New Orleans Council Struggles for Relevance

City Council meetings here were always long, at times running for 10 hours. Since Hurricane Katrina, council President Oliver M. Thomas Jr. moves the agenda along with the speed and rhythm of an auctioneer, so they don’t turn into all-nighters.

Meetings still begin with a roll call, invocation and pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem is played over a video montage of how the city used to look.

Then council members must face the reality of the city today.

Community activist Babatunji Ahmed stood at the podium one recent Thursday and asked the council for a public building where skilled craftsmen -- brick masons, Sheetrock fitters and carpenters who scattered in the aftermath of the storm -- could live and start rebuilding the city.

“I’m begging y’all, give us some resources,” Ahmed pleaded, the intensity of his words appearing to make his slight frame quiver. “We want our people back, and the workers is the way to do it.”

As six of seven council members campaign for reelection in the city’s April 22 vote, they are finding the job of governing the city overwhelming, frustrating and often elusive.

Before Katrina, the job of City Council member wasn’t required to be full-time, but today, council members say they are working around the clock. They field hundreds of calls a day that jam office lines and cellphones. They say they are called upon to be social workers, legal advisors and activists.

But stripped of some of their legislative influence by the city’s reliance on state and federal aid for rebuilding, they increasingly feel like powerless bystanders.

“People always expected a lot from council members,” said Thomas. “And now they expect even more, and on things that we have no control over,” such as how the Federal Emergency Management Agency spends its allotted funds for New Orleans, what Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco plans to do for the city, and certain proposals put forth by Mayor C. Ray Nagin.

“It’s been a real power shift,” said Jim Brandt, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, an independent think tank based in Baton Rouge. “The City Council has been marginalized to a large degree in the post-hurricane environment. It is not tied into the power branches of Baton Rouge and Washington.”

“Many of the previous powers the City Council enjoyed are now largely irrelevant under the current conditions,” Brandt said.

“The council’s role now is trying to mobilize their constituents to exert public pressure to rebuild the entire city,” said Susan Howell, a professor of political science at the University of New Orleans. “It’s a bully pulpit role.”

That platform puts them out in front of residents -- about half the city’s population before the storm -- with endless questions.

“Councilman, I don’t have my trailer yet, and I ordered it in October,” is a typical call, according to John A. Batt Jr., who represents New Orleans’ District A. “I tell them, ‘you know ma’am, I don’t have mine yet either.’ ”

The questions are often tough to answer: How can I settle my insurance claim? Which schools are open? When will proper mail delivery and trash collection resume? Will the city’s new levees withstand another Katrina?

Council members acknowledge that they can’t always respond to the queries of their beleaguered constituents. But offering possible solutions, making suggestions and sharing solace is more crucial than ever.

“You have to be more eclectic in your services,” said Renee Gill Pratt, a former teacher of special needs children who represents District B. “You have to become a social worker. You have to do case management with your constituents.”

Many of the members are dealing with their own stress and loss. Batt’s wife and two children remained in Texas for four months while he returned to New Orleans. He lost his house in the Uptown neighborhood, and two of his clothing stores were substantially damaged.

“I can understand my constituents and what they’ve been through,” said Batt, the lone Republican on the council.

Thomas was in the midst of renovating his home before it was submerged in more than 10 feet of water, the roof punctured with holes. Then he learned that the wife of one of his best friends died in the storm.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis, whose District E covers the Lower 9th Ward and New Orleans East -- two of the most severely affected parts of the city -- is living in a government-paid hotel room with her parents. They, like hundreds of other families, expect to be evicted at the end of the month. Willard-Lewis, the oldest of 12 siblings, said her family lost 11 homes.

But most people aren’t interested in their travails, Thomas said.

“ ‘You-all political people aren’t doing nothing for nobody,’ ” the councilman recalled a resident saying. “It’s almost as if there’s nothing going on in our own lives. But I said, ‘Sir, I’m going to do whatever I can for you.’ I understand how they feel. But it was really hurtful.”

The seeming insensitivity stems from the need to vent and the desperation to be heard, Gill Pratt said. Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, whose District D was almost entirely wiped out, said she gets about 100 phone calls a day from constituents, in addition to a flood of e-mails. “They just want me to know their story,” she said. Her district includes historic Pontchartrain Park, one of the oldest black subdivisions in New Orleans. “It’s, ‘This is what happened to me. This is where I’m staying. I want to come back home, but ... what’s going on with the levees?’ ”

Strained relations with Nagin have added to the frustration of some council members, who complained of not being informed of key briefings with public officials, or not being given updates on the city’s status in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

“Under the emergency order from the courts, we have been out of the loop a little because the mayor doesn’t have to come to us for everything,” Hedge-Morrell said.

Willard-Lewis disagreed with the mayor’s decision to allow residents of the least hurricane-devastated areas to return first. But there was little she could do. “The mayor’s sequential reentry program has delayed my residents’ return,” she said. “It really worked to the disadvantage of the families I represent. Attention was given first to areas that least needed it.”

Thomas, the council president, said that communications between the council and mayor’s office had improved. But political analysts said the strength of their opposition to certain policies from the mayor’s office lay largely in the residents who used to populate their districts.

“They’ve lost a lot of power, because so many of their constituents are gone,” said Howell, who is also director of the Survey Research Center.

This factor has also propelled campaigning for the April elections into a different sphere. The six candidates face a total of 35 challengers. (Councilman at-large Eddie L. Sapir is not up for reelection, and Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson of District C did not respond to requests for an interview.)

“I don’t do the old-fashioned type of campaigning like knocking on doors. There aren’t enough doors in my neighborhood to knock on,” Batt said.

To share information and make themselves accessible, the council members are using the Internet and criss-crossing the country to address displaced Orleanians in other cities. They are all regulars at the scores of neighborhood association meetings and rallies that are constant happenings these days.

Recently, several of them rode around their neighborhoods to check whether polling stations designated by the city clerk were viable, or even existed, because some selected schools and churches were known to have been washed away.

“That’s not our role,” said Gill-Pratt. “We are doing administrative duties, although we’re meant to be a legislative body.”