Mayor Nagin Blames New Orleans’s Slow Recovery on Race, Class Issues
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Ray Nagin told a Senate committee yesterday that he does not see the will to fix his hurricane-battered city when compared with the billions spent on the war in Iraq.
“I think it’s more class than anything, but there’s racial issues associated with it also,” Mr. Nagin said. Mr. Nagin also asked for Congress to change the laws and regulations to speed up the flow of federal aid.
“From my perspective, not having the resources at the local level is the absolute killer of this recovery,” Mr. Nagin told the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is looking into the government’s hurricane response.
As of January 18, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to pay for $334 million for infrastructure repairs in New Orleans, but the state only has forwarded $145 million to the city so far.
State officials have said city leaders failed to provide required documentation.
