I’m reading Bill McKibben’s book, Deep Economy. It has some very interesting ideas to consider. Personally I think “Local” is the “new Green”.
But decide for yourself. Come and see Bill McKibbin discuss his book in person at the Garden District Book Shop on March 12th from 5:30 to 7:30PM.
January 2006.
I’ve been back in my home since October 2005. The bottom floor of our house is gutted. We have replaced our water heater, a washer & dryer. My husband and daughter came home to our raised bungalow from Austin, TX in November 2005. We finally got gas service in December 2005. I’ve been driving from Carrollton to my job at the Chalmette Refinery through postapolcalytic New Orleans for months. My route usually takes me down Carrollton to I-10 to the Claiborne exit and then to Franklin where I jump to St. Claude. The Claiborne bridge has been raised since I returned. The only 2 routes into Chalmette are either via Paris Rd or St. Claude, limited access and both routes require you to go through a military/police check point.
I watched the tide rise and fall from my porch before we floated ourselves and our bicycles out on air mattresses and then rode to I-10 & Causeway. I slept under the I-10 and had FEMA throw bottled water and MRE’s at me. I’ve gutted my own house and driven past more dead refrigerators and tatoo’d houses and debris pile bigger than garbage trucks than I can count. I repeatedly worked side by side with the folks removing debris piles sweeping and scooping the debris from in front of my home. I drive past the devastation and emptiness daily. I have a profound sense of loss but I’m tough and grateful. I have a job, a home, my daughter can return to school, my husband is working on our lower floor, we had insurance. I know that it could be worse. My mom lost everything in her lower 9th Ward home, her job moved to Covington then the Mississippi gulf coast. My brother lost everything in his home in old Arabi. His job is here. His family is still in South Carolina.
In December 2005 I take what is left of my 2005 vacation and spend some down time at home with my family, a real luxury. Then in January 2006 I drive back to work, down Carrollton to the I-10 to the Claiborne exit, down Claiborne. But it’s been 2 weeks and I am on automatic pilot so I forget to turn on Franklin, I reach the foot of the Claiborne bridge and see that it is open. Cool. Great. Progress, right? I drive over the bridge and there to my left is the barge that split the levee still sitting amide what is left of the broken and battered homes. I gasp out loud. How can I still be shocked? I keep driving and there at the foot of the bridge is a house in the middle of the right hand lane. I have to veer around it. I drive on to work but feel gut punched. But the time I get to the light at Claiborne and Caffin I have tears running down my cheeks. I’m a bit bleary eyed as I go through the checkpoint on St.Claude/St.Bernard Hwy. but the cop on this watch has seen it before. I show him my badge and go through. I’m recovered enough to put in a days work before I drive home through the devastation again.
January 2008
I’ve been on vacation putting the finishing touches on our downstairs. It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve driven down Carrollton to the I-10 to the Claiborne exit, down Claiborne across the Claiborne bridge to Chalmette. As I come up over the bridge there on the left are rows upon rows of little pink houses. And I smile broadly at the vibrant image of hope and say out loud “Thank You Brad Pitt”.
January 2006 Despair . January 2008 Hope.
Please be advised that the 2nd District is ticketing parking violations.
Please see the President’s response to a resident of NorthWest Carrollton who, almost, got a ticket this AM for parking facing the wrong direction.
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: how to lose members and infuriate people
(Name removed),
I can totally appreciate that almost getting a ticket at the holiday season is a bad experience. I’m very glad the policeman backed off when you said you’d move the car.
I’d like to give you a bit more background on NWC efforts.
We started asking the asking the police and city to enforce parking and speeding laws a year about a year ago. Working with the police to get them into the neighborhood is a very good thing. The second district didn’t know where we were in January 2006. Today the cop who was writing tickets knew the neighborhood. While this still doesn’t make almost getting a ticket fun, it is an improvement. We want the police to know who we are and where we are and not just when people are getting robbed or shot or stabbed.
Speeding on Pritchard is bad, but nothing compared to what happens during the school year on Apricot. We’ve asked for and gotten police ticketing folks for speeding in our neighborhood. Not as often as we’d like but they have responded. We’ll continue to ask for speeding enforcement throughout the neighborhood.
The parking issue has many layers.
One layer is associated with Mr. Russell, the neighborhood towtruck driver who parks abandoned cars all over the neighborhood and who the 2nd district just helped us get convicted last week. We have repeatedly asked for parking enforcement in our year long fight to get Mr. Russell to stop trashing the neighborhood.
Another layer is associated with our effort to plant trees in the neighborhood. People who park on the green space between the sidewalk and the street endanger our tree planting efforts. People who park on the sidewalk make pedestrians park walk in the street and this affects the walkabilty of the neighborhood and is not good either. Last weekend we planted 28 trees in NWC. We specifically and recently asked the 2nd district about parking enforcement because Mr. Russell was parking his tow truck right where a tree was slated to be planted.
One of the things I personally did throughout 2006 and 2007 was to place notices on cars that were parked illegally. I wanted to make sure that folks who lived in the neighborhood knew when they were parking illegally so that they could adjust their parking habits and avoid getting a ticket . You can ask (name removed) next door, I know I placed one on his car, specifically because he was parked facing the wrong direction. I don’t remember if I ever placed a notice on your car. I did this through out the summer & fall as often as I could to try and avoid just what happened to you today. We also talked about parking enforcement at our neighborhood meetings.
In order to make our neighborhood safe and clean and walkable and livable we need to work with the police as much as possible. It has taken almost a year to get parking enforcement. We expected it would take this long. Unfortunately we can not tell the police to selectively enforce parking ordinances. When they come into the neighborhood to write parking tickets all violations are fair game.
Again, I am very glad that the police did not write you a ticket and allowed you to move your car. I hope that this gives you a better understanding of our efforts and I hope that this understanding will help us not lose you as a member. I’m sorry you were infuriated. I’m home today working on house cleaning and repairs. If you’d like to come down and talk to me about this or any other concerns, I’d welcome a visit.
Jenel Hazlett
Sent: Dec 21, 2007 10:25 AM
Subject: how to lose members and infuriate people
So, this morning I almost got a ticket for parking against traffic in front of my own house. Luckily the policemen backed off when we said we’d move the car. He was very quick to apologize and point the blame at our NWC for hounding his sergeant to address this PROBLEM. Maybe you’d like to change your focus to speeding. We park the car in the street, NOT our driveway to slow the cars down.
If we had gotten the ticket you can bet that if NWC ever asked me for money again, I would say no. And the week before Christmas! I swear this is not the time to be adding $20 to people’s budget.
I can understand that you don’t like cars parked the wrong way. My personal pet peeve is cars that block the sidewalk. However, I think it would be appropriate to WARN members via email that this is a hot item for you so that we can be aware. Honestly!!! This is not the way to build neighborhood unity!!!!
I grew up in the lower 9th Ward (Ward 9-Precinct 1) in a small, raised, clapboard house built in 1959. Everything except Jackson Barracks was “uptown” from us. Uptown was where “rich people” lived. So when I saw the beautiful brick houses shaded and surrounded by large oak trees (Lafitte, Iberville, etc.) I naively assumed that this must be where the rich people lived. The houses seem so much nicer, on so many levels, than mine, including being close to where the other rich people lived and cool places like Canal Street and the French Quarter.
I went to college at UNO (78-83) and daily drove past the “Desire project”. Never once did it cross my mind that rich people lived here. Desire was torn down and, preKatrina had already begun to be replaced by smaller single and double houses. In 2004 as I drove to UNO for graduate classes, New Desire was beginning to look like it could be a nice place to live.
I drive my daughter to school past CJ Peete. I look at these sturdy brick buildings surrounded by lovely oak trees and wonder just what it is that makes these buildings unredeemable. Our current house was built in 1929. CJPeete’s buildings were built in 1941. I know how solid the foundational construction is in these older buildings. I also know how fast we were able to get back in our home post Katrina because of these construction features.
I drive to UNO from my job at Chalmette Refining to UNO to pick my daughter up from her Japanese lesson, past “New Desire”. I look at how these new construction homes survived the ravages of Katrina, the Corps induced flooding and PostK neglect and compare them in my mind to CJ Peete and Lafitte. And folks, from my truck window, there is no comparison. CJPeete and Lafitte look like move in condition. New Desire homes look devastated and fragile in comparison and like they need much more work.
Anyone looking for easy answers and quick fixes should NOT be in New Orleans. Sure it sounds great to say tear it down and build a new one. But this is an easy answer and does not take into consideration or respect our history and the complexities of the situation. We need to stop the rush to demolition. We need to stop the dangerously hypnotic mantra and PostK desert mirage of “redevelopment”. We need instead to start talking to each other in real, open, meaningful venues, not shouting matches and not overly organized and facilitated into meaninglessness public meetings. We need to honor our past while securing our future and we need to realize that there are no easy answers. The answers that will serve us best take time and care; the same type of time and care that make our historic New Orleans buildings, be they CJPeete or shotgun in Black Pearl or a raised bungalow in Carrollton, valuable. If members of congress from California and Nevada can figure this out, then our local leaders should be able to as well.
Jenel Hazlett
I’ve been told by NWCCA’s Vice President, Karen Gadbois, that I need to blog more. Since I respect and appreciate Karen’s influence in my life more than I can say… I decided to listen to her advice. Look for future posts under the “President’s Rant” category.
