Another one bites the dust.
A Wednesday guilty verdict that doomed former New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin to a sentence of 20 years or more came as a surprise to virtually no one.
While the trial has been a burden on the mind of New Orleanians for the past year — during which Nagin’s lawyers could have won an award for best trial delaying tactics — it ends a sad period that will no doubt go down as one of the most turbulent in the city’s near 300-year existence.
And that’s saying something.
The charges were numerous and mundane: bribery, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. He was convicted of 20 and acquitted of one; but more surprising may be the fact that Nagin is the first New Orleans mayor to ever be found guilty of corruption charges.
That goes to show just how obvious our once-savior was in conducting his illegal affairs. Not only that, it shows that Nagin’s first priority was to take care of himself rather than the citizens he took an oath to serve.
But to many New Orleans residents, Nagin’s rap sheet goes far beyond charges that he can be guilty of in a courtroom. When put to task, the mayor was found wanting in nearly every aspect.
He was the aura of change and the promise of a new beginning after his initial election in 2002. He united the underprivileged blacks of the ninth ward and the white Landrieu-haters of uptown in an election that gave the city hope after decades of decline.
His shortfalls thereafter are well documented. The outbursts he had in the days following Hurricane Katrina are notorious along with his infamous “Chocolate City” speech on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2006.
He claimed to have big dreams for what New Orleans could be in the wake of mass devastation that brought to question whether or not certain parts of the city would even be rebuilt. His “cranes in the sky” remark lives on as a testament to the sheer ineffectiveness of his administration, even though he profited handsomely off contracts with companies that should have been helping the city get back on its feet.
So now, more than eight years after Katrina, we can sit back and take stock of all that we really lost. Sure, recovery would have been slow no matter what; after all it is New Orleans. But what we really lost was an early enthusiasm to change what was so wrong before the storm.
The school system is limping toward a better future and the crime rate remains abysmal.
There is no sum of taxpayer money that could pay back the sheer loss of time our great city endured in the years that Nagin lined his pockets instead of helping us recover.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu summed it up well by saying: “Hopefully this closes a very kind of ugly chapter in the history of the city of New Orleans.”
Indeed, but the question remains: even if the chapter is closed, how long will Nagin’s legacy negatively affect the progress of the City that Care Forgot.
Many LSU students probably find New Orleans a blossoming metropolis compared to its pre-Katrina stagnation.
But the city remains the same. This as-yet-to-be-determined quality that has pervaded our three-century history will never go, no matter how many hipsters move into grungy neighborhoods and drink Starbucks.
The city does not change. Perhaps this is why, after a century of progress, we found ourselves falling behind Atlanta and Houston, where businesses do not need to worry about corruption or a local elite that perceives everyone born above I-10 as a Yankee carpetbagger.
Nagin only confirmed our image of depravity in the past years, and his legacy could potentially harm New Orleans for years to come. He only confirmed our late-20th century identity of decayed elegance and a symbol of eras gone by.
However, despite all the doom and gloom that has been brought upon this jewel of southern life, little will change in the eyes of its locals. Except, perhaps, our preference of cocktail.
Eli Haddow is a 21-year-old English and history major from New Orleans.
Twitter: @Haddow_TDR
Opinion: Nagin’s guilt symbolic of New Orleans’ lost years
By Eli Haddow
February 13, 2014
More to Discover