December 1, 2005
Merging the Levee Boards - Part 3
Da Paper wants you to believe that anyone who is against forming a "super levee board" to take over the responsibilities of the boards managing the levee districts in the metro area is a bad politician. In particular, they're singling out state Rep. Ken Odinet (D-Arabi). I don't know why Da Paper's got such a red-ass for Mr. Odinet, because he's just doing his job.
In their editorial, Da Paper doesn't tell you about the super-board proposal is that the final bill to come out of the Senate was not Boasso's original plan. In fact, it was far from it, as their own reporting tells us:
Boasso's bill limped out of a Senate committee earlier in the week, exempting the Orleans and West Jefferson levee districts from its provisions.But Sens. Francis Heitmeier, D-Algiers, and Ed Murray, D-New Orleans, got Boasso and the Senate to accept an amendment that lets the Orleans Levee Board retain a large amount of autonomy over nonflood-control issues.
The amendment also allows two members of the Orleans board to be a part of the superboard to deal with flood issues. The rest of the seven-member board in Orleans would deal with the Orleans Levee District's other functions, such as operating a police department, leasing land, and running Lakefront Airport and two marinas.
Da News puts it even more succinctly in their reporting:
Boasso's bill didn't conflict with Dupre's and received support from Republicans and Democrats.But it was gutted in a Senate committee by Sen. Francis Heitmeier, D-New Orleans, who has strong political ties to his city's levee board. Heitmeier changed the bill so that it would prevent the dissolution of that board, a powerful political force: it has a $47 million annual budget and its own police force.
(emphasis mine)
The bill that Rep. Odinet opposed was not the plan put forward by Sen. Boasso. Still, here, here, and here, Da Paper wants you to think that he is corruption incarnate, all because he recommended his nephew to the governor in 2000 for a seat on the St. Bernard Parish Levee Board.
Let's pause and consider Odinet's actions. First, the levee board appointment. St. Bernard Levee Board members get a $75 per meeting per diem. Their meetings usually run anywhere from three to five hours. While I'll concede that seventy-five bucks buys a lot of macaroni and cheese at Rocky and Carlo's, I'm not too concerned that Odinet is doling out huge patronage here. Unlike the Orleans and Jefferson levee boards, St. Bernard's doesn't manage a casino. It doesn't have an airport to run like the OLB does.
Now let's look at Odinet's opposition to the Boasso bill as passed by the State Senate. What came over to the House was something totally different than what Boasso proposed. With the exemptions stuck into the bill by Heitmeier, the much-maligned OLB would maintain the bulk of their authority.
It's important to keep in mind that Mr. Odinet lives in Arabi. Arabi is the neighborhood in St. Bernard Parish that is right next to the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. There's the Lower 9th, then LA National Guard's Jackson Barracks facility, then Arabi. Mr. Odinet and his neighbors weren't flooded out because of breaches in levees under the control of his nephew and the rest of the St. Bernard Levee Board. They were flooded out by the breaches on the down-river side of the Industrial Canal. After the flood waters passed through the Lower 9th, they went into Mr. Odinet's house.
If you follow the logic of the Boasso bill, that the local levee boards can't handle flood control, that means that Mr. Odinet and the rest of the state House were being asked to approve a measure that would allow the people who flooded Odinet's house to remain in control.
One could argue that the tarring that Odinet has received by Da Paper is partly his fault, because perhaps he hasn't articulated his position on the issue well enough. Of course, it might help if Da Paper would ask him. In all those articles damning Odinet for making the procedural objection that killed the amended version of the Boasso bill, there are no quotes from Odinet, or even a statement by a reporter saying that they tried to contact him. They phoned in the original reporting and editorialized from there, basing their rhetoric on incomplete and inaccurate information. I know Frank Donze's got a mobile phone. I'm sure he keeps it charged enough. It's not that hard to call Mr. Odinet and ask him his side of the story, particularly when your paper is going to rip him up so much. I can't say for sure, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that Odinet's able to take a few minutes out of his day to talk to Donze or another reporter on this story.
I'm trying to find a motive for Da Paper's actions. At first I thought it might be because Boasso is a Republican, and the very-partisan editorial staff of Da Paper found Odinet a good target because he's a Democrat. St. Bernard's other state rep is Nita Hutter of Chalmette. She's a Republican like Boasso, and voted along with Odinet. She's mentioned in the editorial, but not in the news pieces. Sen. Heitmeier is also a Democrat, and he's more responsible for trashing Boasso's bill than Odinet is, yet he's not vilified.
It's hard to say that Da Paper's editorial board are partisan, disingenuous liars. Certainly they're disingenuous and liars, but it's looking more like they're also just plain stupid.