From: John Cuccia 

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:31:34 -0500, Richard B.  wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:10:17 -0600, John Cuccia 
>wrote:
>
>>Yeah, mostly scanning the internets for Saints news these days....
>
>My wife lived in the Chicago area for a long time so it's Da Bears
>here.

I just wish the Chicago folk had kept that fat fraud Ditka to themselves.

>Is everything install on one box?  I don't have any experience of the
>product.

Yep, everything.

>So does the other consultant get a kick-back? 

No, but don't say that too loud, he might hear .

>Btw my step-daughter was down in MS doing some volunteer work for a
>Katrina family and she was appalled at what happened and what remains.
>Without taking a political posture, I'd think they've thrown enough
>money down there to raise the whole coast up a couple feet by just
>burying the money in the ground.  Did NO soak up the riches leaving
>the rural areas dry?

I don't think that's the case, at least if you are talking about New
Orleans vs the rural areas of Louisiana.  I have no idea how Mississippi is
spending the money they are getting from the feds.

I do know that a lot of the early money in Louisiana went to the Corps of
Engineers for levee work, and quite a bit was spent on repairing military
facilities. Government auditors recently identified fraudulent individual
aid claims of up to a billion dollars and are now starting to audit monies
paid to companies in the aftermath.  The results of that should be, er,
interesting.

I do know that however much has been spent, there hasn't been a lot of
trickle down to individual homeowners in Louisiana, either in NO or the
rural areas.

Mississippi got a proportionally bigger share of the money allocated for
homeowner relief than than the relevant damage to each state would warrant,
but the bill getting that money appropriated was pushed through a reluctant
Congress by MS legislators,who naturally made sure that their needs were
met.  Both states were fortunate that  MS had the legislative stroke to get
it done.

Anyway, Louisiana set up something called The Road Home program to help
distribute the $7.5 billion allocated to homeowners in the state but very
little of that money has been awarded.  According to the article below, in
the 15 weeks since the program began accepting applications, it has
received 95,144 and closed 118.   It's going to
take a while at that rate.

http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/viewStory.cfm?recID=17903

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