I will make this short and sweet.
By this time tomorrow the inspector general of New Orleans that people love so much even though he doesn't know how he wakes up every morning in our city Robert Cerasoli will have released the findings of the take home vehicle report. I am certain it won't be good. I know everybody is ready to charge City Hall and blame Ray Nagin for this but you have to accept the situation for what it truly is. None of this is new to the city of New Orleans. All of our local media is pissed at Nagin so they make it seem like he started all of this. I’m not defending the mayor. It’s just that I have been living here my whole life and I know better. As long as I can remember people who worked for the city got take home vehicles. I always thought it was an extra benefit. In fact, I can recall a time when Councilwoman Clarkson had a car and a police officer driving her around the city. Please don’t turn this into an indictment of Ray Nagin because old school residents know better. The problem is the city government structure and the way business gets done. You have to come to grips with the fact that it wouldn’t matter who won the last mayor’s race. Their folks would have had take home cars too. Don't focus on the mayor. Focus on the city laws and ordinances. People don’t want to hear that but the truth hurts sometime. I realize this is all for nothing. I already know what’s coming. Everyone in city government caught the bus until Ray Nagin got re-elected in 2006. There's going to be some crazy things said once this report comes out.
2 comments:
I don't doubt this systemic disregard for the actual car policy goes way back. And you're probably right that even if Mitch had won this same report would have been issued. My hunch, though, is Mitch would have responded better to this report than Ray will. I hope I'm wrong, truly. I actually voted for Ray the first time because I thought he was going to address issues like this (remember the car inspector/cabbie perp walk?). Boy was I wrong. My guess is we'll see a lot of defensiveness and feet dragging.
And I have to say the baseline to this discussion should be the car policy, as in adhering to it. The fact that people get all histrionic about Ray is sort of beside the point. Annoying, sure, tedious, you bet, revealing, sometimes, but ultimately secondary.
You're right of course, Ray didn't start this, but he could have stopped it. He had two chances, Once when he was elected as a reform candidate then shutdown the Brake Tag Stations and again after Katrina, when the city had few employees.
I'd like to focus on solutions not history.
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