News Roundup

The Times-Picayune
By Bruce Eggler
December 03, 2009

Hoping to accelerate a ruling in its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and FEMA, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon to issue a summary judgment that would halt work on the VA’s medical center project in lower Mid-City, including the acquisition of land and homes.

A judge may issue a summary judgment, which avoids the need for a trial, if he decides there is no dispute on the facts of the case and one party is entitled to a favorable ruling as a matter of law. The National Trust’s lawsuit claims the federal agencies have not complied with the National Environmental Policy Act, a 1969 law that governs federal construction projects. The suit says the VA and FEMA erred when they, along with the city of New Orleans, declared that the planned VA and state teaching hospitals would have “no significant impact” on the neighborhood.

FEMA is involved because the state plans to help pay for its hospital using the pending federal reimbursement for Hurricane Katrina damage to Charity Hospital, which has been shuttered since the storm. The National Trust favors renovating the 1939 building instead of building a new state hospital.

The preservation group’s motion for summary judgment says that, under the federal agencies’ current approach, “missing information will not be released until it is too late to modify the plans and adopt an alternative with fewer adverse impacts. The defendants’ failure to publicly disclose the full range of direct, indirect and cumulative impacts of a major federal action before irreversibly committing resources to the project violates” the 1969 law.

“We took this action because time is running out for the residents of Mid-City,” said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust. “The acquisition process is moving forward swiftly, and it compels us to ask for an expedited response. We fear that if we waited for the agencies to proceed through the courts at a slower pace, the ongoing process of acquisition would make it much more difficult for the court to evaluate the legal issues objectively.”

In addition, Moe said, “waiting for a ruling ultimately delays the already long-overdue return of high-quality medical care to the people of New Orleans.”