Thursday, July 06, 2006

Childish Antics of a Foolish Man

Nagin is an Idiot...

I just caught word from one of my friends who works as a lobbyist in the Louisiana State Legislature of another gloriously stupid move made by Sugar Ray Nagin. He recently sent bags of Oreos to a handful of African-American politicians who supported Mitch Landrieu in the Mayoral election...including Karen Carter and Ann Duplessis among others.

Not only is it childish....it pretty much sums up what the whole election was really about in Nagin's mind. He has yet to put together a recovery plan for the city (Orleans is the only parish left which hasn't), yet he has time to send a racial "fuck you" to people he should be building coalitions with.

The man is a fucking idiot, and contrary to popular opinion, he's not clean. I kept my mouth shut through the election about this, but I'm fed up with this shit. Stay tuned to AZ, I'm gonna fill you all in on Sugar Ray's system of graft....I just want to make sure I get the story correct from my sources before I post it.

2 comments:

bayoustjohndavid said...

I hadn't heard the oreos story, but I heard something about the mayor and Jesse Jackson handing out chocolate kisses at the inauguration. The Jesse Jackson part made me think it was racist fantasy, but I did hear it from somebody reliable. Also, it sure sounds like the kind of thing that Nagin thinks is clever.

I'm looking forward to your post on graft. In the meantime, I hope you don't think there's anything wrong with people that don't have sources pointing out there are items in the public record that sure seem to belie his squeaky clean image. They predate Katrina and would certainly raise questions in any other mayor.

Anonymous said...

Wanted to comment on the Ernest Collins mess that was on the front page of today's paper.

This is clear conflict of interest. There may have been some laws broken.

There is no way you can dodge the bullet here. They guy was running a production company while acting as the 'head' of the mayor's entertainment department--an office devoted to building business, in part, in the film and TV industry.

He is using his office to build connections in the film and TV biz & then funneling some of the business from those connections to his own firm.

Lots of people sadly use their positions in government as a springboard to build connections so that once they're 'out' they can become a consultant or use those connections as a client base. But FEW actually run a business themselves while they are still in office. Most will 'sell' the business to some trusted colleague or family member & thus try to add a layer of insulation in order to slough off the graft if the shit hits the fan. Usually even this tactic doesn't work--but apparetnly Collins wasn't satisfied with those arrangements--insisting on being the head cheese regardless.

The reasons NOT to do what Collins has done are obvious to the average fourth grader. But he apparently needs to have it spelled out for him in big, bold print--using the real familiar "I didn't realize I was doing anything wrong" whiner.

But as usual, the TP has missed the really significant part of the story. To do what Collins did, he would have to conduct some of the company's business while on the city's clock. Film and TV is production is labor intensive & there's no way to divide time between a demanding full-time job & doing production.

So he used city time and money (vis-a-vis his whopping 84 grand a year salary--not even upper-tier management) to produce for-profit programming for his own company. There's no way that's what the citizens of N.O. are paying for in their officials--& 84 grand a year is plenty enough to build a base to get a business going the moment you step out the door of Nagin's administration--plus with all the contacts you make? Come on? Who's he trying to kid?

A case of greed and impatience, plain and simple. Time for Collins to resign.