BNOB issued 9 major reports in January, 2006. Public furor over the Urban Planning report was almost matched by the lack of fanfare over the others. They are THE PLAN. They are worth reading and using.

On March 20, 2006 the report was delivered by the Mayor with a few modifications (most notably he still refused to accept the freeze on building permits or city services in designated areas urging citizens to proceed at their own risk). The plan called for creation of the CCRC or Crescent City Recovery Corporation to implement the plan.

· Co-Chairs Mel Lagarde and Barbara Major

· Boysie Bollinger· Kim Boyle · Cesar Burgos · Joe Canizaro · Dr. Scott Cowen · Archbishop Alfred Hughes · Reverend Fred Luter · Wynton Marsalis · Alden McDonald · Dan Packer · Anthony Patton · Jimmy Reiss · Gary Solomon · Oliver Thomas · David White

Urban Planning says go slow rebuilding in the flood plain, greenspace, light rail, and the controversial 4 month freeze on building permits (the freeze prompted the objections)
Education say Charter Schools in a loose network with a minimal central office
Cultural says market, expand, teach
Levees is probably the most interesting and insightful. It adds to the Corps plans with an Industrial Canal dam at the lake, wiers on ICWW and MRGO, a flood gate on ICWW at the Hero Canal, jetties and barge pumps for the drainage canals, internal levees using railroad right of ways and some interesting Cat 5 ideas. Although its focus is to protect Orleans in some areas it is almost regional. The eight "Fast Track" add ons to Corps plans currently in the works look really useful for an additional $200 million.
Criminal Justice encourages regionalism in facilities and processes, recommends a board of directors
Public Transit expands on commuter rail, light rail, streetcars
Government Effectiveness recommends transparency, Inspector General, consolidation of courts, clerks, law enforcement,assessors and tax reform
Health and Social Services has tons of ideas from disaster planning to preventive medicine
Economic Development calls for Infrastructure(levees, transit, utilities, education) Jumpstart (housing,grants,loans, incentives) Business Friendly (taxes),Admin(spending transparency)

The whole package is incremental in nature rather than revolutionary. They all start from the premise that we need and will get a bunch of federal money for a period of  time. They seem to praise motherhood and apple pie which are in need of praise, but they don't really show us how to use the federal dollars to get out of this mess. Maybe if we do all these things and don't screw them up too much we can minimize the misery that citizens will face in the recovery of the region.

Lacking from the plan are 1) real regionalism 2) really smaller government footprint 3) solid business incentives 4) anything that addresses the RACIAL roots of many of our problems.