Insurance commissioner: Anderson is best

November 1, 2007

Had Hurricane Katrina not struck the Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, there likely would be little opposition in this post that voters must decide Nov. 6.

It's likely that Democrat George Dale would be cruising toward a ninth term, merely awaiting the voters' routine OK to continue after 32 years in office as the nation's longest serving insurance commissioner.

But Katrina did strike, Dale lost the Democratic nomination Aug. 7 to Gary Anderson and, for the first time since 1975, Dale won't be on the ballot. Anderson faces Republican state Sen. Mike Chaney.

The post of insurance commissioner is virtually invisible most years. But Katrina changed the face of insurance in Mississippi and has put focus on this race.

Mississippians have long tended to want to elect their officials with the belief that an elected official is more responsive.

But Katrina revealed that state law renders the insurance commissioner less powerful than consumers seem to want.

No commissioner can force private insurance companies to do business in Mississippi or craft cheap insurance policies for those who wish to live in a hurricane zone.

There are no quick or easy solutions to the housing-insurance crises on the Gulf Coast. What a commissioner can do is enforce state insurance regulations and hold the companies accountable.

Anderson pledged early in the campaign to not take any funds from the insurance industry, as a promise to voters as to whom he represents.

At this critical juncture of rebuilding Mississippi, the state needs expertise in dealing with the complex issues regarding insurance. While Chaney, 63, has served in both the state House and Senate, Anderson, 51, has the better experience for the job, as the state's former chief financial officer.

Anderson is committed to making the office more user-friendly and consumer oriented. He knows government and understands the complexity of insurance issues. He also has the personal integrity and fortitude to independently serve consumers while ensuring insurance companies have a fair competitive market in which to compete.

Anderson is the best choice Nov. 6.


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Rep. Lofgren Introduces Gulf Coast Civic Works Act

Bill Would Create Federal Authority to Coordinate Multiple Recovery Projects

With great personal pride am I posting this press release from the office of Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). She had been my congressional representative when I lived in San Jose. Congresswoman Lofgren is an amazing legislator, and I'm elated that she has sponsored such a critically important piece of legislation that will greatly assist in the vibrant and resilient recovery of this region. Thank you, Congresswoman Lofgren . . . and to her two co-sponsors: Congressmen Gene Taylor (D-MS) and Charles Melacon (D-LA)!!!

- A.M. in the Morning!

Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) introduced the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act of 2007, which will help ensure that real progress is made toward rebuilding and sustaining the Gulf Coast region. As part of a package of concurrent legislation, this bill establishes the Gulf Coast Recovery Authority to coordinate multiple recovery projects, rebuild key infrastructure, and revitalize the region’s workforce through the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project.



The legislation, which is co-sponsored by Gulf Coast Representatives Charlie Melancon (D-LA) and Gene Taylor (D-MS), ensures that local community input is integrated into the decision making process and that local companies are given access to contracts.

“I introduced this legislation to help ensure that the critical infrastructure along the gulf coast will be rebuilt in an efficient and responsible manner,” noted Rep. Zoe Lofgren. “It also establishes a framework to protect the interests of local workers, businesses, and communities while moving the rebuilding efforts forward. This bill will help fast-track the process of establishing sustainable industrial and commercial development along Gulf Coast . While Silicon Valley is a long way from the Gulf Coast , I believe that it is the responsibility of every Member of Congress to ensure that the federal government responds to the need of all Americans.”

=========================================


Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is serving her seventh term in Congress representing most of the City of San Jose and Santa Clara County . She serves as Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. She also Chairs the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections and serves on the House Homeland Security Committee. Congresswoman Lofgren is Chair of the California Democratic Congressional Delegation consisting of 34 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives from California.

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Going Crazy: The Link Between Insurance, Housing, and Depression

A study on post-Katrina mental health that focused on families in FEMA trailers said that suicide attempts in FEMA trailer parks were 79 times the national average.

by Ana Maria

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

— Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher, 1884-1962

Apparently here along the Missisisppi Gulf Coast we're experiencing 40% increase in mental problems than we were six months after Katrina. In plain language, we're more crazy than our relatives and friends in the Big Easy. That's what a Harvard professor stated in his testimony before the Senate committee that U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) chaired.

While I can't provide any psychological insights into the differentiation between here and there, I do wonder if the political perspectives between the two areas may be playing a factor.

New Orleans itself is a hard-core Democratic haven. Those of us with family roots in New Orleans--such as yours truly--are also die hard Democrats. Plenty of us here on the western part of the Gulf Coast replicate the political leanings of our New Orleans counterparts. However, the rest of the Mississippi Gulf Coast is definitely in the Republican camp. So let's try this on for size.

I remember listening to a woman not too long ago talking with pride of the fact that George Bush had actually come to the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. "We're his peeps," she beamed. "Of course, he wants to help us."

I didn't have it in me to attempt to persuade her to look at his actions with regard to his "help" rather than to merely listen to his rhetoric. Sooner or later, she and others will figure it out and, perhaps, with a devastating blow.

Indeed, the month after Bush's annual photo op and empty words about helping us to recover, his intentions made headlines in the region.

White House threatens to veto national wind insurance plan

The Sun Herald, the daily newspaper that covers the state's coastal counties, ran an editorial with this headline.

Presidential Veto Would Break Faith with South Mississippi

The headline speaks volumes about the emotional connection that people here feel toward this White House.

Reality, however, sometimes sinks in slowly. I have listened to local residents who are Republicans berate FEMA while praising Bush. I have heard other local Republicans go on at length about the Democrats in Congress while proudly proclaiming the virtues of the Republican leadership. Many a time these were folks talking while living in FEMA trailers.

I wonder the extent to which the 40% increase in depression, desperation, and other mental health issues is related not just to someone's party affiliation, but also to the amount of betrayal that they just cannot come to grips with regarding the stark difference between rhetoric and reality.

The White House has not used the resources at hand to demand the insurance companies pay up on the home owner's wind insurance claims. Rather, the White House greeted the multiple peril legislation that Congressman Gene Taylor sponsored and passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House of Representatives with a veto threat. We can expect the same when the U.S. Senate passes it. Ditto for when both chambers pass the anti-trust legislation, which will bring the insurance industry under the same federal regulations as its everyone else in the financial services industry.

The insurance commissioner here in Mississippi followed the White House lead. George Dale's actions got him ousted in the Democratic primary. Gary Anderson is now the Democratic nominee and he is running on a platform that includes protecting the policy holder, creating real competition, and, of course, he supports Taylor's multiple peril legislation.

The insurance industry has its lap dog in Republican nominee Mike Chaney. [See Anderson's lap dog ad here. It's great!]

I've dubbed Chaney "Mini Me" because his views replicate those of George Dale. Hopefully, five days from today, it will be a new day here in Mississippi with the election of Gary Anderson as our insurance commissioner.

One of Anderson's promises is to put an office here on the Gulf Coast to help solve the remaining insurance claims. Anderson knows that the insurance industry's deliberate failure to live up to their financial obligations has kept people from rebuilding their homes. Solving the insurance crisis will help solve the housing crisis. And solving the housing crisis should dramatically decrease the depression, desperation, and isolation that many feel. Reducing the causes of the mental health issues will make for a happier, healthier community.

So, voting for Anderson is a sign of hope, of mental health, of promise for coming home.

When all this begins to come to fruition, my hope is that we'll experience the joy of going crazy because things are finally moving dramatically in the direction of our dreams. That's a crazy we're all looking forward to experience. That day can begin this Tuesday when we cast our ballots for Gary Anderson for Mississippi Insurance Commissioner.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Mental-health and housing issues inextricably linked since Katrina.

By JOSHUA NORMAN
McClatchy Newspaper
A study on post-Katrina mental health that focused on families in FEMA trailers said that suicide attempts in FEMA trailer parks were 79 times the national average.

“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” — Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher, 1884-1962

BILOXI, Miss. | For thousands of families still living in FEMA trailers, their place to dream in peace was washed away more than two years ago and has yet to return.

The mental toll of a lack of permanent housing is indescribably great. FEMA trailer parks are therefore the epicenter of any post-Katrina mental-health crisis.

“It feels like my insides are coming out,” said Mattie Martin, a resident of a FEMA trailer park near the beach in Gulfport, Miss.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent letters to residents of that park in the second week of October saying that they would have to be moved by the end of the month, and that FEMA workers could be coming any day to move them. The letter was vague on when and where they would be moved.

The stress of moving again, of not knowing when or how they would get permanent housing, was taking its toll on nearly everyone. That is saying nothing of the fact that they were storm survivors living in flimsy trailers that rocked in thunderstorms and high winds.

“I’m 60 years old. I don’t need to be going through this,” Martin said. “I don’t relax. It does make me forget sometimes. I know I’d just be glad to be settled.”

There have been a few studies on post-Katrina mental health that focused on families in FEMA trailers, and all of their findings were devastatingly bad.

Among the most shocking, from International Medical Corps, was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in the spring. It stated that suicide attempts in FEMA trailer parks were 79 times the national average.

Michael Hall, outreach coordinator for Memorial Hospital Behavioral Health in Gulfport, said mental-health and housing issues were inextricably linked since Katrina.

“They kind of feed on one another,” Hall said: A lack of good mental health makes it harder to maintain a house and a job, and a lack of a job and a house makes it harder to maintain good mental health.

Most of the people who Hall sees who were adversely affected mentally by the storm are of a lower socioeconomic status. The wealthier coast population was able to move somewhere permanently or fix damaged homes relatively quickly. Most, if not all, of the wealthier population’s normal mental-health buffers, the checks on normalcy, are already back in place.

Hall and other mental-health professionals on the coast repeatedly stress that it is impossible to gauge the exact degree of any post-Katrina mental-health crisis, and add that most people possess a profound natural ability to endure through all kinds of stress.

However, no Gulf Coast mental-health professional has said the affordable-housing crisis is making any mental-health crisis better.

| The Associated Press | McClatchy Newspapers © 2007 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com


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Trailer needed, clinic closes abruptly

By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
megha@sunherald.com

LONG BEACH -- Last week's abrupt closure of Coastal Family Health Center has left some patients angry, confused and in some cases despondent.

"Some of our patients, the older ones, said they just want to cry," said medical assistant Terri Scully, who transferred from Long Beach to the Bay St. Louis office after the closure. The call came last Monday, she said, and they were closed by Thursday night. Patients were directed to Bay St. Louis or Gulfport for services.

Patients have been calling her all week, she said. Many lack transportation, and tell her they don't know how they'll get to Coastal Family Health's other clinics. Theirs was a small clinic, and patients feel like they've been abandoned, she said.

One of those patients is Charles Tuttle, who lived a short distance from the clinic. He showed up Wednesday to find the clinic closed. Tuttle, who is uninsured, battles a head injury that requires continuous care, which he gets from Coastal Family Health. Sometimes he can drive and sometimes he can't, and both Gulfport and Bay St. Louis are too far.

The Long Beach clinic opened after Katrina, in a borrowed trailer off Espy Road. It was meant to be temporary, said Coastal Family Health Director Joe Dawsey. They were supposed to return it in July, but he requested an extension until December.

Then the owners of the trailer, Family Health Care Clinic in Pearl, asked for it back last week. Dr. Margaret Gray, FHCC's executive director, said it was needed for a new clinic opening Dec. 1. Given the amount of time he had to move equipment, clean and transport the module, Dawsey said he felt he had to return it right away.

Gray said she was unaware her request would disrupt services in the area, and said she has moved a clinic before without issues. She said she did not kick the clinic out of its home. Dawsey said there will always be gaffes in any move.

"My main concern with the short notice - it was impossible to contact all the patients," said Dr. Sam McCreedy, staff doctor for the clinic. He worries patients will think it was his decision.

Dawsey said they are looking for another permanent location in the Long Beach-Pass Christian area.

For Lisa Thompson the Long Beach closure is a disappointment. She called Friday for a follow-up to some tests and was shocked the phone was disconnected. She called the Gulfport clinic, which couldn't tell her anything. The diabetic cares for five children, and can't afford to get to Bay St. Louis as often as her family needs care. But she'll go, she said, because of Dr. McCreedy.

The thing she'll miss most will be the homey atmosphere of the Long Beach clinic and the friendly staff.

"It made you feel like less of the demographic you were in," she said.


© 2007 Sun Herald. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sunherald.com


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Mental health problems up, not down

NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Published on November 1, 2007

WASHINGTON --
The percentage of people reporting serious mental illnesses in Gulf Coast communities was up significantly nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina compared with a survey taken six months after the 2005 storm, a Harvard University health care policy professor said Wednesday.

Ronald Kessler told the Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery the expectation is as time passes after a disaster the adverse psychological effects will diminish. But the percentage of approximately 800 people surveyed in Gulf communities hit by Katrina who reported serious mental illness increased from 10.9 percent six months after the storm to 14 percent as the two-year anniversary of Katrina neared, Kessler said.

In the New Orleans metropolitan area, however, the percentage of serious mental illness remained virtually the same, rising only from 16.5 percent to 16.9 percent, Kessler said. He could not explain why rates had not increased significantly in an area where people suffered some of the worst problems, and therefore the most anxiety, from the hurricane.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who presided over the hearing, said the mental health crisis facing many Gulf Coast communities has emerged as "one of the most critical issues facing the recovery." She offered some sobering statistics: Only 22 of 196 pre-Katrina psychiatrists still practicing in New Orleans; 54 percent of 1,638 children in grades 4-12 surveyed reporting serious mental health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder; and waiting periods for mental health care increasing from days to months.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Ad: Chaney as Lap Dog for Big Insurance

by Ana Maria

A great ad from the Gary Anderson for Insurance Commissioner campaign! Succinctly states the significant difference between Gary Anderson's candidacy and that of Mike Chaney, the lap dog candidate eagerly lapping up big dollars from Big Insurance.

Once again, Gary Anderson hits it out the park!

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Shake, Rattle, and Roll in the Miss. Insurance Commissioner Race

The 5.6-quake that closed this supermarket in San Jose on Tuesday may have raised the danger of a strong temblor on the Hayward Fault, scientists say. Tuesday's quake was the strongest in the Bay Area since the 1989 Loma Prieta event. www.sfgate.com

Stirring up powerful emotions, San Jose's earthquake has shaken up more than the ground, more than the residents in the 10th largest city in the nation, more than the friends and relatives of the many million who live in the area. Earlier this year while visiting at a friend's home in San Francisco, I experienced a baby earthquake.

I was sitting on the couch watching TV when it hit. I had thought her cat had suddenly ran across the back of the couch. When I realized that Cole was no where in that part of the house, I got frightened. "Oh, God, I don't want to deal with an earthquake," I remembered thinking.

You can't see them coming. There is no way to really be prepared all the time. Sure, I can get water and canned food--and I did. I can earthquake proof my home. But, what if I'm out shopping, say, at the Eastridge Mall in San Jose when an earthquake hits such as the one that hit last night? Canned food and water at my apartment miles and miles away won't be terribly convenient. Thankfully I have not ever experienced an earthquake the size of the 1989 Loma Prieta one.

Last week, many Californians were battling against fires. the rest of us were battling our ongoing disgust at learning that FEMA has continued the fake news cycle that has remained tradition in the Bush White House. Remember? Two years go, the mainstream news got wind of this.

Fake News Gets White House OK

Washington Post

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News

New York Times

Until earlier this year, however, I lived in San Jose, Calif., and I could have been there for this earthquake. All that comes to mind now is the safety of all of my friends out there, the accuracy of the news reports. All that comes to mind is whether we, as a nation, are equipped to handle multiple natural disasters--either simultaneously or one after the other.

Of course, the ongoing battle with insurance companies scamming there way out of paying legitimate claims--and their loyal accomplices in the industry's post-disaster endeavor. Who are these accomplices? For starters, any state insurance commissioner who is in the back pocket of Big Insurance.

Here in Mississippi, we have an election in just six days that is a battle between an enthusiastic apologist for Big Insurance and an ardently enthusiastic advocate for policyholders.

Mike Chaney has taken tens of thousands of Big Insurance dollars. Proudly proclaiming he'll return the money "when pigs fly." In this regard, Mike Chaney is the same as current insurance commissioner George Dale--a 32 year incumbent--who lost the Democratic nomination to Gary Anderson in large part because Dale is in Big Insurance's back pocket.

I loved it when Anderson referred to Chaney as a lap dog for Big Insurance.

Just as I'm certain that last night's earthquake rattled and rolled my former home in California, I am hoping that in Mississippi's election next Tuesday, we'll be rattling and rolling right here in my home state. I'm hoping that we'll go to the polls and vote for the only insurance commissioner candidate who has pledged and consistently demonstrated that when disaster hits, we can count on Gary Anderson to be on our side, to be looking out for our pocketbooks, to be casting a watchful eye upon the way in which insurance corporations are treating policyholders--who are also the voters in this state.

I'm hoping that when we wake up next Wednesday, we will wake up to a brand new era of our own making, having shaken, rattled and rolled the status quo shaking up the Big Insurance powers that be with the power of the votes cast for Gary Anderson.

That will spell relief for policyholders whether here along the Gulf Coast or our friends and relatives in the Delta or in the central and northern part of the state.

That will spell disaster for Big Insurance, and that is a disaster all of us can live with easily.

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Unimitigated Gall of Bush's Corps of Engineers

by Ana Maria

The unmitigated gall of Bush’s Corps of Engineers Susan Rees burns my grits. First, she walks into this tiny town and announces a never-before-heard of plan from Bush’s government to buy up 2/3 thirds of our homes. Then, she has the audacity to blame our outrage on the press.

“. . . at Monday's meeting, Rees blamed the press for at least part of the ensuing public reaction.

She also described Hancock County residents and public officials as "gullible."

"We never envisioned that people were so gullible that they'd believe the federal government would come in and buy up 17,000 properties," she told the local officials.”

My outrage was at what she herself told hundreds of us at a public meeting held at the local high school. Gullible? The only gullible ones at that meeting were Bill Walker, executive director of Gov. Barbour’s Department of Marine Resources, and Susan Rees representing Bush’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Sun Herald aptly described the pair.

Walker and Rees were the same officials who threw shock waves across Hancock County in September when they held a hastily assembled public meeting at Bay-Waveland Middle School.

The pair apparently forgot that before giving any kind of a speech it is important to know who comprises the audience. One of the things that I really love about having come home to Bay St. Louis, Miss.,--one of the tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero—is that I’m surrounded by people who have well-refined BS detectors and who speak their mind instantly and do so in such a way that leaves no question as to their meaning. What a breath of fresh air!

God knows that whether I was living and working in the capitol of Silicon Valley, Calif., or Nashville, Tenn.—the capitol of country music, or around our nation’s capitol—Washington, DC, it always seemed to me that I needed a dictionary or a thesaurus to understand people who were born and raised right here in the USA. They didn’t seem to routinely be able to just speak what is on their minds. Too much ambiguity for my tastes.

I come from direct-speaking folk, and because many of us down here have accents similar to those in New York AND because we’re direct in our verbiage—a directness that is often associated with New York, some mistake me as being from New York. Fine by me!

Somewhere along the way, I learned that the migration patterns for the Italians and Irish were similar in New York, Boston, and New Orleans, and thus our speech patterns find kinship. With all due respect to my New Yorker friends, I have often tell folks that I’m like a New Yorker . . . with charm. You know, tell you that folks that they are idiots for their foolish comments then turn around and offer ‘em something to eat to ease their pain of facing a new piece of information about themselves. Directness with a side dish of charm. Kinda has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Well, Ms. Rees apparently is using the White House talking point to blame the press for delivering accurately the pathetically ill-designed plan to buy up the private properties in this community. I was there along with the rest of my community when she presented Bush’s wall-and-haul proposal. Wall off this beach town with 40 foot seawalls along the beach. Haul off the residents who’ve been here for decades. My own family moved here from New Orleans in 1953. That’s 54 years.

As I’ve written before I find it no mere coincidence that Bush’s “wall-and-haul” proposal was reserved for Congressman Gene Taylor’s (D-MS) hometown. He’s not offering to buyout the 9th Ward in New Orleans or Lakeview at the other end of the economic spectrum of that beloved treasure of a city. No, Bush’s Administration is targeting the itty bitty hometown of the man who is pushing through Congress a bill that will radically alter one aspect of the financial services industry—the property insurance end.

Personally, I think the discussion of the buyouts is politically motivated, political revenge because Gulf Coast Congressman Taylor (D-MS)—a man whom the Bush Administration could count on to vote with the White House on its Iraq and social conservative policies—had demonstrated clearly that his moral values included using the government levers of power to help the American people of every political, economic, and religious stripe and size.

You see, once Taylor’s ground breaking multiple peril insurance legislation is signed into law, the Big Insurance Scam days are O-V-E-R. Immediately, REAL competition for REAL insurance enters the market.

I don’t believe that the buyout plan was ever intended to do more than to mess with Congressman Gene Taylor through riling up his constituents who would then flood his office with frantic phone calls and emails taking up precious time and energy that Taylor and his staff has been using successfully to push through the U.S. House of Representatives the Multiple Peril Insurance legislation. That legislation is beginning to get traction in the Senate. Bush’s folks need a way to slow it down and kill it. I think this wall-and-haul proposal is part of the White House arsenal.

Ms. Rees can take her White House drafted talking points blaming the press for our outrage then calling us gullible for being rightfully angry that the Bush Administration can drag its oil drenched, blood-soaked feet when it comes to helping us get back ON our feet and just stick it where the Mississippi Gulf Coast sun doesn’t shine.

All the while she is over here doing the Bush Administration’s dirty work, Bush’s buddy Rush Limbaugh is pretending everything is honky dory.

You know, nobody ever talks about Gulfport Mississippi and all these places in Mississippi that were literally leveled during Hurricane Katrina, and they're back on their feet or they're in the process of getting back on their feet. You never, ever hear about the misery and the destruction that they went through, because they're not whining and complaining about it. They're out there fixing it, just like they're doing in California.

Yeah, well, if we were doing just fine, Bush and Barbour wouldn’t be proposing a wall-and-haul policy.

Alas, Bush and Barbour are in bed with the insurers while Rush and Rees parrot the White House talking points.

If both Bush and Barbour had pushed the insurance industry to pay up immediately and in full on the wind policies of our homeowner insurance policies, we would be fixing up the place. Rush Limbaugh’s comments would, then, make history reflecting reality with which everyone down here could agree. Susan Rees would be memorizing her White House talking points to deliver to another part of the nation where I would hope she would continue to experience the wrath of Americans she erroneously dubs gullible.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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Alternate to buyout program proposed

Posted on Tue, Oct. 30, 2007
By J.R. WELSH

BAY ST. LOUIS -- Local elected officials hammered out a possible compromise with state and federal representatives Monday, aimed at derailing plans for an ambitious private property buyout that has thrown shadows over the Hancock County economy since last month.

During a two-hour evening meeting that excluded the public, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Marine Resources said they may be willing to drop the buyout plan in favor of strengthening an existing program that allows the federal government to buy repetitively flooded lands from private owners.

That would likely narrow the scope of any buyout and ease fears by local officials that a grand-scale buyout would jeopardize redevelopment, devour Bay St. Louis and stop any progress that has been made since Hurricane Katrina.

"It's a lot easier to support than a potential buyout of two-thirds of Bay St. Louis," Mayor Eddie Favre said following the meeting.

Favre, members of the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors attended the meeting, along with Waveland Mayor Tommy Longo and Board of Aldermen representatives. Bill Walker, executive director of the DMR, and Susan Rees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, were present.

Walker and Rees were the same officials who threw shock waves across Hancock County in September when they held a hastily assembled public meeting at Bay-Waveland Middle School. That night, they enraged some local residents by announcing a wide range of flood mitigation possibilities the corps had in mind for the county.

Those included a massive land buyout that would turn hurricane-vulnerable private properties into green space.

Since then, local elected officials have said construction has slowed, developers and investors are backing off the county, and homeowners who have already rebuilt are fearful of what might come next. But at Monday's meeting, Rees blamed the press for at least part of the ensuing public reaction.

She also described Hancock County residents and public officials as "gullible."

"We never envisioned that people were so gullible that they'd believe the federal government would come in and buy up 17,000 properties," she told the local officials.

"I don't think people here are gullible," Tax Assessor-Collector Jimmie Ladner Jr. responded. "People are scared."

Corps maps of the plan showed buyout areas that included all of Shoreline Park and other newly annexed neighborhoods stretching back to Cedar Point. That proposal brought loud protests and an opposing resolution from the Bay St. Louis City Council.

In an effort to find a solution, Monday's meeting was arranged by Tish Williams, executive director of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. During the discussion, official after official expressed how deeply the state and federal plan has wounded the county.

"Real estate has been slow," said Bay St. Louis Councilman Bobby Compretta, also a Realtor. "But when this buyout hit the newspaper, it hit rock bottom."

Under the compromise idea, Walker and Rees indicated they would consider dropping the overall buyout for Hancock County and meet with a three-member committee of elected officials to craft a new plan. It would involve possibly broadening an existing FEMA program that allows owners of property that floods repetitively to sell out to the federal government.

The current program calls for FEMA to pay 75 percent on such buyouts. Local governments are responsible for a 25 percent match, but hurricane-strapped governments now can't afford that. If the corps were to assume the buyout power instead of FEMA, the federal government might then shoulder 100 percent, officials said.

Meetings between the state, the corps and the local committee will begin as soon as possible. Rocky Pullman, president of the Board of Supervisors, will represent the county. City Council President Jim Thriffiley will represent Bay St. Louis, and Alderwoman Lili Stahler will represent Waveland.

Meeting tonight
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' proposed buyout program will be the focus of Jackson County Supervisor John McKay's town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Ocean Springs Middle School.

The corps is seeking public input about a proposed flood prevention plan which would buy hundreds of low-lying residential homes in the county's flood plain with federal funding.

"This is a great opportunity for Jackson County's residents to learn about the corps' buyout program in person," McKay said. "This meeting is open to all county residents and officials. We are going to have the people who can answer the important questions."



© 2007 Sun Herald. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sunherald.com

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