More Nagin lunacy/incompetence (The Free Las Vegas Trip for Cops)..
Logical Anomaly's Ego
...ERIN NEFF: 'You'd be out of your mind to say no'
When the city of Las Vegas offered New Orleans help in the wake of the
Hurricane Katrina disaster, Crescent City Mayor Ray Nagin asked Las
Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to do something for his weary emergency
workers.
The response was first-rate. Local casinos offered rooms and show
tickets and Vegas-based Allegiant Air offered flights to the weary
firefighters, police officers and medics.
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At least that's who they thought was coming for the R&R.
The majority of seats on the first flight to Vegas, however, were
filled by Nagin's aides, janitors and people who don't work for New
Orleans at all.
"We responded to a plea for help from Mayor Nagin and the city of New
Orleans following the immense devastation from Hurricane Katrina,"
Goodman said. "The city of New Orleans chose which of its employees
would be sent to Las Vegas."
Of the 56 people who took the first flight, 12 worked for the Fire
Department, two worked for the Police Department and eight for the
Health Department.
At the welcoming press conference at McCarran International Airport,
reporters met a paramedic and Fire Capt. Phillip Mason, who told them:
"They asked us if we wanted a trip to Vegas, all expenses paid. You'd
be out of your mind to say no."
The press did not get to meet Clarence Devezin, Anna Minh Vu or Melanie
Williams Mason -- Nagin aides who work under that city's chief
administrative officer. They didn't talk to the 23 people who came
along just for the ride or the three people who work in the New Orleans
Department of Property Management.
I asked Gordon Russell, a staff writer for the Times-Picayune, to run
the list of names through his paper's databases of New Orleans
employees.
He has no idea who most of them are. On the first flight of 56 people,
23 don't work for the city. Of those, just nine appear to be companions
of employees.
The other 14? Who knows.
Alcia and Garrett Hebert, for example, were on the roster for the first
flight. Russell said he checked several databases and vetted the names
through a civil service source.
"I'd be curious to know who some of these people are," he said.
Russell said the three employees he found in the Property Management
Department could not have been first responders. That department is
comprised generally of people who maintain city buildings, running the
boilers and fixing the air conditioning.
Heroes of Katrina certainly emerged regardless of title. But when a
mayor asks for help for his cops, particularly in the wake of two
police suicides, there's a different sense of urgency.
If Nagin had asked Goodman to provide a furlough for his janitors it's
a pretty good bet the Las Vegas Hilton would not have donated Barry
Manilow tickets ($95 to $225 each). Do you really think Wynn Las Vegas
meant to hand out ducats to Avenue Q ($88-$99 apiece) to the person
who's akin to that show's Gary Coleman building superintendent
character?
Station Casinos provided about 40 rooms ($50 to $70 each) for people on
that first flight. Other rooms and meals were donated by the Aladdin,
Fitzgeralds, the Hard Rock, Lady Luck and Stardust.
"We really went to the 10s on this because we had a property right in
the middle of Katrina," said Rob Stillwell of Boyd Gaming, which
supplied about 30 rooms at the Stardust, show tickets, transportation,
bowling passes, gift bags and meals.
Allegiant Air provided 256 round-trip seats on the four flights from
Sept. 7 to 20. The discount airline base fare for travel from Las Vegas
to Shreveport, La., is $158. Southwest Airlines donated connecting
flights.
That's a whole lot of good will.
Sally Forman, city of New Orleans communications director, said her
city offered the trips to "all first responders" in the Police
Department, Fire Department and emergency medical service. "Those
people who took advantage of the trip were treated like kings and
queens," she replied by e-mail. Asked if anyone other than police,
firefighters or EMTs came to Las Vegas, Forman said in a subsequent
e-mail that city staff from the Office of Emergency Preparedness and
from the Sewerage and Water Board were also offered the trips.
"This was for any city employee that was in the middle of the fray,"
Forman added by phone.
While no direct taxpayer money was spent to host the visitors, the city
of Las Vegas coordinated the program and the Las Vegas Police Managers
& Supervisors Association chipped in $5,000 to cover miscellaneous
airline fees.
When I asked Las Vegas officials for the names of all the New Orleans
employees who came on the trips, they could provide only a list of
those who arrived on the first two flights. The third and fourth flight
records list all passengers as being affiliated with either the New
Orleans Police Department or the Fire Department.
Companions were permitted to come on the trips. Malcolm Munster, who is
listed as a Fire Department employee, brought five companions. Many
others brought three or four companions.
Although Clark County does have four former commissioners facing jail
in a strip club bribery case, no place does corruption better than the
Big Easy. That time-honored tradition within the New Orleans Police
Department is detailed brilliantly by Dan Baum in a Jan. 9 New Yorker
article "Deluged: When Katrina Hit Where Were the Police?"
He writes the institution of the New Orleans PD "disintegrated with the
first drop of floodwater," but also details acts of sheer bravery and
commitment by officers.
I'd like to think the people who did work on the front lines of the
disaster took the free trips to Las Vegas. But in some cases, the City
That Care Forgot hoped that what happened in Las Vegas just stayed
here.
Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. You can reach her
at en...@reviewjournal.com or at 387-2906.
