Compared to what?

Quoting Xavier President Norman Francis, that's how Ben Johnson answered the criticism that Ray Nagin is taking too long to coordinate with neighborhood organizations and come up with a master plan to rebuild New Orleans. They say that no other city has had to do what New Orleans is now required to do.

Johnson, the President and CEO of The Greater New Orleans Foundation, was interviewed on WWL this morning. The GNOF is the recipient of a $3.5 million Rockefeller grant to facilitate the neighborhood planning process. He estimated that the total bill to knit together neighborhood plans will be $8 million, and that it won't be ready until December.

The New York Times targeted Ray Nagin for criticism twice last week (here and here) for failing to come up with a master plan ten months after Katrina.

Don't we have the pro-business mayor? Shouldn't he be familiar with project management?

As a friend suggested on Saturday at the Festival of Neighborhoods, one question the press needs to ask Ray Nagin is, where's your project worksheet? What target dates do you have for yourself and your administration to accomplish the specific tasks required to rebuild New Orleans? Or are you really just managing from crisis to crisis as Mitch Landrieu suggested in the mayoral race?

There is a school of thought, by the way, which argues that the planning process should go slow if that's needed to get it done right, but we wouldn't know if that's what Ray Nagin is doing -- he doesn't say anything!

Compared to what? Compared to the need of citizens to rebuild their lives is my answer to that!

Tags: Hurricane Katrina | Katrina | New Orleans | Louisiana | We Are Not OK | Nagin | Ray Nagin | Rebuild New Orleans | Greater New Orleans Foundation