In Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s State of the City speech, delivered July 8 at Xavier University, he addressed the current state of the New Orleans Recreation Department with these words:

“When I was a kid, NORD had great playgrounds and sports teams and even theater, dance and music programs. But when I came into office 67 days ago, I found a recreation department that would make you weep, one that is under-funded and under-prioritized. We found many of NORD’s facilities are in shambles — swimming pools without filtration systems, no restrooms and no shower facilities.”

For the three weeks before the mayor’s speech, Gambit had been looking into the state of NORD facilities around the city, visiting 25 of them in representative neighborhoods around New Orleans and recording the conditions there.

What reporter Matt Davis found was more than “swimming pools without filtration systems” or a lack of restrooms and showers — it was vacant lots officially listed as playgrounds, abandoned buildings and dangerous structures, concrete holes that were once swimming pools, rusty playground equipment, bulldozed lots listed as playspots, and, in one case, a open manhole just feet away from a slide, large enough for a child to fall down.

In our cover story, Davis looks at the history of NORD — from its founding in the 1940s, when Life magazine hailed it as the nation’s finest summer recreation program, to its current state of neglect … a neglect so profound that it was FEMA, not the City of New Orleans, who could provide us with the most up-to-date list of NORD’s own facilities. We talked to city councilmembers, to city officials, and to the neighbors of these blighted properties; we took photos, video, and ranked each property.

Landrieu and other city officials want to make a change to the city charter (which will be taken to the voters Oct. 2) to turn NORD over to a public-private partnership; and NORD just received its fourth director in two years — but will it make a difference this time? Is it possible to double the NORD budget when the city coffers are facing a $67 million deficit? And if NORD can’t even manage to keep the grass cut on its existing properties, what does that say about the city’s stewardship of even more money for the program?

There’s more in this week’s issue — from a first-person account of what volunteering to help oiled wildlife really entails to a fun Gambit interview with burlesque queen Dita Von Teese — but we really hope you take the time to read about the current state of the New Orleans Recreation Department.

Here’s a quick video of what we found — and please keep in mind that these aren’t abandoned or defunct playgrounds: these are active NORD facilities, this is is where the city of New Orleans expects its children to play, today … and this is only the first installment of what we expect will be an ongoing series of reports.

Stewart Juneau, owner of the Baton Rouge-based development company LeTriomphe Property Group, was selected last November by Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to redevelop the Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park. At the time, the proposed professional services agreement drew controversy, due to Juneau’s relationship with Nagin (he had hosted the mayor’s much-mocked “Excellence in Recovery Award” gala back in August 2008), as well as for the fact that LeTriomphe was the sole bidder on the project. In December, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux slammed the deal, urging the New Orleans City Council not to approve it. In January, city attorney Penya Moses-Fields slammed right back, saying the IG’s recommendation was premature and that there was “no existing contract.”

This morning, Juneau announced that LeTriomphe was requesting a “temporary suspension of negotiations” on the Municipal Auditorium deal:

LeTriomphe Property Group, LLC (LTPG) announced today that it has requested a temporary suspension of negotiations on a professional services agreement for the redevelopment of the Morris X. F. [sic] Jeff, Sr. Municipal Auditorium.

LTPG remains confident that providing a landmark home for the cultural arts and creative industry in New Orleans in the damaged and unused auditorium is one of the most important projects that will be undertaken in the city in the near future.

The letter gave no reason for requesting a suspension of negotiations, but concluded on an optimistic note:

We look forward to working closely with all segments of our great community on making the mission of providing a landmark home for the cultural arts in New Orleans a reality.

The City of New Orleans has withdrawn its request to FEMA for funds to move City Hall to the Chevron Building, according to a source in the New Orleans City Council. FEMA officials were scheduled to hold a meeting this Monday to begin reviewing the city’s plan, but it has been cancelled.

In a letter sent to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Nov., Martin Altman, an administration official, requested the state approve the purchase as an “improved project” because the amount of work deemed eligible by FEMA for storm-damage repairs was not enough “to restore City Hall to its former functional status.” The state office has been serving as an intermediary between FEMA and local municipalities for disaster funds.

The city council had voted against Mayor Nagin’s proposed City Hall relocation in July of last year, and the FEMA request was seen by some council members as a way to make the move without council approval. As reported in a Gambit Scuttlebutt last month (“Ray Nagin’s Chevron Building Dream”), an ordinance had been introduced that would have required council consent on the $8.2 million purchase even if FEMA had approved the project.

My first impression of Dave Eggers during our recent interview was how much he cared about the Abdulraham and Kathy Zeitoun and their children, the New Orleans family and subject of Egger’s book, Zeitoun. He had spent a lot of time talking on the phone with Zeitouns, and made numerous trips to New Orleans to learn more about their experience following the levee failures. He said he had learned quite a bit from these visits, and he looked at Abdulraham and Kathy as teachers.

This evening at 8 p.m. at the NOCCA Institute, 2800 Chartres St. (940-2900), Eggers will be discussing the book, and he’ll be joined onstage by the Zeitouns. Just as he did in the book, Eggers says he’ll try to stay in the background and let the Zeitouns tell their story. Call the above number for ticket info.

Below is the full transcript of the interview with Eggers.

You first heard about the Zeitouns through your nonprofit book series Voice of Witness, which chronicles individual stories of human rights abuses. Human rights abuses aren’t what most Americans think about when it comes to Hurricane Katrina, is it?

“It depends on their level of information, and I guess their opinion on the competency of the government — local, state and national — in the wake of the storm. I think also though that slowly but surely information about some of the private contractors that were in town, some of the abuses from the police too and even some of the soldiers, all of these things have been trickling out. What happened to the Zeitouns is one of hundreds of stories that need to be told, and some of them are being told and have been told by your paper and The Times Picayune. For me, Voices From The Storm, our book of oral histories was eye opening because I wasn’t aware of any of these things until these first-person accounts of grandmothers having guns pointed at their heads by unmarked soldiers and people from private contractors. There was such an array of human rights abuses, whether passive or active, and Abdulraham Zeitoun was just one of so many stories.”

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By Matt Robinson

After a two-week trial in federal court in New Orleans, the first manufacturer sued over formaldehyde in FEMA trailers was absolved of responsibility Thursday. An eight-member jury found Gulf Stream Coach, an Indiana company that made 50,000 trailers for FEMA’s emergency housing program after Hurricane Katrina, did not construct an unreasonably dangerous product, and Fluor, the FEMA contractor responsible for hauling and installing the unit, was not negligent in setting up the trailer that housed New Orleanians Alana Alexander and her two children.

After the verdict was read, Alexander and her son Christopher Cooper declined to comment on the proceedings and quietly left the courtroom alone.

Alexander and Cooper claimed the temporary housing unit FEMA provided them in 2006 was contaminated with formaldehyde that worsened Cooper’s asthma. The trailer, one of the ubiquitous Cavalier units built by Gulf Stream, was installed by Fluor in May 2006, and the family lived in the unit until December 2007. During that time, the suit alleged, the family suffered health consequences from the toxic exposure, particularly Cooper, who was 9 years old when they moved into the trailer. Christopher had been diagnosed with asthma at age 3; the suit alleges his condition got worse as a result of living in the trailer for 19 months.

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