Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Crime Cameras and City Council Emails - EVEN MORE UPERDATED

The Office of the Inspector General released it's much anticipated crime camera report. First off, all of Ashe Dambala's reportings on Verascent, Imagine, Greg Meffert, and company are totally vindicated. The report exhaustively laid out what got us expensive, broken, useless crime cameras. Also, Jim Letten is directly CC'd on the report with a letter suggesting serious violation of federal law are present in the contracting and accounting irregularities of the Mayor's Office of Technology (MOT).

Now, I think the report was exhaustive enough to rise above any criticisms or racially inflammatory reactions.

... and then this came out. Tracie Washington requested the emails of the council's four white members plus one other city official, also white, on Dec. 3, 2008. And this activist got (tens of?) thousands of emails of all the white city council members on a CD in record time. Meanwhile, WWL can't get squat from Nagin because of "executive privilege" (Nagin copying Bush yet again).

With Veronica White and an activist on a fishing expedition against certain council members thrown into the mix, expect fireworks. Oyster recommends a hazmat suit and a silkwood scrub (whatever the later is?). This could end up like one of those late 90's/early 2000's Orleans Parish Public School meetings.

UPDATE- Talk about synchronicity:



The crime cameras at the end of the block are working! It has missed 3 shootings while being inoperative. Now they're back up and aimed at exactly where the shootings were.

UPDATE 2- One thing I found interesting in the OIG report was the installation and wiring standards. Look at the photos at the bottom of the OIG report. Shoddy workmanship. I'll keep an eye out for specific examples in the future.

UPDATE 3- WWL TV led off their news reports with the Veronica White story, not the OIG report. I know WWL is involved in the emails thing, with their lawsuit and all, but I'm disappointed at the choice of lead story.

UPDATE 4- Now the camera is pointed directly at the telephone pole it's mounted on. FAIL!

UPDATE 5- Now all the Council's emails have been compromised...

UPDATE 6- Dambala's take

1 comment:

E said...

I think you're right. The top story is definitely crime cameras not the emails matter.

But because the MOT is involved in both, it really could and should have been billed as a two-fer.