Majority of seats on first flight to Vegas filled by Nagin's aides, janitors and people who don't work for New Orleans at all.
ERIN NEFF: 'You'd be out of your mind to say no'
Jan. 22, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal
reviewjournal.com
When the city of Las Vegas offered New Orleans help in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Crescent City Mayor Ray Nagin asked Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to do something for his weary emergency workers.
The response was first-rate. Local casinos offered rooms and show tickets and Vegas-based Allegiant Air offered flights to the weary firefighters, police officers and medics.
At least that's who they thought was coming for the R&R.
The majority of seats on the first flight to Vegas, however, were filled by Nagin's aides, janitors and people who don't work for New Orleans at all.
"We responded to a plea for help from Mayor Nagin and the city of New Orleans following the immense devastation from Hurricane Katrina," Goodman said. "The city of New Orleans chose which of its employees would be sent to Las Vegas."
Of the 56 people who took the first flight, 12 worked for the Fire Department, two worked for the Police Department and eight for the Health Department.
At the welcoming press conference at McCarran International Airport, reporters met a paramedic and Fire Capt. Phillip Mason, who told them: "They asked us if we wanted a trip to Vegas, all expenses paid. You'd be out of your mind to say no."
The press did not get to meet Clarence Devezin, Anna Minh Vu or Melanie Williams Mason -- Nagin aides who work under that city's chief administrative officer. They didn't talk to the 23 people who came along just for the ride or the three people who work in the New Orleans Department of Property Management.
I asked Gordon Russell, a staff writer for the Times-Picayune, to run the list of names through his paper's databases of New Orleans employees.
He has no idea who most of them are. On the first flight of 56 people, 23 don't work for the city. Of those, just nine appear to be companions of employees.
The other 14? Who knows.
Alcia and Garrett Hebert, for example, were on the roster for the first flight. Russell said he checked several databases and vetted the names through a civil service source.
"I'd be curious to know who some of these people are," he said.
Russell said the three employees he found in the Property Management Department could not have been first responders. That department is comprised generally of people who maintain city buildings, running the boilers and fixing the air conditioning.
Heroes of Katrina certainly emerged regardless of title. But when a mayor asks for help for his cops, particularly in the wake of two police suicides, there's a different sense of urgency.
If Nagin had asked Goodman to provide a furlough for his janitors it's a pretty good bet the Las Vegas Hilton would not have donated Barry Manilow tickets ($95 to $225 each). Do you really think Wynn Las Vegas meant to hand out ducats to Avenue Q ($88-$99 apiece) to the person who's akin to that show's Gary Coleman building superintendent character?
Station Casinos provided about 40 rooms ($50 to $70 each) for people on that first flight. Other rooms and meals were donated by the Aladdin, Fitzgeralds, the Hard Rock, Lady Luck and Stardust.
"We really went to the 10s on this because we had a property right in the middle of Katrina," said Rob Stillwell of Boyd Gaming, which supplied about 30 rooms at the Stardust, show tickets, transportation, bowling passes, gift bags and meals.
Allegiant Air provided 256 round-trip seats on the four flights from Sept. 7 to 20. The discount airline base fare for travel from Las Vegas to Shreveport, La., is $158. Southwest Airlines donated connecting flights.
That's a whole lot of good will.
Sally Forman, city of New Orleans communications director, said her city offered the trips to "all first responders" in the Police Department, Fire Department and emergency medical service. "Those people who took advantage of the trip were treated like kings and queens," she replied by e-mail. Asked if anyone other than police, firefighters or EMTs came to Las Vegas, Forman said in a subsequent e-mail that city staff from the Office of Emergency Preparedness and from the Sewerage and Water Board were also offered the trips.
"This was for any city employee that was in the middle of the fray," Forman added by phone.
While no direct taxpayer money was spent to host the visitors, the city of Las Vegas coordinated the program and the Las Vegas Police Managers & Supervisors Association chipped in $5,000 to cover miscellaneous airline fees.
When I asked Las Vegas officials for the names of all the New Orleans employees who came on the trips, they could provide only a list of those who arrived on the first two flights. The third and fourth flight records list all passengers as being affiliated with either the New Orleans Police Department or the Fire Department.
Companions were permitted to come on the trips. Malcolm Munster, who is listed as a Fire Department employee, brought five companions. Many others brought three or four companions.
Although Clark County does have four former commissioners facing jail in a strip club bribery case, no place does corruption better than the Big Easy. That time-honored tradition within the New Orleans Police Department is detailed brilliantly by Dan Baum in a Jan. 9 New Yorker article "Deluged: When Katrina Hit Where Were the Police?"
He writes the institution of the New Orleans PD "disintegrated with the first drop of floodwater," but also details acts of sheer bravery and commitment by officers.
I'd like to think the people who did work on the front lines of the disaster took the free trips to Las Vegas. But in some cases, the City That Care Forgot hoped that what happened in Las Vegas just stayed here.
Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. You can reach her at eneff@reviewjournal.com or at 387-2906. |
