Katrina Nursing Home Case Costly for La.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Louisiana taxpayers paid more than $360,000 for the failed prosecution of the owners of a nursing home where 35 people died during Hurricane Katrina, according to documents obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The money spent by former state Attorney General Charles Foti include nearly $82,000 for lessons in jury selection and advice on running the trial, the documents show.

Sal and Mabel Mangano owned St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, which was flooded by the hurricane that hit Aug. 29, 2005. Prosecutors said they should have evacuated the home, and they charged the couple with 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the elderly or infirm.

A jury took less than four hours to find the couple not guilty after the 2 1/2-week trial.
''This is a colossal waste of taxpayers' money on a case that should never have come to trial,'' said James Cobb, one of the lawyers who represented the Manganos.
Foti, now in private practice with a New Orleans law firm, did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.

Foti's office drew heavy criticism for prosecuting the Manganos and, in a separate case, prosecuting a doctor and two nurses for the post-hurricane deaths of nine patients at a New Orleans hospital. An accounting of the expenses from that case is not yet available.

Foti has repeatedly denied accusations that he used the trials to grandstand for his re-election bid. He lost last fall's Republican primary, and Democrat Buddy Caldwell became the new attorney general in a runoff election.

The initial expense figures in the Mangano case, provided by Caldwell's office, include $81,533 to Courtroom Sciences Inc., the company that instructed the assistant district attorneys who conducted the trial on jury selection, opening statements and trial tactics.

Other expenses include $58,401 for hurricane expert Brian Jarvinen, $72,018.82 to psychiatry professor Robert Stall and $52,607 to Dr. Stanford Finkel, a gerontologist.
It was not clear from the documents how Jarvinen, Stall and Finkel aided the prosecution.

In the hospital case, Foti led investigations that resulted in the arrests of cancer specialist Dr. Anna Pou and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, who worked at the flooded Memorial Medical Center after the storm.

A grand jury last year refused to indict Pou. Landry and Budo testified before the panel under immunity and were not indicted.

New Orleans residents accuse corps of racism

Angry residents of eastern New Orleans, the lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish resumed their criticism of the speed at which the Army Corps of Engineers has moved to protect their areas from hurricanes during a public hearing Thursday night.

"You people are involved in blatant racism regarding the black community all over this city," said Vanessa Gueringer, a member of the ACORN activist group representing the Lower 9th Ward.

The complaints focused on concerns raised last summer when the corps published maps showing that early repairs to the levee system in the area, especially the construction of gates on three canals in western New Orleans, dramatically reduced the risk of flooding in predominantly white neighborhoods, while the risk of flooding of largely African-American neighborhoods remained nearly the same as before Katrina.

Corps officials attempted to explain that the solutions for flooding on the city's eastern edge are taking longer because of the difficulties involved in determining how best to rebuild that part of the protection system.

Gib Owen, a civilian corps employee in charge of the environmental studies required for the projects, said the agency short-circuited the normal construction process by conducting environmental studies at the same time that preliminary studies were done on individual projects. But some projects, such as protection of the Industrial Canal, have taken longer to design because of the complicated engineering issues involved in building navigable gates, compared with earthen levees, he said.

Still, the corps has moved to speed up that process as well, requiring the company that will be chosen to design and build the Industrial Canal protection project to take interim steps to block surge by the beginning of the 2009 hurricane season.

Maj. Jeremy Chapman, who oversees the Industrial Canal project, said that contract, expected to cost at least $500 million, will be awarded in March.

August Martin, a branch chief with the corps' local Hurricane Protection Office, attempted to head off the charges of racism earlier in the meeting by answering many of the same questions that were raised at a similar meeting in eastern New Orleans two months ago.

"The entire area west of the (Industrial Canal) does not have a complete 100-year level of protection," Martin said, referring to areas with larger white population. "There is still major work to be done to protect that basin."

But residents attending the meeting at the Church at New Orleans on Chef Menteur Highway were not convinced, especially when corps officials said the decision to protect Lakeview soon after Katrina was directed by congressional authorizations.

"When the corps goes to Congress with maps and data, politicians are not engineers," Gueringer said. "They're depending on you to explain what they should do.

"When you went up there, why didn't you say these are the areas in critical need of attention?" she asked. "If you're a black person living in these areas, what happened? Who spoke for us before Congress?"

Dan Arceneaux, a member of the St. Bernard Coastal Zone Management Advisory Commission, also was critical of the corps' plan to close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet near Hopedale.

He said that in deciding to close the Gulf outlet with a rock dike that would stick out of the water by only 5 feet at high tide, the corps ignored congressional orders to listen to St. Bernard officials, who have argued that the dike should be higher to help block surge.

Chapman said the dike was designed that way because its purpose is to reduce the erosion damage being caused by the open MR-GO, and not to serve as a flood-protection project.

Thursday's meeting is one of 41 held throughout the area since March to discuss the various hurricane protection construction projects.

The agency is accepting questions or comments on IER 11, the environmental report on the Industrial Canal project, through Feb. 29 at its Web site, www.nolaenvironmental.gov .

Philadelphia Sues HUD, Citing Threat of Losing Aid

The director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority has accused the federal housing secretary of ordering the city to turn over a $2 million property to a politically connected developer, then threatening to withhold millions of dollars in federal aid after his directive was refused, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the city.

But officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development denied those charges Monday, saying that the secretary, Alphonso R. Jackson, had no personal, political or business relationship with the developer who was seeking the $2 million parcel of vacant land, Kenny Gamble, the soul songwriter and producer. A spokesman for Mr. Jackson, Jerry Brown, also said that Philadelphia’s financing was in jeopardy because the city had failed to meet the requirements of a decade-old housing plan.

The accusations against Mr. Jackson by Philadelphia officials, first reported Monday in The Washington Post, come as the housing department’s inspector general and the Justice Department are reportedly investigating whether he improperly steered government contracts to friends in New Orleans and the Virgin Islands. Department officials did not address those accusations, but they were vehement in disputing the charges in the Philadelphia lawsuit.

“There was no retaliation,” Mr. Brown said in an interview Monday. “These two things had nothing whatsoever to do with each other.”

Neither Carl R. Greene, the executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, nor Abbe Fletman, a lawyer representing the authority, returned calls requesting comment.

The lawsuit, filed by Philadelphia housing officials in December, involves a long struggle over the city’s efforts to overhaul the blighted Martin Luther King Jr. projects. Mr. Gamble’s company, Universal Community Homes, was part of a partnership selected to build the first phase of the project in 1999, in a deal that promised to reward the developers with a parcel of vacant land in return for building 236 low-income units and providing counseling services to incoming residents.

Only 80 units were built when Universal’s partner withdrew from the project, forcing the authority to help with the rest of the construction. And Mr. Greene said Universal never fulfilled its obligation to provide counseling so he turned down its request for the $2 million parcel of land, where the company intended to build 19 homes at full market rates.

The dispute continued in 2006, when Mr. Jackson called John F. Street, who was the mayor of Philadelphia at the time, to urge that the land be turned over and the project advanced. In an affidavit, Mr. Greene said federal housing officials had continued to exert pressure on behalf of Mr. Gamble, whom it described as having political connections. Housing officials said Mr. Jackson’s call was an effort to move the project forward, not to bestow a favor on Mr. Gamble.

“The call wasn’t motivated by any desire to help Kenny Gamble,” said Mr. Brown, the HUD spokesman. “The secretary is closer to Carl Greene than he is to Kenny Gamble.”

As the city housing authority rebuffed Mr. Gamble’s effort to get control of the property, it was also in a dispute with housing officials in Washington about whether Philadelphia had failed to meet a federal requirement that 5 percent of its public housing be made accessible for the disabled.

In the lawsuit, Philadelphia officials said that they had exceeded that by 1 percent and provided detailed studies by experts who contend that federal housing inspectors had undercounted the city’s efforts. Mr. Greene’s affidavit stated that he and other Philadelphia housing officials had repeatedly urged federal officials to reconsider, even traveling to Washington last summer to make the case in person. But in his affidavit, Mr. Greene said that Mr. Jackson’s deputies told him that Philadelphia would get credit for its efforts to provide housing for the disabled — and qualify for millions of dollars in federal aid — only if the city agreed to transfer the property to Mr. Gamble.

Recovery schools get help with cash flow

Shortly before unveiling its first complete budget in almost two years, the Recovery School District has received a $15 million infusion to temporarily ease a cash crunch. The district also anticipates getting another $58.4 million for school construction through new legislation in Congress.

Officials however, still have to craft a long-term solution to deal with the cash shortage. The state-run district faces cash-flow issues partially because it lacks a reserve and spent millions on costly academic interventions early on. The district also had to front millions in flood-related construction expenses while it negotiated the amount of reimbursements available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The $15 million in Community Block Development Grants will help the district dig out of the hole, paying off about half of its about $30 million in overdue -- mostly construction-related -- bills, Superintendent Paul Vallas said.

One vendor awaiting payment is Arrighi Simoneaux LLC, a Baton Rouge commercial construction company. The firm did site work for nine modular campuses and renovated 400 bathrooms in 25 schools last summer in the rush before the start of the 2007-08 school year.

The company was paid $37 million, but $2 million is still owed, operations manager Shane Kirkpatrick said.

"We jumped through hurdles to get the kids in schools, to get the project finished. And three months after, we cannot get paid," said Kirkpatrick, who met with state Superintendent Paul Pastorek last week to discuss the outstanding invoices.

Pastorek said this week that state officials will settle the balance with Arrighi Simoneaux. The Recovery District expects to eventually receive $90 million in grants through the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Vallas said he will tackle the balance of outstanding invoices this month.

Penalties change

More relief will come from FEMA. The agency is now obligated to pay the recovery district at least $58.4 million because of legislation that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., inserted into the 2008 federal omnibus appropriations bill, amending the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, the oft-criticized law governing federal disaster assistance.

Pastorek said it could take up to 180 days for the $58.4 million to arrive. Meanwhile, the system will try to secure short-term and long-term cash to ease the budget crunch. Pastorek said state education officials are working with Gov. Bobby Jindal's office and Louisiana Recovery Authority executive director Paul Rainwater to develop a framework to ease cash-flow issues. Officials may reveal the strategy this week before they present a roughly $250 million budget to the state board of education in February, Pastorek said. Landrieu's legislation, which Congress passed in December, altered the way FEMA assesses penalties for Katrina- and Rita-affected school districts not fully covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, a subsidized insurance for policy holders in hazardous regions.

Government facilities, such as public school districts, may be insured by the National Flood Insurance Program if the building is located in the 100-year flood plain. Before the 2005 storm season, many of the more than 100 New Orleans campuses taken over by the state were not covered by the National Flood Insurance Program.

After the 2005 storm season, FEMA established a policy penalizing applicants not covered by the program up to $1 million per building. The agency levied a penalty of up to $500,000 for the desks, chairs, pencils and other contents, and another penalty of up to $500,000 against the damage estimates of each building on a campus.

Under the new system, schools under the control of the Recovery District would get up to a $500,000 penalty per campus, regardless of how many buildings it has. Many campuses in New Orleans had several buildings, even small one-room structures.

The new model applies to Gulf Coast school districts impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and could mean millions for public and private schools in St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Plaquemines and other parishes.

Cutting red tape

Landrieu said many of the public projects in Louisiana are mired in red tape and "stuck in the muck." Initially, she wanted FEMA to ultimately streamline grant procedures for all storm-related projects, but FEMA resisted some of her proposals.

"So I basically asked, begged and then forced them to change the process relative to schools," Landrieu said. "It literally took an act of Congress to get this done."

The Recovery District initially faced more than $88 million in National Flood Insurance Program penalties under the old policy. Now the district will pay only about $30 million in deductions. For example, the district would recoup $6 million more for buildings on the Carver Elementary and Carver High campuses, $2.8 million more out of Alfred Lawless High and millions more for other schools. The $58.4 million, however, will pay for construction districtwide.

The $58.4 million would mostly be put into a capital budget, said budget director Ramsey Green. Some of the money could be used to finance a school-facilities master plan, Green said. Officials concede that financing the 10-year rebuilding plan, expected to be presented in May, will be a challenge.

More for repairs

Officials said about $50 million of the more than $150 million spent on renovations in the last two school years came out of the district's operating budget.

"We had to pay everything out of one pot. Now we're not going to be straining the operating budget trying to pay for capital expenditures," Vallas said. "We now have money up front."

Landrieu's legislation also enables FEMA to cut one check for all the money that a school district is slated to receive. It also eliminates a 25 percent penalty for schools wanting to relocate, change the use or add protective measures that the Stafford Act would not pay for. Rainwater helped write the law when he worked as Landrieu's legislative director and chief of operations.

"We can do $58 million more of repairs than before," Pastorek said. "That could mean three brand new schools or as many as 15 or 20 rehabilitations."

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