Project Katrina

The Associated Press has a stunning story about how the Federal government just can’t seem to do anything right as it related to procurement of services and Katrina. The most important points include:

Despite a month-old pledge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to reopen four of its biggest no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work and won’t do so until the contracts are virtually complete. A promise to hire more minority-owned firms also is largely unfulfilled.

The no-bid contracts for temporary housing, worth up to $100 million each, were awarded to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. right after Katrina struck. FEMA promised to boost the number of contracts given to minority-owned businesses but in the last month the percentage has increased only slightly, from 1.5 percent to 1.8 percent of the $3.1 billion awarded. That’s still well below the 5 percent of federal contracts normally set aside for minority-owned firms.

In another lifetime I spend a large amount of time following the Federal governments procurement regulations. There is a clear reason the Clinton administration overhauled our procurement process.

(1) Too often the government was giving out no-bid contracts to large companies, where smaller companies could have completed the contract for a lower price. (2) To many large procurements were being awarded to non-minority owned companies, at a rate that was out of line with the percentage of minority owned companies in the United States.

Bush and his administration, based on the above story (and many others BTW related to Iraq) is doing everything in their power it would seem, to return to the days where the largest companies with the most political contributions, are winning no-bid, non-competitive contracts worth billions.

As I mentioned yesterday the Situation Reports highlight a lot of progress. In fact, New Orleans Public Schools announced Friday that five schools will re-open in Mid-December.

• Behrman Elementary (715 Opelousas)
• Eisenhower Elementary (3700 Tall Pines Drive)
• Fischer Elementary (1801 L.B. Landry Avenue)
• Harte Elementary (5300 Berkley Drive)
• Henderson Elementary (1912 L.B. Landry Avenue)
• Edna Karr Sr. High School (3332 Huntlee Drive)
• Rosenwald Elementary (6501 Berkley Drive)
• O.P. Walker Sr. High School (2832 General Meyer Avenue)

Lusher and Lusher Extension has an agreement with Tulane will re-open in January. Re-hiring began on November 1, 2005 for Orleans Parish Schools. Eight Schools are expected to open November 17, 2005. Archdiocese of New Orleans currently has two schools open in Algiers. On October 17, 2005, St. Francis Cabrini opened in New Orleans. Seven parochial schools have the goal of opening in January 2006. Cathedral Academy, a Catholic Elementary School located in the French Quarter, re-opened its doors to students on Monday, October 17, 2005.

This is just good news across the board. I just hope there are enough teachers and students to fill the classrooms.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin and his staff have begun the arduous task of organizing the clean up and recovery of the metro New Orleans area. Check www.cityofno.com for critical information and help for displaced citizens with taking the steps to rebuild and recover. They also have frequent Situation Reports, which show a lot of progress. The last report was posted today.

Can’t believe I didn’t locate this site sooner. Alive in Truth is an all-volunteer, grassroots effort to record oral and written history (along with photographs) about the lives of displaced New Orleans residents. Alive in Truth got underway on September 4, 2005 outside the Austin Convention Center, which served as a shelter for 6,000 New Orleans residents. Most of which seem to have been evacuated from the Superdome, the Convention Center, the I-10 Overpass, or their own roofs.

Is the Bush administration ever going to learn from their previous mistakes? According to an article in the Nation we have another Michael Brown in the making. Citizens of the United States meet Stewart Simonson.

Stewart is the government official appointed by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies." Ok, well Steward is an ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak.

As much as it pains me George Bush won the election. So he can appoint "well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republicans" to whatever position he wants. But aren’t their at least a few Republicans that actually have some experience related to the job they’ll conduct on a day-to-day basis? I guess not. Here is just a priceless quote from the article.

In early November George W. Bush, struggling to claw his way upward in polls that had acquired the consistency of quicksand after two months of blunders and disasters, launched a new PR blitz. The Administration declared it was taking charge of the nation’s health and security with an all-out war on the flu (to be conducted with vaccines provided by well-connected pharmaceutical companies). "Our country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland," Bush declared. "It’s my responsibility as President to take measures now to protect the American people."

But if Bush hoped to wipe away the stain of Katrina—and the memory of a hapless Michael Brown steering FEMA in circles while New Orleans drowned—he should have thought twice about bringing up the specter of a public health emergency, because the man responsible for coordinating the federal response to a flu pandemic or bioterror attack could well be the next Michael Brown.

Meet Stewart Simonson. He’s the official charged by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies"–a well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak. When Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recently speculated, "If something comes along that is truly serious…like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence," many of those professionally concerned with such scenarios couldn’t help thinking of Simonson. They recalled his own unsettling words at a recent Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack: "We’re learning as we go."

Some of these below email quotes from former FEMA Director Michael Brown would be pretty darn funny expect (1) they are true and (2) they happened while FEMA relief efforts unraveled in-front of our eyes on television.

• "If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire you’ll really vomit,” Brown wrote to colleagues the morning of August 29, the day the storm hit the Gulf Coast. "I am a fashion god.”

• In an email early on August 29, Brown acknowledged a colleague’s compliment about his clothing. "Are you proud of me?” he wrote. "Can I quit now? Can I go home?”

• After receiving several emails about the breach of levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans from flooding on August 29, Brown questioned their accuracy, writing, "I’m being told here water over not a breach."

• On August 31, in response to a message detailing how people are being "kicked out” of New Orleans hotels and that food and water had run out at the Superdome, the city’s primary shelter, Brown responded, "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

• On September 4, as criticism mounted of, Brown received an email from Sharon Worthy, whom the Melancon Report identified as the former director’s press secretary, telling him: "You just need to look more hard-working…ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!”

• Brown wrote "do you know of anyone who dog sits?” In an email to his assistant on August 30. "If you know of any responsible kids, let me know.”

• In another, he asked a friend to "make the connection” so that ex-colleagues could defend his past work for reporters.