New Orleans Recovery Chief to Leave - NYTimes.com
Edward J. Blakely, the New Orleans recovery director, who was given enormous power to steer the city’s rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, will leave his city government post this summer after two and a half years, he told The Times-Picayune on Wednesday.
When he was hired, Mr. Blakely, a former chairman of the department of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, was known as a prominent expert on post-disaster recovery, and he freely proclaimed his own importance to the city. But many residents quickly grew frustrated with the slow pace of rebuilding.
Mr. Blakely, who was chairman of urban and regional planning at the University of Sydney, in Australia, and commuted from there despite his $150,000 city salary, quickly came under scrutiny for spending time away from the city while neighborhoods languished.
In recent news interviews he has defended his record, saying almost all of the federal block grant money has been allocated and 400 rebuilding projects were in the pipeline. Mr. Blakely did not return phone calls to his office on Wednesday.
Ceeon Quiett, a spokeswoman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin, said the projects
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Good Riddance!!!
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