January 2007 New Year's is past us as month 17 of the recovery grinds slowly, bureaucratically forward. FEMA, the Corps, ICF (Road Home) and other governmental entities continue to grind along at their own pace under continuing criticism. Monumental waste continues unabated.  Insurance problems continue to stymie the recovery. GNOCDC with a Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program grant reports housing permits are up while infrastructure recovery remains at a standstill.

Crime, especially murder dominates our attention. The Criminal Justice System seems unable to make a dent in murder. Citizens are frustrated and demoralized and saying ENOUGH. Three thousand of them marched on City Hall on January 11 to deliver this message. Very few citizens are willing to step forward with information for fear that they'll become targets. Lee Brown of Houston was contracted to help the NOPD with community policing. The police have been coming under new criticism this month for failing to collect evidence at crime scenes, concentrating instead on eye witness testimony to get convictions. We've heard nothing lately from Richard Ieyoub in his CJS coordinating role. (In fact what happened to the other post-election efforts from Virginia Boulet and Rob Couhig?)

The Unified New Orleans Plan is nearing completion.  Community Congress III was held on 1/20/7 and the plan has been turned over to the city for action. Plans center on flood control, housing, and infrastructure. Implementation, especially financing may be problematic. Ed Blakely named as the city's executive director for recovery management says its time to get going.  Will he work with the UNOP or start over again, again? The LRA is pushing its Louisiana Speaks regional planning effort. Louisiana Speaks features Peter Calthorpe and other regional planning "rock stars."

The Danziger 7, police officers, turned themselves in at Central Lockup to face murder charges amidst nationwide attention. After a few days they were released on bail. At the end of January they were reinstated in their jobs. The rift between the police and the DA seems wider than ever.

Twice a week garbage pickup resumed under new contracts to Richards, Metro and SDT. The promised garbage cans will be delivered in February or March. So far so good, and early reports are that the French Quarter has become much cleaner.

The Saints are the NFC South Champions and got the #2 seed in the NFC  playoffs. By beating the Eagles in the Divisional game they advanced to the NFC Championship game. Fans were ecstatic but the story came to a close in Chicago where the Saints could not top the Bears in the snow. The 39-14 loss did little to dampen the fans appreciation for a very special Saints football season. Reggie delivered a fantastic catch and run early in the third quarter but capped it with a taunt and a flip that fans didn't like. Reggie's woes for allegedly accepting payment while at USC deepened.

The Sugar Bowl came back to N.O. on January 3, 2007. Allstate was the major sponsor (wouldn't you know it).  LSU dismantled Notre Dame in a nationally observed football spectacle by the score 41-14. After Florida demolished Ohio State by an identical margin there were many who believed LSU should have been ranked #2.

City wide WiFi reached Algiers and Uptown and works to a limited extent. FeatherbyEarthLink offers 300kbps for free and 1 meg for $22 per month. Complaints about (lack of)  in-home service are surfacing. The pressure is on Cox and BellSouth to provide cost effective high speed alternatives. Cox is, amazingly enough, embroiled in a contract dispute with WWL-TV over HD.

HUD and HANO are at odds with residents of the public housing projects around the city. Residents took matters into their own hands in January and entered the Lafitte and St. Bernard Projects to reclaim personal effects. Some decided to stay and the squatters are now arrayed against the authorities.

Comments by Michael Brown prompted Governor Blanco to go on the offensive with anger and disgust with federal politics in the aftermath of the storm. Brown implied that because Louisiana was headed by a woman, Democrat governor it got worse treatment than did Mississippi, headed by a male, Republican governor. Donald Powell fired back in a radio interview that Blanco's numbers were wrong but he didn't touch the political complaint. Powell went so far as to suggest that Blanco should quit worrying about how much money Mississippi is getting and concentrate on using the funds she has received effectively. President Bush failed to mention recovery on the Gulf Coast during his State of the Union address. The new Democratic Congress's hundred hours plan didn't include New Orleans, but we might be recognized in the first hundred days.  Looks like the "honeymoon" may be over.

New population estimates for St. Tammany parish have officials north of the lake crying "foul." They think more people are living up there than FEMA and the feds are willing to admit.

This is a weird mix of the old and the new. The city is growing bigger and things are happening faster but they aren't all good. It almost looks like we have recovered and the city is now as messed up as it was before the storm.