Out with a bang after all

Well this is like the third or fourth reversal of plans now. But somehow this just feels more like the way we do our business anyway.

NEW ORLEANS — The city is speeding up the Hard Rock collapse demolition timeline. Officials will now use a controlled implosion to bring down the building and destroy three buildings surrounding the collapse site to do so.

Engineers are shooting for the implosion to take place in mid-March. Debris cleanup will take another two-to-three months.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced the new plan Friday afternoon after meeting with the building’s owners and insurers.

“We are going to revert back to implosion of the site as being necessary to insure public safety as well as being aligned with a timeline that is more suitable for the city of New Orleans,” Cantrell said.

Cantrell also announced her support for destroying three buildings that surround the collapse site to make that happen.

The most likely explanation for the change is this is the fastest and most emphatic way to ensure the whole block gets demolished. Which, in turn, is the best way to ensure the owners of those properties (i.e. the villains responsible for the hotel collapse in the first place) can sell the land for the highest possible profit.

In other words, it's Cantrell looking out for her wealthy allies again.  But, hey, more explosions!

Year of Demolition

They announced today that the Hard Rock hotel demolition process has been pushed back again. 

The previous timeline of stabilizing the building to begin recovering evidence of the collapse and the two bodies trapped on the site on Feb. 28 has now been pushed back until May 7. That delay will also effect when officials believe the building will be completely demolished to an empty lot, pushing it back to December rather than late summer as previously projected.

It says "more to come" at the bottom that NOLA.com article so maybe they'll tell us more later about how soon the bodies that are still trapped under the rubble might be recovered.  Also this doesn't say anything about how the possible demolition of the adjacent properties might play into this plan.  We already know what the mayor thinks.

Answering questions about the proposal at a press conference on Monday, Cantrell said she decided to support the additional demolitions after consulting with engineers who said the work is necessary to safely use the cranes that will be engaged to take down the half-collapsed Hard Rock.

“My initial response to that is public safety first,” Cantrell said. “What the engineers have indicated is that a clear line of sight when utilizing the large cranes that will be used is just the top priority.”

“Public safety has always kind of led us and it will continue to (do so),” she added later. “As it relates to the adjacent buildings, I would say I’m absolutely in favor of demolition” if it is needed to create that clear line of sight.

I dunno. I kind of think if "public safety" had always been the priority with these developers, the building inspectors responsible for approving their plans, or anyone responsible for labor standards enforcement who ignored the complaints of their workers prior to the collapse, then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.  Much more likely the mayor is concerned with making sure the developers pay whatever it takes to clean up their mess. Which is fine, except this sounds like she also wants to help them recoup their losses by maximizing the resale value of the property. Knocking down the whole block instead of just the hotel is one way to do that.

Do the collapse

Turns out they have to blow more stuff up. Terrific way to ring in the New Year. Don't worry. The football and tourism related events will still happen, of course.

City officials presented a timeline for when the implosion of the failed Hard Rock Hotel construction site would happen shortly after they announced the demolition of the building would move forward at a press conference Tuesday evening.

Fire Superintendent Tim McConnell told media the building should be imploded in nine weeks, with recovery of the bodies of two still-missing workers and further investigation to follow. A three-month cleanup will also take place after the planned implosion.

The only factor that could move the demolition past the nine weeks is the College Football Playoffs and New Year's Eve events, McConnell said. "We will not let it interfere with CFP," McConnell said.

This also says they're going to stabilize the "Alpha" crane that has been dangling over Canal Street since the last time they set off explosions down there.  That one collapsed into the now-condemned building while the other broke in half and nose-dived into Rampart Street where it punctured a sewer line.

This result was different from the elegant "umbrella closing"  effect officials said they were going for beforehand. Nonetheless, we were all told immediately afterward that the crashing and dangling was, in fact, exactly what they meant.  McBride also noticed this discrepancy and points us to this video where the contractor continues to say that it happened just like they planned.  McConnell even said at the time that after the demolitions, the dangling Alpha crane was "very stable." It's weird though that the thing they did on purpose just left something that still needs to be stabilized hanging off the side of the building for a month. Sounds fishy to us. But it was good enough for the sages at Georges Media where the moral of the story was, as usual, everyone in charge is doing a great job.

For a different take on that, please see this month's Antigravity where Jules Bentley offers this counterpoint. 

It’s not surprising that Mayor Cantrell now wants to raze the whole structure to the ground, since this murder monument indicts her entire political class. What a towering tribute to its enablers the Hard Rock Hotel presents, a great slumping sundial whose gnomon points to their collective moral lodestar, unquenchable greed. It celebrates the greed not just of its developers but all who collaborated on, encouraged, profited from, and rubber-stamped this deathtrap. The list of the guilty is long, and every name on it is written with the blood of the building’s laborers—for Mammon, whose temple this is, desires human sacrifice.

Yeah you are going to want to read the rest of that. Jules is probably the only writer in town who can so, um, lovingly pull together the threads of New Orleans power, politics and exploitation that run through this story.  (Others who lack the patience and craft can only blurt stuff out into the void.)

I do feel compelled to add one bit, though.  In this passage, where Jules is describing one of the Kailas family's several scandalous entanglements with the corrupt polity, we learn what became of their Bayou St. John home.

Because the Kailas family is one of metro New Orleans’ biggest landowners and developers, almost everyone’s in bed with them, including former Governor Jindal, whose various campaigns they provided with tens of thousands of dollars of donations, monetary and in-kind.

In just one year under Jindal’s tenure (2011-2012), the Kailas-owned Lago Construction firm got more than $1.5 million of taxpayer money through state contracts—contracts which, thanks to the hard work of WWL’s investigative team and David Hammer, we now know were variously improper and fraudulent. On dates they charged taxpayers for long days of public service work, Lago employees were instead laboring on the Kailas family’s multi-million dollar Bayou St. John mansion. You won’t find them there now, alas. In 2016, they sold that property to Metro Disposal CEO Jimmie Woods for ten dollars.

Woods immediately put the Kailas house to use as a venue for political fundraising events. This one was for JP Morrell who was considering a run for mayor at the time.  Look at all the folks who showed up.

In addition to Gov. Edwards, the $250-per-person fundraiser at businessman Jimmie Woods’ home on the bank of Bayou St. John drew a host of other Democratic officials — U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond and Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who is running for U.S. Senate, as well as City Councilman Jared Brossett and current and former members of Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration. The packed event suggested an unusually strong coalition around a term-limited state senator, and Morrell acknowledged there is widespread speculation around who will run in New Orleans’ upcoming mayoral race.

Not long after that Woods hosted a similar event for Karen Carter-Peterson.  She didn't run for mayor either. But that's not the point here so much as it is that, politically speaking, New Orleans is a small town where the money does seem to go around and around in a very tight circle. You can get a pretty good glimpse of it behind just about any building you knock over.

Will Eddie Rispone "tort reform" Hard Rock victims out of their fair share?

The city says the demolition, clean up, and recovery operations following the Hard Rock hotel collapse have cost something on the order of  $400,000 per day. That's bound to be a sensitive issue, particularly now that we are heavy into budget season. The mayor assures us, though, that we're going to make sure we're covered.

The presence of police, firefighters and other city workers on the site has been costing taxpayers about $400,000 a day Cantrell said Monday, pledging that those costs would be recouped once the “responsible party” for the disaster is found.

“We’re making sure every step of the way the liability is with the responsible party, and that is not with the city of New Orleans,” Cantrell said.

Determining responsible parties is going to be critical in this case because, unlike many of the disasters we are used to around here, this one won't draw any help from FEMA. The city has also set up a "resource center" at  the Main Library for workers and business owners who were affected by the disruption.  Also there is an intake survey for businesses to fill out online here. Presumably, even the "disrespectful" businesses are allowed to do this.

Despite a week-and-a-half-long interruption to daily life at one of the city’s busiest intersections, Cantrell said displaced residents and many business owners have shown patience. But she also said some businesses had been "downright disrespectful" and impatient in the face of closures and evacuations. She didn't name any of them.

Inevitably all of this is headed to court where the city and various other aggrieved parties will look to hold Hard Rock, the developer Mohan Kailas, and the primary contractor Citadel Builders accountable for damages.  Multiple lawsuits have already been filed.  Because Citadel and its subcontractors had been in the practice of misclassifying workers, many victims and families may not be eligible for healthcare or worker's comp benefits.   In the absence of federal disaster relief, legal action is likely the only recourse for everyone.

Meanwhile, the statewide election is into its runoff stage. Republicans are on the verge of capturing legislative supermajorities and possibly the Governor's office. One of the animating issues for them this year has been "tort reform."

Oil and gas isn’t the only business sector trying to attribute Louisiana’s problems to trial lawyers The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry has long been engaged in demonizing trial lawyers as the bane of Louisiana business, while they’ve waged a campaign for “civil justice reform”, as they’re now calling it. LABI has long been the primary financial backer of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, which claims to be “a citizen watchdog group dedicated to stopping lawsuit abuse that threatens local businesses and jobs.”

The remaining Republican candidate for Governor happens to own a large construction industry firm himself.  He has some pretty strong opinions about the rights of injured workers and governments to sue companies who have caused them injury. 

Rispone, who compared himself to President Donald Trump, pointed to Louisiana’s natural resources, including oil and gas, that he said should be bringing the state jobs.

“Lawsuit abuse is killing thousands of jobs,” Rispone said. “You know that better than anybody.”

The soon to be governing power in the State of Louisiana defines the only available path to remuneration for disrupted small businesses, compensation for depleted public finances, justice for injured workers, and reparations for a despoiled environment as "lawsuit abuse" and wants it obliterated. 

Once this radical faction is in office, will it move to obstruct justice for the Hard Rock victims? If so, who will speak out for them? Don't count on the Advocate editorial board.  In its endorsement of John Bel Edwards, the paper offered a few issues on which it continues to disagree with him.

There are, after all, many problems to solve, and we haven’t always agreed with the governor’s approach to the state’s underlying challenges. Louisiana needs a governor who supports tort reform and will stand up to trial lawyers and teacher unions. Lawsuits against energy companies put our state at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting investment.

Once the dust blown about by a building collapsed by criminal capitalism has settled, and the damage incurred by its several victims endures, don't expect much sympathy from the local media monopoly. Not when there is still "investment" to attract and unions to crush, anyway.  

The ICE police state makes everyone less free

It's quite a police state we're building for ourselves. We're always trying to hire more cops. The jail is never big enough. We can never point enough cameras at one another.  Why do we accept this?  We are so over-policed and paranoid now that Wildlife and Fisheries rangers will just walk up and ask to see your papers.

A Border Patrol spokeswoman said that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents had summoned officers to arrest Ramirez after spotting him fishing without a license. When pressed for identification, the Border Patrol spokeswoman said, Ramirez had only "foreign citizenship documentation."

A game warden can have someone deported.  Why do we accept that? Just that is bad enough but there is other context, besides. Ramirez was among the workers injured during the collapse of the Hard Rock hotel construction site. 

Besides seeking to compensate Ramirez for his injuries, Gray said, he and his colleagues will oppose his deportation, which he said was set in motion by an arrest that occurred within 24 hours of his "making a statement about the tragic events” at the collapse site to a Spanish-language news network.

Gray said Ramirez’s case illustrates why he believes some workers who know what was happening at the construction site ahead of the collapse are afraid to come forward.

They “fear … being deported or some other retribution by their employers,” Gray said at a news conference in the lobby of Civil District Court. “Just like all Americans, however, they do have the rights that are afforded to us within this courthouse.”

The main contractor on the Hard Rock site was Citadel Builders. According to Open Secrets, Its founder Derek Clark is a serial max donor to Republican federal office holders including Donald Trump and Senator John Kennedy who has been a vocal supporter of Trump's brutal immigration policies.

Can we think of any reason a company like Citadel would support the kind of police environment that keeps their workers in perpetual fear of speaking out about safety issues?  Does that police environment make us all more or less free?  Why do we accept it?

Moving the loot around

The Convention Center has done some re-jiggering of the financing that will go into building its new publicly financed for private profit hotel project. There is a lot of money being moved around here. It's a bit of a shell game, though. A more cynical person than I might even think the entire purpose of it is to cause the Advocate to write this.

Michael Sawaya, the center's president and general manager, told the Finance Committee of the facility's governing board that he and his team had negotiated a reduction in the upfront cash contribution to the hotel project that will come from public funds to $7 million, down from a previously proposed $41 million.

A casual observer might read that and think, "oh so they're not taking quite as much public money."  But that's not what this is.  It just means they're taking less public money in the form of a large lump sum payment from the Convention Center.  Instead they are just spreading that money around.  For example, they are subsidizing a parking garage. 

The Morial Center also has agreed to fund construction of the hotel's $27 million parking garage, which the center will own and lease back to the hotel for a base rent of $300,000 a year plus 2% of parking revenue.

"What we’re doing is taking our contribution and investing it in the parking garage, which is a more positive impact for us and the public," Sawaya told the committee.

Why that is a "more positive impact" for the public is anybody's guess.  It probably works out well for lead developer Darryl Berger. We already know he understands the parking business.  Anyway they're also taking steps to hide their subsidy in other ways. In most cases a PILOT, is basically a property tax break. Meanwhile I'd love to hear more about this hotel and sales tax "rebate."

The other main terms of the revised agreement include: a PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, to the city of between $3 million and $5 million a year, depending on a formula related to revenue from nearby hotels; a ground lease payment by the hotel developers to the center of $250,000 a year, rising by 2% a year; and hotel tax and non-room sales tax rebates to the hotel of 8.42% and 4%, respectively.

Maybe a smart person can tell us more. But what this looks like is, the hotel is shaving its property tax liability by making up front payments to the city. The savings there, go toward "rent" it pays to the Convention Center.  Then the Convention Center kicks back to the hotel some of what it had paid in sales/hotel taxes. Remember the Convention Center is all public money one way or another so this appears very much as though it's just serving to skim away tax money the hotel would otherwise be paying to the city. That would be more or less in keeping with the Fair Sham ethic.

Again, maybe a smart person can tell me that's wrong. Will there be any at this meeting?

Convention Center leaders said they plan to hold a public meeting Monday and have invited local business leaders and other interested parties to hear about the latest proposals and express their views.

Also, this Friday is the deadline for bids on developing the 47 acre disneyland the Convention Center wants to go up around the hotel project. So hurry up and get your proposals in.  Try to keep the prison labor to a minimum if you can.

Also should mention, Citadel frequently does business with the Convention Center.  Is it too soon for them right now?