So, the news is all a flutter about former New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, being convicted of corruption and due to be sentenced today. My question is this: what took them so long?
Bear with me for a moment. Hurricane Katrina was in August of 2005. Even back then, almost 9 years ago, it was no a well known fact that he was for sale to the highest bidder. One incident in particular stands out in my mind.
Following Katrina, there were literally thousands of flooded cars in and around New Orleans that needed to be disposed of. A car crusher in east Texas offered to pay the City of New Orleans $100 per car for the privilege of bringing their equipment to New Orleans and disposing of the cars. The offer would have netted the city approximately $5,000,000 and the work completed in about 15 weeks. Nagin declined the offer and attempted to steer a contract COSTING the city $23,000,000 to a company that had neither the experience nor the resources to do the job. See the Snopes article for more details.
Given the illustrious history of Louisiana politicians penchant for corruption (I mean, who could forget William Jefferson's "cold hard cash"?), wouldn't it just make sense to present election winners there with an indictment for corruption to save time?
There is no corruption in LA. LMAO!!! Well Ole Ray will have a few years to think about it, maybe he can do a lecture series and tell people what not to do.
ReplyDeleteSenior, I'd rather corruption by public servants and elected officials in particular be a capital offense, but I suspect your suggestion is more likely with one slight alteration: Nagin would likely do a series on where he went wrong so that others can avoid getting caught in the future. Then again, I'm pessimistic that way.
DeleteThat's actually what I meant, what not to do. Guess I should have put to get caught on there. Sorry, :)
DeleteSenior, we'll give you a pass this time. You were probably still distracted by the butt exercise post.
Delete