[FoCHAT] CHATNews: Prying Loose Names Of Appeals Subcontractors from LRA

Sat Feb 6 21:19:25 CST 2010

CHATNews:  Prying Loose Names Of Appeals Subcontractors from LRA
Feb. 6, 2010 
Dear CHAT Members, 
Ø Chapter 3, Part 3: LRA Withholding Names of First-Level Appeals Subcontractors in Letter from LRA Attny. Dan Rees

Mr. Rees sent a letter on Mar. 2, 2009 to my lawyer with some of  the missing documents requested on Oct. 20, 2008

·         In my public records request of Oct. 20, 2008, I asked LRA to:
a)     Provide the names of any and all subcontractor(s) who are conducting appeals.  
The answer from Mr. Rees was “I am awaiting receipt of this data.”

b)    Provide the names of any and all subcontractor(s) who are providing the case managers (PALs) for resolving dispute issues with applicants.

The answer again from Mr. Rees was “I am awaiting receipt of this data.”

c)     Although these names of state subcontractors were obviously readily available and should be public information, it was not until 8 weeks after filing a court order for LRA to produce documents and 11 weeks after this letter from LRA attorney Dan Rees that I received subcontractor names formally requested 25 weeks earlier.

d)    The answer to both of these requests was finally provided on May 27, 2009 by an outside attorney, T. Allen Usry, hired at public taxpayer expense ($175 per hour; total expense for him and the other outside attorney, E. Wade Shows, hired for my public records request case was over $20,000).

e)     For both requests, the answer was as follows:
“Quadel, Providence, and Franklin Industries. Worley did some elevation PAL work.”

·         So, the same subcontractors who supposedly helped applicants with disputed issues during the compulsory pre-appeals review were paid to administer the subsequent appeals.

·         Despite the fact that some appeals staff tried to be as fair as management would allow them to be, how could that double role for the three subcontractors provide fair appeals of contractor mistakes?

·         In summary, the contractor hired subcontractors who reviewed the contractor’s mistakes at pre-appeal level (the so-called PALs misnamed Personal Assistant Liasons) and the same subcontractors handled first-level appeals. 

a)     The PAL system was a compulsory pre-appeal system instituted by Mike Spletto and Suzie Elkins previously heads of the state Office of Community Development, OCD, and Paul Rainwater of LRA, that was little better than the previous also misnamed Dispute Resolution pre-appeal system.

b)    Not to worry. If you did not get an unbiased assessment during first-level appeals, there was always the state appeals, your final level of appeals, conducted by unknown state personnel by unknown rules (see the last installment in this series). 

c)     If you want to avail yourself of the guaranteed-by-law right of judicial review of state decisions for individual citizens, LRA is claiming in the Louisiana Supreme Court, that you have no access to a judicial hearing even if RH takes your house and doesn’t give you any of your money after a duly signed closing (a real previous RH legal case).

Road Home has left many on the road: An editorial, Times-Picayune, January 06, 2010, http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/01/road_home_has_left_many_on_the.html

Road Home program still a dead end for some New Orleans homeowners, David Hammer, Times-Picayune, December 28, 2009, http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/12/post_225.html

·         Why did Paul Rainwater Executive Director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) and LRA attorney Dan Rees go to such extents to keep secret the subcontractors for the main Road Home Program (RHP) contractor, ICF?
·         He did this even though
a)      the state senators voted almost unanimously to fire this contractor
 http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Katrina/Rebuild/Louisiana_Road_Home_ICF_Investigation_Needed__6028.asp;
http://www.trinitynola.com/Document.Doc?&id=372; Dec. 15, 2006, Louisiana Senate votes 97 to 1 to cancel the ICF contract, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/katrina/etc/cron.html   

b)      it was common knowledge that the contractor was extraordinarily deficient in running the program
"The reality is the Road Home program has been a dysfunctional program since its inception," said City Councilman Arnie Fielkow. Loyola University press release - August 15, 2008
http://www.loyno.edu/news/story/2008/8/15/1545; “Road Home Fix Falls Short”
c)    Dozens of media articles railed against ICF. 
Just one example is the Op Ed article “Lose the attitude, not the paperwork”, By Jarvis Deberry, Times-Picayune Editor, October 28, 2008
“The Road Home Program has messed over so many people in so many ways over such a long period of time that, at this point, it takes a particularly egregious error to attract attention now. “
http://blog.nola.com/jarvisdeberry/2008/10/lose_the_attitude_not_the_pape.html

Ø     Comments from our online survey last week
Survey Respondant #1. I had an appraisal from 1 week before the storm which my est. property value was $160,000.00. The appraised my home at under $100,000.00 from the start. I had to fax and send the appraisal atleast three times. It was always we do not have that or we did not get it. I would like to state that I also worked for First American Title Agency in New Orleans for the Road Home for about 3 weeks through a temp. agency. 
The rules for checking title on property changed daily. I was in the title industry for 7 + years and I was the only one in my dept. who knew anything about reading LA title, judgments, liens, property tax etc. I knew more than the so called supervisors in the dept. Want to know a waste of tax payer money? It was me sitting at a computer making $15.00 an hour doing data entry and not putting my skills to good use. I ended up quitting because I am not one for data entry and I found a position to use my skills. 
I was told I could not get the grant because FEMA stated my home was less than 50% damaged. This is not correct as my insurance company stated more than 50% damaged and paid me out full on my flood policy.
Survey Respondant #2. My file passed through innumberable hands, after Easter Seals Special Needs Counselors were inexplicably terminated in February of 2008 (Easter Seals workers were the *only* ones that had taken true ownership of my file).
Survey Respondant #3. i chose option 2 because i was told that i qualified for the additional compensation grant and i didnt...

Ø       To update or take our online survey:  see the link in the next-to-last line of our website
http://chatushome.com

Best wishes, 
Melanie Ehrlich 
Co-Chairman, Citizens’ Road Home Action Team (CHAT); http://chatushome.com 
Member, LRA Housing Task Force 
You can comment at: 
http://www.chatushome.com/blog/?p=64 
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2009/09/the-far-too-long-and-winding-road-home-program.html 

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