NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Even before Air Force One landed in New Orleans on Thursday, hundreds lined up at the University of New Orleans for an afternoon town hall meeting with President Barack Obama, who was making his first trip to the city since taking office.
Most of those in line outside UNO’s 1,500-seat fitness center appeared to be supporters of the president. About 150 demonstrators who had had gathered by midday were ushered behind barricades about 400 yards away. Some were Obama supporters, others were there to protest the president’s health care proposals.
“I’m a small business owner and the things he has proposed are going to collapse my business,” said Tom Clement, 62, who made the trip from Baton Rouge, where he runs a landscape contracting business with five employees.
Although health care was on the minds of demonstrators, Obama’s trip focused largely on the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina. His first scheduled appearance was at a charter shool in a neighborhood hit hard by the storm. That was to be followed by the town hall at UNO, which also suffered major flood damage.
Even some of Obama’s supporters said they had hoped for a longer visit.
Linda Morstein, 63, said Obama’s itinerary also should have included a view of the state’s eroding coast, which officials believe could make the city more vulnerable to hurricanes.
“Not even a fly-over,” complained Morstein, who said she is a Democrat and an Obama supporter. “And the coastline is what can save us from the next one.”
Many of those lined up for the town hall, tickets for which had been distributed by way of an Internet lottery, had property damaged by the floods that followed levee failures when Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005.
Doreen Trouillier, 51, who had $70,000 worth of repairs to her Gentilly neighborhood home, said she was dismayed at the slow pace of Katrina recovery but doesn’t blame the Obama administration. “I think he’s doing the best he can with the mess left by the previous administration,” Trouillier said.
Audrey Royal, 50, who brought her 11-year-old granddaughter to the event, said it’s too early to evaluate the Obama administration’s efforts.
“Nothing happens in nine months. I really don’t blame anybody. It takes a lot of people to make it happen. It’s just time, money and patience,” said Royal, who said she and her husband lived in a FEMA trailer until April of this year while rebuilding their Katrina-damaged home. She said repairs cost more than $100,000 but the federal and state “Road Home” hurricane rebuilding program only provided $55,000 and they had no insurance to make up the difference.
Members of Obama’s cabinet also made the trip to New Orleans.
U.S. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-New Orleans, sat beside Education Secretary Arne Duncan during part of a discussion with seniors at John McDonogh High — a school once reputed for what Duncan called a “devastating” dropout rate and for having more security guards than teachers.
Duncan used the visit — part of his second trip to the city since assuming his post earlier this year — to hear from the 17 boys and girls gathered in the school’s library, to find out how the culture of their school has changed, what works, what doesn’t, and what more they need.
The list, which local officials helped round out, included more textbooks, greater funding for facilities and more resources and attention to early childhood education and dropout prevention.
“I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he said, adding later that he planned to make more trips to the city.
 
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