Ray Nagin stars as “The Big Kahuna”
Life is so good in New Orleans. Or, at least for the Mayor. Mayor Ray Nagin is now being asked about who paid for an expensive Hawaiian vacation for him and his family.
Mayor Nagin is such a jetsetter that he sometimes doesn’t even know who pays for his trips. Apparently, accepting expensive trips for his whole family from a subordinate is commonplace in New Orleans.
The Technology chief, Greg Meffert gave Mayor Nagin the trip to Hawaii, all expense paid, for his whole family. Sounds a little over the top, but let’s play ball.
It seems that a subordinate paid for the trip and that was ok because the subordinate was a friend. No harm, no foul. But wait, it could have been paid for by a private company, but definitely not one that had a contract with the city. Now, if you thought that Mr. Meffert paid for it, then how or why would you think that a private company paid for it? And, if you didn’t even know if a private company paid for it, then how would you know if they had a contract with the city? You smell what I’m stepping in?
Well, it seems that the company that did pay for it, NetMethods, did not have a contract with the city. Whew!! They have become successful just handing out free trips to random mayors across the country, with whom they do no business with. Makes perfect sense to me and the stockholders here at Sit, More, and Do, Less….. But, here is the missing Iranian, if you will. NetMethods is owned by a gentleman by the name of Mr. St. Pierre, and Mr. St. Pierre owned another company that was currently doing business with the city of New Orleans. I am thinking that the fuzzy logic here is that, “hey guys, we will pay for the trip from this company and nobody will be the wiser”. “If anyone does ask, and they won’t, we’ll just say first Mr. Meffert, then company A, then, I didn’t know, then, you’re violating my privacy, then, this is racist, and so on and so on….. it’s the proverbial political beatdown until it goes away.
The problem is, I don’t think this is going to go away. Ray Nagin should be ashamed of using such weak excuses. You sucked down all the Mai Tais and probably got to meet Dawg the Bounty Hunter while you were eating a Big Kahuna Burger in Wai Kii Kii. Now it’s time to face the charges that should be coming in due time. This is nothing more than a payoff for existing work, as well as future work for St. Pierre. I mean, how much is a vacation for a whole family to Hawaii? You can bet your bottom crawdad that the feds will supeona the records from one or more of Mr. St. Pierre’s companies to find out. My guess is that you could easily spend 10k on a firstclass trip to Hawaii for a small group of Cajuns.
Mayor Nagin, as Ricky used to tell Lucy-
“You got some ‘Splaining to Do”………
April 10th, 2009 at 5:39 am
Mayor Nagin is convinced he’s done nothing wrong.
He only took a trip paid for by technology firms who had huge city contracts.
For cameras that still don’t work.
And ran $4 million over budget.
But he didn’t know.
He took lies at face value.
Greg Meffert also had private contract employees running his department at City Hall, representing themselves as City employees, even having their own City of New Orleans business cards printed. This is fraud, of course. But C. Ray didn’t know that either.
Peoples’ houses have been torn down illegally.
City Hall even has a form to fill out for this, it happens so often.
Because they didn’t know.
The Feds are now looking into the Mayor’s missing emails.
Mister Nagin doesn’t know what happened to them, or why the City Council’s emails were still on the server he claims was erased.
He also doesn’t know why owning 40% of a counter top company who gets contracts from Home Depot, at the exact time when Home Depot got tax breaks and a big piece of property from the city at below market rates, would be wrong. He says he didn’t do business with that particular store. I guess he doesn’t know that Home Depot stores are connected. I suppose he thought they just happened to have the same name.
I haven’t heard anything yet, but I’m guessing he doesn’t know his brother-in-law, who collected funds from NOAH for work that was never done, and is now under investigation.
He probably thought it was just some guy who hung around his wife’s family.
“Brother-in-law? I don’t know where you get that…” I can almost hear him say.
Now this kind of Not Knowing is contagious.
Veronica White doesn’t know where millions of dollars of Trash Department money went.
She also didn’t know she shouldn’t steal city emails without contacting the City Attorney.
Or give them away without checking if they contained legally confidential information.
But that’s okay. The Mayor doesn’t know if she’ll be disciplined.
I wonder if we could find her missing millions in there?
Probably not. That would involve Knowing Something.
Now Police Superintendent Warren Riley has caught The Bug.
Council Woman, Shelly Midura has been asking him what his plan is to fight crime in New Orleans. He says he has one, he just doesn’t know what or where it is right now.
The Mayor says that Riley talks to other police chiefs, from other cities, all the time.
So he must have a plan.
Perhaps Warren Riley should be talking to the City Council and the Citizens of New Orleans who are getting shot down at an alarming rate. While they’re still alive, anyway.
They actually live here and pay his salary. Maybe he doesn’t know that.
Like the Mayor, Mister Riley seems very concerned with his political future, how he is seen on a National Stage, and how many boards he can sit on. Perhaps he, too, can get his developer friends to give him an award for Bravery in the Rebuilding of New Orleans. The Mayor did.
But maybe Riley doesn’t know about that, either.
Mayor Nagin & Superintendent Riley recently boasted that there had been only 42 murders in New Orleans in the first quarter. Mister Calculator says that’s 168 by years end, assuming the Summer Heat doesn’t spur an outbreak, like it does every other year.
Anyway, that’s down by about 20 from 2008.
I guess that twenty random people in Orleans Parish have reason to celebrate.
I wonder if the families of the other 168 people will be there to cheer them on.
I don’t know.
I do know this, however.
One of you rotten bastards better start knowing something soon.
You’ve robbed us.
You’ve almost completely destroyed our city, hopes and rebuilding efforts to further your own greed. You’ve made backroom deals with all your friends and given away the farm for your own profit. You’ve blamed the Times-picayune, WWL-TV, Lee Zurik and Stacey Head. You’ve hurled the name ‘RACIST’ at anyone who stood up to your criminal bullying.
And now the Federal Government is going to know stuff.
About you.
And your friends.
And all of the things you’ve done.
As for Knowing Stuff, you’d better know how to spell INDICTMENT.
And if we’re at all lucky, INCARCERATION.
So tell me, punk; Do you feel lucky?
I do.
Lord David
Skull Club
New Orleans
humidcity.com
April 10th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Dammit Lord David….WTF. This MF must be one bad Mother. You seem to be in the know fo Show. he looks like a smarmy SOB. I hope he gets whats coming to him when all this shit goes down and I hope that you give him hell each step of the way.
Why can’t these jerkoffs wait until they are out of office to do this shit? It’s just pure fucking greed.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’ve been watching this dirtbag for years, ever since he took office. Unfortunately everything mentioned above is 100 percent true and accurate, and yet he’s still the mayor of NO. Only 42 murders? like thats a good thing. I wonder if the victims families of those murdered feel like that is a good thing as well. Do you see where i’m going. One, the highest crime rates in the United States. Yet has a plan to fight it, but just doesn’t know where its at or what it is. ? Well, gee. i hope you find out soon. Vote him out!
May 2nd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
That was a magnificent article,Maybe I will sign up to your rss.