Fresh hope for post-storm NOLA's crime woes?

District Attorney Eddie Jordan of New Orleans has resigned.

The move comes after growing controversy over his tenure, which involved a federal race-discrimination lawsuit that has left the office facing a $3.7 million judgment and possible asset seizures, his initial failure to bring charges for the murder of Hot 8 Brass Band drummer Dinerral Shavers, and a bizarre incident earlier this month in which a suspected criminal sought refuge at Jordan's home.

Jordan will be replaced by Keva Landrum-Johnson, a 34-year-old veteran prosecutor who he recently named as his first assistant. The first woman to hold the office, Landrum-Johnson has said she will not run for the position when an election is held.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that a group of the city's top business leaders met with Mayor Ray Nagin to find a private-sector job for Jordan. A former U.S. attorney during the Clinton presidency, Jordan helped win a conviction on corruption charges of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Jordan was also a trailblazer as the first African-American U.S. attorney in Louisiana's history and first African-American district attorney in New Orleans' history.

Jordan's resignation comes just days after the New Orleans-based Safe Streets/Strong Communities and New York's Center for Constitutional Rights held a public hearing on law enforcement in the post-Katrina reconstruction. It examined how rather than focusing on violent crime New Orleans’ criminal justice resources are being spent targeting nonviolent offenders and innocent citizens -- particularly in poor communities and communities of color. Let's hope this trend begins to change under Landrum-Johnson's watch.

La. leaders visit Washington to make a pitch for more Road Home money

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco traveled to Capitol Hill yesterday to ask federal lawmakers to provide the additional $3 billion to $4 billion needed to fully fund the states' Road Home program, which assists residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Traveling with the governor were New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, city recovery director Ed Blakely, Louisiana Recovery Authority Chair Dr. Norman C. Francis, LRA Board Member David Voelker, and LRA Executive Director Andy Kopplin. The group will continue meeting today with members of Congress to make the case for additional funds.

"The Road Home is the largest housing program ever launched in response to a major disaster, and the size and scope of its need has simply surpassed early federal estimates," Blanco said in a statement. "The program is projected to serve nearly 50,000 more homeowners than originally anticipated by FEMA, and is on track to run out of funding in January, less than 100 days from today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and their colleagues have been generous in their commitment to fund this program. Now we urge all Members of Congress to help finish the job."

According to the latest published statistics, the program has received more than 184,000 applications, and more than 60,000 homeowners have received awards totaling over $3.75 billion. At the current rate of pay-outs and the current average award per grant of about $66,000 per homeowner, the Road Home program is projected to run out of money by year's end, according to Blanco.

Louisiana has asked Congress for $3.3 billion in additional funding and for a legislative directive to FEMA that will allow the state to utilize $1.17 billion of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds that have been allocated but tangled in red tape for more than a year. At the same time, the Louisiana legislature has also committed $1 billion to fill the gap.

According to an analysis by ICF International, the Virginia-based contractor running the program (which itself has come under fire for its performance), three main factors have contributed to the deficit:

* An increase in eligible homeowners. About 50,000 additional homeowners with major or severe damage are expected to be found eligible, far more than FEMA initially thought.

* Actual damages are higher than FEMA estimated. The level of damage per house and construction costs have been significantly greater than anticipated.

* Lower than expected insurance payments to homeowners. On average, insurance payments are covering a smaller portion of damages than initially expected.

Bush administration de-funds mental health services for Katrina-scarred children

A Louisiana State University program that provides mental health services for children traumatized by Hurricane Katrina faces cutbacks as a result of the Bush administration's rejection of a $400,000 grant application, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. The move comes despite a congressional directive that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should give "high priority" to grants for programs that treat hurricane victims.

The Louisiana Rural Trauma Services Center, which operates out of the LSU Health Sciences Center, initially received a four-year federal grant in 2003. The program sends mental health professionals into schools, courts and Head Start programs in Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes to evaluate children for signs of mental illness and provide treatment, and it also trains school workers to recognize symptoms of mental illness.

The center's fiscal year 2006 grant application specified that the money was being used to serve "children and adolescents exposed to traumatic events in Louisiana."

Program Co-Director Dr. Howard Osofsky learned the application had been rejected last last month, according to the Times-Picayune. Without those funds, the program will have to be cut back "considerably," he said -- and that could be devastating:

"The children are the most traumatized in the United States," said Howard Osofsky, chairman of the psychiatry department at LSU Health Sciences Center. "If we are going to prevent the scars and give them the best chance to succeed, they really need these services."

Studies have found that children whose lives were directly affected by Hurricane Katrina suffered lingering psychological stress. A survey of displaced children in the New Orleans area conducted by the LSU Health Sciences Center found that 54 percent of the children surveyed experienced symptoms that put them in need of further mental health care, while screening data collected from storm-displaced children returning to New Orleans and St. Bernard parishes indicated that over 31 percent reported clinically significant symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told the paper that when the fiscal 2008 HHS spending bill comes to the Senate floor this week as expected, she plans to offer an amendment that would direct $400,000 in grant money to the jeopardized program.

Office of Special Counsel orders probe into charges that key NOLA pumps are still faulty

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers insider alleges that the 40 pumps protecting New Orleans from catastrophic flooding still suffer from serious flaws that put the city's residents at risk -- and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has found her concerns so compelling that it's ordered the U.S. Department of Defense to respond to the charges.

Maria Garzino, a veteran Corps engineer based in Los Angeles who was the team leader for pump installation in New Orleans, has filed for federal whistleblower status with the OSC, which protects federal employees from reprisals for reporting wrongdoing. In a Sept. 21 letter [PDF] to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates released by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, OSC's Scott J. Bloch wrote:

The information provided demonstrates that in an effort to meet time-sensitive deadlines, and to avoid government imposed damages and instead earn financial incentives, the contractor, Moving [Water] Industries (MWI), along with USACE, are likely responsible for installing defective pumping equipment that has been largely untested. Therefore, pursuant to my responsibilities as Special Counsel, I am referring to you a whistleblower disclosure that employees at the Department of the Army, USACE, Mississippi Valley Division, New Orleans District, New Orleans, Louisiana, are responsible for a violation of a law, rule, or regulation, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, and a substantial and specific danger to public safety.

Garzino was the same whistleblower behind earlier disclosures that MWI's pumping equipment was flawed and malfunctioned during tests conducted by the company. She blamed the problems on modifications that were not authorized under the $26.6 million contract and were improperly accepted by USACE. The pumps have been installed at the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue canals.

In her initial disclosure last year, Garzino outlined extensive problems with the pumps that included catastrophic failures of the assemblies and hydraulic fluid lines overheating and bursting. While the Corps acknowledged the problems, it also said they had been fixed. But Garzino disputes that. She says the Corps review team that investigated arrived on a Friday night and provided a report by the following night, failing to take adequate time to address complex technical issues or even interview her about her complaint. The team issued its report in June 2007.

This past summer, the Corps oversaw the installation of new non-hydraulic pumps at the canals by two other contractors, Patterson and Fairbanks Morse. Those pumps were supposed to complement MWI's hydraulic pumps, but Garzino says their installation was based on the incorrect assumption that the MWI pumps were operational. However, a commander of the Corps' hurricane protection office in New Orleans told the Times-Picayune that he is "confident" the pumps "will operate as they were designed to operate."

Under the law, Gates has 60 days to respond to Garzino's charges. Writes OSC's Bloch of the allegations:

If true, given the hardships suffered by the people of New Orleans, and the billions of tax payer dollars spent on post-Katrina recovery, the United States Government can ill afford to take unnecessary risks with public safety due to faulty pumping equipment and lack of proper government oversight of the MWI contract; a situation that indeed raises serious issues of public safety and government oversight.

The Government Accountability Office is also conducting a second investigation into the pumps at the request of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). An earlier GAO probe into questions surrounding the awarding of the MWI contract found no wrongdoing.

As we've reported previously, Florida-based MWI has close ties to the Bush family and the Republican Party. During the George H.W. Bush presidency in the late 1980s and early 1990s, MWI owner J. David Eller partnered with presidential scion (and later Florida governor) Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps overseas.

Eller has been under Department of Justice Investigation for shady pump deals in Nigeria for several years now, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to donate generously to Republican political causes. According to the Center for Responsive Politics' campaign contribution database, he has contributed a total of more than $140,000 to GOP politicians and PACs since 1993 -- including $1,000 to Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in April of this year and another $500 to U.S. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) in June.

Reports confirm that Mississippi received more than its fair share of federal Katrina aid

A report released this week by the Government Accountability Office is critical of the way the Federal Emergency Management Agency administered an alternative housing program for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The methodology that FEMA used for the Alternative Housing Pilot Program deviated from most competitive grant programs run by federal agencies, and as a result unfairly funneled $275 million of the available $388 million to Mississippi. By taking a different approach, the GAO said, FEMA could have directed more than $140 million to three separate housing projects in Louisiana rather than the $74.5 million directed to one project that's still not underway.

The findings confirm charges made by Louisiana officials -- and that my colleague Chris Kromm and I reported on earlier this year for Salon.com -- that the politicization of the post-Katrina aid allocation process resulted in Republican-controlled Mississippi receiving disproportionately more money for the damage it suffered than its Democrat-led neighbor. As we reported then and as others have also noted, the irony is that Mississippi's recovery has been moving at a painfully slow pace for the neediest residents despite the fact that the federal government has assisted the state so generously.

This is what Adam Sharp, a spokesperson for the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), told the New Orleans Times-Picayune about GAO's findings:

"We saw something that walked like a duck, talked like a duck and now other branches of government are telling us it's a duck," Sharp said.

The GAO report comes on the heels of another study (PDF) released last month that also documents disparities in post-Katrina aid for Mississippi and Louisiana.

That study -- part of the GulfGov series from the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government -- examined funds allocated through FEMA's Public Assistance program as well as the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program. It found that the amount of federal aid provided to Mississippi and Louisiana through those programs has not been proportional to the amount of damage each state suffered, and that what it called the "sluggishness" of aid distribution continues to be the primary concern of state and local officials.

Congressional Black Caucus urged to address human rights of hurricane survivors

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the media struggled over what to call the storm's survivors. Early news reports often referred to fleeing residents as "refugees," but civil rights leaders objected to that label. They argued that it put blacks -- who constituted the majority of New Orleans’ displaced -- at risk of being deprived of their rights as U.S. citizens. Furthermore, international law defines "refugees" as people who cross international borders while fleeing conflict in their home country, which was not the situation after Katrina.

There's a more appropriate term to describe the storm's victims: internally displaced persons (IDPs). The treatment of IDPs is governed by the United Nations' Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, a set of 30 tenets that draws on existing international law to set forth guaranteed human rights protections for those displaced in their home countries by events including natural disasters.

The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement have been repeatedly affirmed by U.N. member nations, including the United States. Indeed, the Bush administration has called for (pdf) "wider international recognition of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as a useful framework for dealing with internal displacement."

Now a group advocating for the human rights of hurricane survivors is calling on U.S. leaders to apply the Guiding Principles to the victims of the 2005 storms. The International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has asked the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce federal legislation recognizing Katrina and Rita survivors' status as IDPs under human rights law and to provide appropriate restitution for their losses:

We encourage the CBC to develop and introduce a bill that recognizes this status and provides the resources needed to ensure that the rights it guarantees are fully enacted and enforced. Precedent for such a bill is provided by House Resolution 426 recognizing the year 2007 as "the Year of the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Columbia". Various aspects of HR 4197 also provide it.

Consonant with this recognition, the findings of the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita call for a Congressional Bill that provides restitution for IDP's for the losses they incurred as a direct result of the governments failure to provide adequate protections through its management of the regions wetlands and water management systems, particularly the Levee system of New Orleans, and the human rights abuses they suffered as a direct result of their forced evacuation and dispersal at the hands of the Federal government and its agents.

Both of these Bills are necessary in order to repair, restore, and rebuild the lives of those displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The International Tribunal would like to work with the CBC in drafting this critical legislation.

To sign the Tribunal's petition calling on President Bush to recognize storm survivors as IDPs, click here. For more information on efforts to recognize and protect storm survivors' human rights, click here and here.