Is change coming to Louisiana? Will the tradition of graft and corruption in its political process begin to end with the election of Bobby Jindal as governor?

In a very convincing manner, Jinal has won the governorship. The people of Louisiana have elected a non-white Republican.

Fox News

Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, carried more than half the vote against 11 opponents. With about 92 percent of the vote in, Jindal had 53 percent with 625,036 votes — more than enough to win outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.

“Let’s give our homeland, the great state of Louisiana, a fresh start,” Jindal said to cheers and applause from a crowd that began chanting his name at his victory party.

His nearest competitors: Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges had 1167,477 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

“I’m asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor,” Georges said in a concession speech.

The Oxford-educated Jindal had lost the governor’s race four years ago to Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans a year later but was widely believed to have his eye on the governor’s mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state’s slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

When he takes office in January, Jindal will become the nation’s youngest governor in office. He pledged to fight corruption and rid the state of those “feeding at the public trough,” revisiting a campaign theme.

“They can either go quietly or they can go loudly, but either way, they will go,” he said, adding that he would call the Legislature into special session to address ethics reform.

Now if the national party will only put Maryland’s Michael Steele in as its chairman.

CBS

The owners of a nursing home where 35 patients died after Hurricane Katrina were acquitted Friday of negligent homicide and cruelty charges for not evacuating the facility as the storm approached.

The jury took about four hours to acquit Sal and Mabel Mangano, the husband-and-wife owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, just outside of New Orleans.

“I can’t tell you how good this feels, how good those people are,” Mabel Mangano said outside the courthouse in St. Francisville, the town about 112 northwest of New Orleans where the trial was moved. “This has been a very rough road.”

They had faced 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the elderly or infirm after the patients drowned — some in their beds — when the monster hurricane swept through the area in 2005.

Judge Jerome Winsberg asked the defendants to stand when the verdicts were read. When Mabel Mangano did so, she buried her face in her husband’s shoulder.

Afterward, the Manganos sat back down and hugged each other. Their daughter, Tammy White, sobbed quietly.

“I’m very gratified that the two-year ordeal they’ve been through is finally over,” defense attorney John Reed said.

The victims’ family and friends — all wearing black, some with buttons with a picture of the person who died at St. Rita’s — sat stoically. None cried.

Assistant Attorney General Burton Guidry read a statement from his boss, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti: “I feel for the victims of this tragedy, and my heart goes out to them. I hope they will be able to put this behind them.”

Yolanda Hubert’s 72-year-old mother, Zerelda Delatte, died when the home flooded; her aunt, Gilda Raklen, 90, survived. Hubert said she traveled from Texas to attend the trial.

“The jury may not have found them guilty, but our savior says they are. When they face our maker, they’ll have to answer then,” she said. “They still have never said they were sorry. They haven’t said ‘I’m sorry I let your mother drown like a rat.’ They’re guilty as hell,” she said.

The prosecution maintained that the Manganos should have heeded warnings and evacuated before the massive storm roared ashore. Failing to do so led directly to the patients’ death and suffering, prosecutor Paul Knight had argued.

The defense argued that the Manganos had safely sheltered in their brick facility for 20 years, and that if the levees had not broken, the home would have been safe.

I’ve banged on Louisiana for its foot-dragging with the Gulf recovery efforts, but now it’s Mississippi’s turn. The city of wavelad, nearly flattened by Hurricane Katrina, has lost its mind.

Sun Herald

City leaders denied several special permits Monday, prompting the world’s largest charity homebuilder to abandon plans to construct new houses for more than 70 local families.

The Board of Aldermen supported a recommendation from city planners to deny special permits that would have allowed Habitat for Humanity to build nearly 20 new homes on lots that are smaller than the city’s code requires.

Habitat, which is building thousands of houses along the Gulf Coast, was planning to build at least 70 new homes in Waveland, where more than 200 families remain on a waiting list.

Instead, Habitat will finish up work on “two or three” homes for families who already own property large enough to meet the city’s standards. After that, the group will look elsewhere.

“We’ll find places to build, but it won’t be in Waveland,” said Wendy McDonald, who runs the Hancock County chapter of Habitat. “We will focus the bulk of our energy on communities that are more receptive to smaller-sized lots.”

McDonald has said large lots are more expensive, which drives the mortgage payments out of reach for most Habitat homeowners.

In addition, she said many who qualify for Habitat homes are senior citizens and single moms who would have trouble caring for a large lot.

“I’m not so sure any affordable housing builder can afford to build on larger lots; the math just doesn’t work,” McDonald said. “There’s no consideration for affordable housing in Waveland and that’s where the housing shortage is the most severe.”

The 20 lots that were denied are in the predominantly black neighborhood of Middletown, but Alderman Brian Schmitt said most of the resistance came from residents living in different parts of the city. “The opposition wasn’t just from Middletown, it was from everywhere,” Schmitt said. “People don’t want smaller lots and that’s what the ordinance is there for.”

Schmitt, who represents parts of Middletown, said he wrestled with the decision for weeks, and casting a vote that could prevent construction of dozens of homes can make it tough to sleep at night. “Having to make that decision killed me,” he said. “I went home and cried like a baby.”

Since March, aldermen have approved several recommendations from city planners allowing special permits similar to the requests they denied from Habitat. One property owner was allowed to divide his property into eight lots, each seven feet smaller than the city’s code requires, and another homeowner was allowed to divide one lot into two, one of which did not meet the city’s square-footage requirement.

However, Schmitt said, none of those requests caused nearly the kind of fuss that surrounded Habitat’s plan. He said such large-scale development on small lots could jeopardize property values for existing homeowners, and homes built close together could create dangerous fire hazards.

This is just plain stupid. Racism? Who knows? But it’s 70 homes that will not appear on the tax rolls. Can Waveland really afford to be that short sighted? Waveland was levelled, essentially zero property values.

Homes built close together is called city living. It creates no appreciably greater fire hazard.

What a bunch of maroons! [Bugs Bunny]

I was sceptical a few weeks ago when I wrote about the vast sums of money that the Feds were giving to Gulf Coast homeowners. I figured a lot of folks were going to add to the waste we’ve already seen.

Boy, was I wrong! I admit it. I never saw this coming.

Louisiana cannot manage to give the money away.

WWL-TV

Only 11 people have received a check so far from the Louisiana Recovery Authority and only about 250 have been told they’ll be receiving money, a pace that brought shocked responses from some officials at a public hearing Friday.

The LRA has about $10 billion to distribute to homeowners and they’ve had the funds for about three months. There are nearly 27,000 applicants.

“We have over $10 billion at disposal,” said State Senator Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero. “If we can’t spend it in an effective manner, maybe the president and Congress gave it to the wrong people.”

LRA Chairman Dr. Norman Francis disagreed with the assessment. He said three months is not a long time and he said that the group worked hard to put in safeguards to make sure everything was in place before the funds were distributed. He said the LRA expects to start conducting about 1,000 interviews a day by mid-October. And, they admit that it takes about six to eight weeks to get money once the interview and application are completed.

That prompted Senator “Clo” Fontenot to question why little was done in advance of the state receiving the money. “We waited to make sure we had it all,” Francis conceded. “If that was a mistake, we take blame for it.”

An angry Sharon Lamberson, who lives in the city’s Holy Cross area, blames Louisiana politics for the trickle of aid. “All the filibustering, all the unnecessary meetings and planning must be stopped immediately,” she shouted.

And, cynical me points out that the delay allows the opportunity to let far more of this largesse slip into the cracks of the bureaucracy.

BTW, just a note to the people of Louisiana. These people work for you. Your tax dollars pay their salaries, and you voted for some of them. Cleanup begins at home.

skippy has put together a linkfest of left blogging about the anniversary of Katrina.

as usual, prime scout at first draft is the main go-to gal for what’s really happening in n’awlins, and today she gives us video of the unbreakable spirit of new orleans in the guise of the arabi wrecking krewe volunteers helping to gut the destroyed homes of nola musicians.

Not all his friends froth at the mouth, so it’s worth a look at his post and some of the links he provides.