I am from my high rise perch watching lots and lots of mounted cops, SWAT teams, etc., converging on New Orleans City Hall to deal with what appears to be some violent protests inside the City Council chambers.
The protesters are fighting the demolition of several drug-infested, Katrina-battered public housing projects which are good only for cockroach breeding and crack houses.
The catch: There are hundreds of new and very nice housing units already built which are available. The residents of the projects do not want to pay the utility deposits that are required to get into these brand new units, many of which are unoccupied despite the alleged lack of low rent housing.
Go figure.
We can expect The Jesse and Al Travelling Show to begin shortly.
Here is a report on the action, which will no doubt make national news:
wwltv.com
Council meeting starts after delays due to fights, shouting
11:06 AM CST on Thursday, December 20, 2007
Staff and wire reports
A city council meeting where the fate of several New Orleans housing projects was to be decided was delayed several times due to shouting matches and skirmishes that have broken out inside of the chamber. The meeting began about an hour late with a long reading of rules to the public about how the council meeting to proceed.
Eyewitness News reporter Jonathan Betz reports that SWAT teams and vans with riot gear have been sent to City Hall in case they are needed.
Security had to physically restrain several protesters and housing demonstrators complained that several people trying to get in the meeting were prevented from doing so.
The fate of three of the city’s housing developments, largely shuttered since Hurricane Katrina, hang in the balance, though a majority of the council has made it known that they will vote to having the C. J. Peete, St. Bernard and Lafitte housing complexes torn down.
City Council members were expected Thursday to approve demolishing dozens of buildings -- a move that would open racial and class divisions. Protesters were expected at the meeting and tighter security was in place at City Hall. People entering the council chamber had to pass through metal detectors and handbags were being searched.
City Council approval of the demolition is required under the City Charter. Thursday's expected vote will be a critical moment in a protracted fight between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and residents, activists and preservationists.
HUD wants to demolish the buildings, most of them damaged by Hurricane Katrina, so developers can take advantage of tax credits and build new mixed-income neighborhoods.
HUD says the redevelopment, in the works before Katrina hit, will mark an end to the city's failed public housing experiment that lumped the poor into crime-ridden complexes and marooned them outside the life of the rest of the city.
But critics say the plan will shrink the stock of cheap housing at a time when housing is scarce and drive poor blacks out of the city. They also say the buildings are, contrary to popular opinion, mostly handsome brick structures that will outlast anything HUD builds in their place.
By Wednesday, opponents of demolition appeared resigned to a council vote that would go against their wishes, and were accusing council members of discriminating against blacks.
A news release from the Coalition to Stop the Demolition, one of several groups organizing protesters, characterized the pending action as a "rubber stamp" at a "sham meeting."
"It is beyond callous, and can only be seen as malicious discrimination. It is an unabashed attempt to eliminate the black population of New Orleans," said Kali Akuno, an organizer with the group.
A recent shake-up on the seven-member City Council turned it into a majority white chamber for the first time since the 1980s, a shift that will certainly make the vote even more racially charged.
Three of the council's white members were quick to say they supported the tear-down plan, while the council's three black members were hesitant about expressing their intentions.
One black member, Cynthia Hedge Morrell, issued a statement late Wednesday in favor of demolitions. The fourth white member, Council President Arnie Fielkow, has been careful to tread the middle ground, but a spokeswoman Thursday said he supports demolition.
"It's not racist and it's truly not a done deal behind the scenes," said Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, a newly elected councilmember-at-large, about the council's pending vote.
Besides opening fissures between whites and blacks, the clash has divided along political party lines.
Many Democrats, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John Edwards, have said they would like the Bush administration to stop the demolitions. Louisiana's Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu, has also supported overhauling the redevelopment plan.
By contrast, Republicans have come out in favor of demolition. On Wednesday, Sen. David Vitter and three Republican congressman wrote a letter to a Senate committee considering the redevelopment plan, saying it needs to be left alone because overhauling it would delay and even derail redevelopment.
"Public housing in New Orleans has for many decades served almost no other purpose than to warehouse the city's poor and disenfranchised," the letter said. "That generations of our fellow citizens were allowed to live in government-operated and sanctioned slums is offensive and intolerable." |
