cover the billions of dollars in damages on the East Coast caused by Hurricane Irene. And now additional funding for the agency has become yet another partisan political game in Congress that could stall immediate recovery needs for Irene’s victims — as well as long-term projects along the Gulf Coast.
Read more here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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