Second-Class Status Still Nagin' New Orleans

It's sickening and disgusting to keep on reading about the bureaucratic indifference and outright incompetence of Ray Nagin's administration in New Orleans.

Erica DeJan and her husband, Brian, bought a two-story structure just around the corner from their current New Orleans home in June and jumped right into rehabbing it. The scenario was perfect: a bigger house in the same New Orleans neighborhood, plus they would be restoring a property that hadn't been touched since Hurricane Katrina.

So it came as a surprise when Erica, eight months pregnant with her fourth child, found a sticker on the house stating that Mayor Ray Nagin's administration had mistakenly declared it a public health threat and planned to tear it down.

She jumped into action, doing all she could within the space of 48 hours-- filling out paperwork, getting city officials to recognize her plight and schedule an appeals hearing. Despite all that (and a requirement that the city issue demolition notifications in writing-- which wasn't done)-- the city tore their partially-remodeled house down the next day, as the couple watched in disbelief.

Please, please, please New Orleans-- don't do the unimaginable and send Willy Wonka Nagin to congress (as it is rumored he is considering).