Gambling on Gulf Coast Recovery

Casinos are helping Biloxi rise from the ruins. While only a fraction of the casinos have reopened for business, the three that have opened thus far are doing very good business, both from curious tourists and workers who have come into the casinos to blow off a little steam.

Amid the monumental wreckage of the Gulf Coast, gambling is up and running. The Mississippi State Tax Commission posted encouraging numbers for the three casinos that have opened late last December on its website. The Isle of Capri, along with the IP Hotel & Casino and the PalaceCasino, took in approximately $63 million in gross gambling revenue in January, exceeding expectations. (Before Katrina, nine casinos averaged about $80 million a month in gross.) Four more casinos, including the high-end Beau Rivage Hotel & Casino, are scheduled to reopen in 2006, and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is expected to follow in late 2006 or in 2007. Harrah's plans to reopen two casino hotels in Biloxi. Post-Katrina Biloxi has the feel of HBO's "Deadwood," a gambling town at a crossroads, facing great challenges and the siren's call of great rewards. Adding to the boomtown feel is a change in the state's gambling laws to allow land-based casinos as well as floating ones. The legislation has spurred a real estate surge, according to an article last week in The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson.

The Administration is going to be releasing a report of its own on the Katrina response. 125 separate findings.

But the document — which a congressional aide said approaches 200 pages — proposes sweeping changes to federal response plans. These include making the military the lead agency to coordinate immediate relief when state and local resources are overwhelmed, one official said.

That would only happen in the worst of catastrophic disasters, such as storms of Katrina's magnitude and terror attacks, the official said. Currently, the Homeland Security Department coordinates federal disaster relief missions under a national response plan it issued last year.

A second administration official said Chertoff would keep his job under the review despite recent calls — mostly by Democrats — for the security chief's resignation.

That official said FEMA will remain under Chertoff's control, even though critics have called for the agency to be removed from Homeland Security and answer directly to the president.

Both administration officials spoke on condition on anonymity because the report had not yet been released. Bush will host a Cabinet meeting Thursday morning to discuss the review, which will be released shortly afterward.

The Senate is finishing its own investigation of the failed response, due next month.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans City Council is doing its level best to tell the poorest former residents of the city that they're not welcome back unless they're willing to work.

New Orleans doesn't want its poorest residents back — unless they agree to work.

That was the message from three New Orleans City Council members who said government programs have "pampered" the city's residents for too long.

The news that some New Orleans City Council members weren't keen on the city's poorest returning home added another layer of discomfort in Houston, where local residents and elected officials alike have stretched to meet the needs of thousands of Louisiana residents in the months after Hurricane Katrina.

Since most of the displaced residents ended up in Houston, you can be sure that Houston isn't liking this turn of events very much. It isn't a question of if New Orleans is going to try to go down this route, the question is how quickly they're going to flip flop on the issue. People have an innate and natural urge to return to their homes. Most of the most severely damaged homes are uninhabitable unless you're going to start from scratch. Many are economically unable to undertake such an endeavor. Those that are may move back, but will find a very changed community.

Others blogging the NOLA City Council maneuverings: LaShawn Barber who wonders who came up with the novel idea of people working in exchange for aid and also notes that these are African Americans telling those African Americans who want to return that they're going to have to work, Laurence Simon, Say Anything who notes that Houston and other cities accepted displaced New Orleans residents without question and New Orleans should get them back - taking the wheat with the chaff, and Daily Pundit who notes that this move would shift an unending economic burden on other jurisdictions.

And the ACLU wants a probe into the Gretena bridge incident, where Gretna police officers prevented New Orleans evacuees from crossing the Crescent City Connection days after Hurricane Katrina.

UPDATE:
Fixed the posting time.

The Mississippi Dept. of Transportation is considering a couple of options for rebuilding the US 90 bridge - one would let the contract with 85 foot clearance and then negotiate with the winning bidder to bring the clearance up to 95 feet, or delay the bidding for a couple of months and then let the contract with a 95 foot clearance. This bridge project would cost nearly $300 million but the suggestion of a drawbridge was shelved - that would have cost another $80 million and incurred additional delays. The problem is that the drawbridge would have permitted taller ships to cross the channel, whereas the static span would have limited height. That's affect some of the businesses along the channel that hoped for no height restrictions.

Wachovia, the financial services company, has donated another $800,000 for Katrina relief efforts in the Mississippi area for education related needs.

Mississippi is also facing a cash crunch that may soon force schools to lay off teachers and administrators. The culprit? The lack of tax revenues. Since the tax base was devastated along the Gulf Coast, the revenues simply aren't there to restore services to prior levels or to even minimal levels. Many municipalities are looking to the state and federal government for assistance:

The Bay-Waveland School District usually receives about $5 million from the city's annual tax revenue to help pay teachers, coaches, counselors and principals, and to buy textbooks.

Katrina washed away about 85 percent of Bay St. Louis' taxable income, and Mayor Eddie Favre said the school district would only receive about 15 percent - or $750,000 - of its usual $5 million next year.

It's too early to know how many jobs will be lost in the district, but local officials agree unless financial help arrives fast, Katrina's long-term effect on some Coast schools and cities could be crippling.

"We need to be federally subsidized to get through this local tax-base dilemma," Superintendent Kim Stasny said. "That would stabilize the district and help us keep our teachers."

Most property owners in Hancock County will not be taxed for the last four months of the year, and because just eight months of tax revenue was generated in the district last year, Favre said the Bay-Waveland schools would only receive about $3 million this year to meet payroll - $2 million short of last year's funding.

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