Looking into the future the Pelican feeding its young from a self-induced wound in its own breast (as depicted, mysteriously, on the state flag of Louisiana) is accepted as an appropriate symbol of both self-sacrifice and rebirth. Through his selfless efforts, man is raised from the slavery of ignorance to the condition of freedom conferred by wisdom. Given the current state of affairs in Louisiana, one hopes that the understanding of the Pelican as a symbol shall point the way towards a new consciousness of ourselves as a whole, and lead us to face our futures with strength, grace, wisdom and faith, to learn from our mistakes and carry our successes and zest for living to future generations.

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Who is Mayor Ray Nagin?

A Destroyer Of the Vieux Carre, Public Housing, and Public Schools
A Privatizer
A Shell Oil Company Man
A Corporate Mogul
A Government of the Rich By the Rich and for the Rich so Help Me God In Corporations We Trust

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A Second Jazz Park in New Orleans?

By Leo Watermeier

Today Mayor Nagin announced plans for a National Jazz Park by the Superdome and Hyatt Regency hotel.

I was told the City Planning Commission office was in shock this morning about the mayor's plans - which entail tearing down City Hall, the State Office Building, the Civil Courts Building and the New Orleans Centre shopping mall. FEMA money would help pay the city's share of costs. No one in the city's planning office knew anything about it until they read the Times-Picayune.

My special interest in this new jazz park is because for over 10 years plans to revitalize Armstrong Park have been in limbo waiting for the National Park Service to build its "Jazz Park" in the Perseverance Hall complex. (And there's still no date for construction to begin.)

Does New Orleans need two jazz parks? (I'm not sure it even needs one.) Does this mean the Armstrong Park jazz park plans are dead? Will FEMA money be used for a new jazz park while the city's existing parks and playgrounds continue to decay? (Armstrong Park has been closed since Katrina and there's no date for it to reopen.)

While New Orleans drowns, the mayor "jazzes".

I predict nothing will come of these new jazz park plans (remember Nagin's plans to sell the airport, take over 20 schools, create a Canal St. casino disrtict, etc., etc.), but why divert energy and attention from solving our real problems?

Wasn't Rob Couhig, Virginia Boulet and Tom Watson supposed to bring some common sense and teamwork to the mayor?

P.S. - Don't worry. I want to have a voice in our city's future but I have no intention of ever running for elected office again.

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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOWL Speaks Out Against John Koerner, III & Ray Nagin's Policy to Keep MR-GO Open

May 6, 2006

Mayor Ray Nagin, unfortunately for New Orleans, is committed to keeping MR-GO open. “The channel is a disaster, and it has been since it was built. But now we’re stuck with it, so you just have to deal with what you’ve got”, said John Koerner, III, a New Orleans businessman who was Chairman of the Flood Protection Subcommittee for Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission. So, this original 600 ft. wide channel - now 2,000 feet wide - that has gobbled up 27,000 acres of flood buffer wetlands is to remain open because John Koerner, III, a New Orleans businessman and a voice for Nagin’s corporate allies, says so? Well, Save Our Wetlands, Inc.(SOWL) says hogwash to you Nagin-Koerner. If New Orleans has even an inch of hope, the growing monster MR-GO has got to go.

And any politician who says otherwise has got to go. SOWL joins with the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation and the many other sensible, sane groups and individuals in this community that say MR-GO has got to go. You can armor all the levees you want. You can buy all the rebuild-rebirth flags you want and stick them everywhere. But unless MR-GO is closed, this community is doomed. Any politician voicing the opposite of this proposal does not represent the citizens and children of New Orleans.

Sincerely,

Save Louisiana Wetlands, Inc.
Save Our Wetlands, Inc.(SOWL)

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Ray Nagin Promotes Big Oil, While Big Oil Destroys Our Resources

Save Louisiana Wetlands Inc. and Save Our Wetlands Inc. (SOWL) joined the fight to stop and expose Shell Oil Companies proposed LNG Plant that will destroy significantly the fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico. On Saturday morning May 30th 2005 Save Our Wetlands along with a representative of the Sierra Club and the Green Party protested by displaying the following sign at the Mayor Ray Nagin’s environmental breakfast.

Nagin, who is a corporate mouthpiece for Wal-Mart and other corporate privateers, presented an environmental award to Shell Oil Company. Shell Oil Company donated monies to a small insignificant “green washing” Green Project located off St. Claude Ave. down by the railroad tracks. Nagin is notorious for tearing down public housing to make way for Lester Kabencoff’s corporate development expansion plans.

Nagin presently has plans to displace the poor Afro-Americans living in the Iberville public housing project to make way for another Lester Kabencoff private corporate development scheme, similar to the displacement of the poor Afro-Americans that were once living in the public housing St. Thomas projects now Wal-Mart. The old Krauss building adjacent to the Iberville public housing project on North Rampart St. is presently being yuppiefied into swank condominiums.

In the meantime, New Orleans under Nagin acquires no new public parks. Under his administration, the municipal public parks that do exist in New Orleans are permitted to deteriorate. The rich are able to use the facilities of their private institutions. The poor swelter in their poverty cesspools while being arrested shot and harassed by Nagin's New Orleans police department. His solutions to the New Orleans poverty problem is to displace the poor out of New Orleans centralized public housing, and move them to New Orleans East.

He recently joined hands with City Councilman "Fast Eddie" Sapir to attempt to privatize the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board, and put New Orleans water into the pockets of mega-international corporations.

He has single handedly destroyed the unique and distinct character of the historic Vieux Carre (French Quarter) of New Orleans by placing hundreds of trash cans, bearing corporate logos, on the streets of New Orleans. Nagin has recently, in violation of public bid laws and without approval of the Vieux Carre Commission placed hundreds of illegal parking meter structures in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans.

He is standing quietly to the side while attempts are being made to privatize New Orleans Charity hospital. He is fighting hard for the rich and elitist. Under his administration the public school system is being dismantled. The New Orleans public school system is divided between rich-elitist-private versus poor-black public. It will only be a question of time before New Orleans public schools will be funded by corporations such as Coca- Cola, McDonald’s, Shell Oil Company, or some other mega-corporation.

Mayor Ray Nagin does not represent the hundreds of thousands of poor Afro-Americans residing in New Orleans. He stands idle while antiquated drug laws and poverty are causing hundreds and hundreds of shootings and the deaths of young Afro-Americans. Under his administration the rich get richer. The poor get poorer. And Shell Oil Company is given an environmental award at Mayor Ray Nagin’s environmental breakfast on May 30th 2005.

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Mayor Ray Nagin’s Two Proposed New Airport Sites: Corporate Land Grab & Wetlands-Estuary Coastal Eco-System Destroyer

Now that we have seen how Mayor Ray Nagin is nothing more than a puppet for mega corporations, and how under his administration the city of New Orleans continues to experience more poverty, resulting in more crime-killings lets now take a look how his proposed two new airport sites that will destroy the eco-system surrounding New Orleans.

Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bonnet Carre spillway proposed new airport site is an exercise in pure insanity-stupidity. This site is adjacent to Entergy’s Waterford Nuclear Power Plant. He not only wants to destroy the Vieux Carre, public housing-public schools-public communities of New Orleans, he now seeks to fly airplanes adjacent to a nuclear power plant. And of course he wants to also destroy a vast public wetland-flood barrier-public recreational area. SOWL believes these letters to the editor appearing in the Times Picayune on May 19th, 2005 speak loud and clear on how his proposed Bonnet Carre airport site borders on stupidity-insanity.

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An Airport Here? Preposterous

Re: “Nagin will propose new site for airport,” Page 1, May 17.

Airport officials have spent years beating their heads against a wall trying to destroy delicate, valuable wetlands for a new runway to no avail. Do they not get the picture?

We, the people of the River Parishes, do not want anymore of our wetlands destroyed in the name of progress. New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin’s wacky little proposal to build a new runway in the Bonnet Carre Spillway is preposterous.

The spillway is not only a flood control structure, but also a bustling recreational area that is free for the public use for boating, fishing, hunting and all terrain vehicle driving. To allow New Orleans to invade our wonderful area and subject us to the same treatment as Kenner receives from New Orleans and the Aviation Board would be a disaster.

We do not need them in our beautiful St. Charles and St. John parishes. Stay on your side of the Jefferson Parish line.

Will Schober
LaPlace

Air Travel at its Most Surreal

The Bonnet Carre Spillway is surrounded by oil refineries, chemical plants and a couple of nuclear reactors; nearby Bayou Trepanier is full of toxic petroleum sludge. The spillway also contains recreational sites, a major highway, a railroad and two centuries-old graveyards of immense cultural significance to the area residents.

And now it is being considered as a site for a brand-new airport!

Cut down some trees, rearrange the guide levees a bit and build them even higher, keep those planes away from anything that might take out an entire parish if it was hit, and ta-daa! Air travel at its finest!

Just when I thought living in this town couldn’t get anymore surreal…

Silly me.

Nicole Youngman
New Orleans

It’s Called a Spillway for a Reason

The state is sinking, hurricane season looms.

The idea of building an airport at either of the locations mentioned in the article-near Montz or at the lake in eastern New Orleans-is ridiculous. By the way, the Bonnet Carre Spillway is called a spillway for a reason!

Elly Harper
Covington

Mayor Ray Nagin not only wants to turn New Orleans into an Atlanta-Houston, he is also determined to turn it into another Hong Kong by his proposed New Orleans airport site, consisting of filling in large parts of Lake Pontchartrain for a Hong Kong type island. He is proposing that Lake Pontchartrain be filled in for an island airport in New Orleans East, adjacent to the Bayou Savage National Refuge Center. His proposed Hong Kong Lake Pontchartrain New Orleans East airport island will destroy all the work done to restore Lake Pontchartrain by Save Our Louisiana Wetlands Inc. and Save Our Wetlands Inc. and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. SOWL suggests that he move on to become CEO of the Audubon Institute (a Shell for Shell Oil Company), Entergy, or Halliburton etc. He doesn't care about New Orleans. He only cares about big business.

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Letter of Protest-Condemnation of Mayor Ray Nagin's Proposed Two New Airport Sites

June 6, 2005

Honorable Ray Nagin
Mayor, City of New Orleans
City Hall
1300 Perdido Street
New Orleans, LA 70112

RE: Letter of Protest-Condemnation by SOWL of Mayor Ray Nagin's Proposed Two New Airport Sites

Dear Mayor Nagin:

This letter is from Save Our Wetlands Inc., and Save Louisiana Wetlands Inc. (SOWL), consisting of over 1200 members. Since 1974 SOWL has been documenting the destruction of Louisiana wetlands-coastal zones by corporate politicians like yourself, who have little or no regard of Louisiana wetlands, estuaries and coastal zones. And you and your corporate cronies simply do not understand the economic value and sustainability , plus flood barriers that wetlands serve. Nor do you understand the great economic sustainability value that Lake Pontchtrain provides to the citizens of New Orleans.

This is Notice of Intent to Sue on your proposed two mega billion dollars airport sites. SOWL feels your proposals border on both insanity and greed, and amount to nothing more than a corporate land grab.

Bonnet Carre Spillway:

This is not only a public waterbottom-wetland-public recreational area, but also an important asset in relieving New Orleans from the potentials of disastrous flooding.

This area is adjacent to Entergy's Waterford Nuclear Power Plant. Planes flying anywhere near this site presents a total potential disaster for New Orleans and her citizens. This is especially true since Senator Mary Landrieu is pushing bills through the U. S. Senate boosting nuclear power, but limiting liability to Entergy in case of a nuclear accident.

A Waterford Nuclear Power plant accident will result in the death of hundred of thousands of Louisiana citizens, and injuries to millions. Property damage will amount in the hundreds if not thousands of billions of dollars.

There is a history of strong opposition by New Orleans citizens to the construction and operation of the Waterford Nuclear Power Plant, which SOWL, Oystershell Alliance, Gary Groesch(ex director of Alliance for Afforable Energy), and literally thousands of New Orleans citizens raised their voices in protest.

A castaprophic Waterford Nuclear power plant accident, such as an emergency core fuel meltdown, or an airplane crash means the home owners are left holding the bag . An airplane crashing into Waterford is not out of the realm of possibility under your proposed Bonnet Carre Airport as there have been several airline crashes in Kenner over the years.

If there is an airline crash, Entergy and your million dollar CEO friends walk away laughing to the bank, compliments of the corporate welfare state pushed by their corporate mouthpieces like yourself and U.S. Semator Mary Landrieu.

2. Filling In Large Portions of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans East for Your Proposed Hong Kong Type Island Airport, adjacent to the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge Center.

SOWL is responsible for the Bayou Sauvage Refuge Center, and for saving the Lakes Maurepas Pontchtrain Catherine Borgne(MPCB) Eco System.

In 1978 SOWL obtained an Injunction from U.S. District Court Judge Charles Schwarz, enjoining the Corps Hurricane Barrier Project. This HBP was nothing more than a Rep. F. Edward Hebert-Orleans Levee Bd. Guy Lemieux pork barrel scheme. Under the guise of hurricane protection pushed fraduently by the Corps, this HBP was going to stop the velocity and salinity flow of Lake Pontchtrain, making it a dead , stagnant lake.

Therefore under the guise of Hurricane protection, this HBP was going to destroy Lake Pontchtrain, create millions of dollars in dredging contracts, destroy the wetlands of New Orleans East, and promote development in extremely low lying areas susceptible to hurricane tidal surges.

SOWL stopped in 1978 the 28,000 acre Orlandia Subdivision proposed by Texas oil Barons, who at that time were owners of New Orleans East Wetlands. SOWL is also responsible for recently stopping the motorized speedway proposed in New Orleans East, adjacent to the Bayou Sauvage Refuge Center.

Your New Orleans East-Hong Kong-Island filling Lake Pontchartrain proposal flies in the face of restoring Lake Pontchartrain by SOWL and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation.

SOWL believes your major concern is not for the people of New Orleans, but for the large corporations, who have paved-paid your way into office.You are obviously ignorant of the history of the strong environmental movement in this community. SOWL is committed to protecting-preserving the wetlands-estuaries surrounding not only lake Pontchartrain but also the Bonnet Carre Spillway.

Sincerely,

Save Louisiana Wetlands, Inc.
Save Our Wetlands, Inc.(SOWL)