——

Mr. Marty Rowland

Transparent Accountable New Orleans

4678 Arts Street

New Orleans, LA 70122

Re:  Public Records Request

We have received your public records request dated January 25, 2008, requesting permission to review city records.  Your request has been forwarded to the City Attorney for review.  Please note that the City Attorney will respond to your request.   Any further request should be made directly to the City Attorney’s office at (504) 658-9800.

Sincerely, Kenneth D. Ferdinand, Executive Director

cc: Penya Moses-Fields, City Attorney

–

On Wednesday, January 30, 2008 I received the letter and called the City Attorney, and spoke with Sarah Garrett, administrative assistant.  Ms. Garrett said that the City Attorney will be sending a letter to the French Market Corporation telling them it’s OK to have me review the requested documents and make copies at 50 cents per page.  I asked if there were any spare documents that I could have for free and she said no.  Concerning the interview with Mr. Ferdinand, she said that somebody from the Communications Department would have to be present in that interview.  I got the impression that both requests would be granted soon, but no date was promised, when asked.

New Orleans
4678 Arts Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70122
(504) 301-0128
drmarty@bellsouth.net

January 25, 2008

French Market Corporation
1008 North Peters St.
New Orleans, LA 70116
Attention: Patricia Henry, Deputy Director – Fax 596-3419

Dear Patricia,

It was my pleasure speaking with you yesterday. Please find below a list of information that I’m seeking for my organization, Transparent Accountable New Orleans.

Transparent Accountable New Orleans is a volunteer group of professionals and concerned citizens who believe that all communications, business, and transactions that involve public facilities, employees, organizations, as well as quasi-public boards and commissions should be open to public review. We also believe that these public and quasi-public organizations’ activities should be transparent and the performance of assigned tasks fully accountable to the people, residents, and citizens of New Orleans.

We are conducting a review of the management of public parking lots and have learned that the French Market Corporation is the legal entity that receives revenue from the operation of lots in three locations; the lot between the floodwall and the Moon Walk near Café du Monde, and the two lots near Elysian Fields and Decatur that are not far from Frenchmen St.

In order to prepare for my appearance before the Governmental Affairs Committee concerning my proposal to study the management of City parking lots, I’m requesting information listed below. Also, I’d like to interview Kenneth Ferdinand, the Director of the French Market Corporation.

1. French Market Corporation Annual Report for 2006 and 2007
2. Current French Market Corporation organization chart
3. Sources of revenue for the French Market Corporation in 2008
4. 2007 expenses of the French Market Corporation
5. 2007 costs for operating the French Market Corporation parking lots
6. 2007 revenues from operating the French Market Corporation parking lots

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E.

Thursday, January 24, 2008By Bruce Eggler

Staff writer

Whatever new ethical restrictions the Legislature imposes on state officials at a special session next month should also be applied to local officials, the New Orleans City Council is expected to declare today.

The council will take up a resolution introduced by President Arnie Fielkow saying any new state financial disclosure rules or other ethical standards should apply to all officials, including the council.

The resolution was approved Wednesday by the council’s Governmental Affairs Committee and was sent to the full council.

The committee also approved a resolution asking the Legislature to support proposals by city Inspector General Robert Cerasoli that would give state authorization for his office, reaffirm its powers and establish his authority to subpoena witnesses and testimony. Questions have been raised about whether the City Charter allows the council to give Cerasoli that power, particularly for contractors based outside New Orleans.

In yet another action, the committee laid the groundwork for a potential renewal of a 2007 confrontation with Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration over the council’s power to compel testimony by members of the executive branch.

The committee approved a resolution by Councilwoman Stacy Head that would “require” the directors of the city’s information technology and communications departments to appear before the council next month and explain why inaccurate and outdated information on the city’s Web site has not been corrected, as the council requested in November.

All the resolutions will be presented to the full council for action today. All passed without objection at the committee meeting, which at various times was attended by six of the seven council members.

Also in attendance for much of the session were several members of the area’s legislative delegation, who pledged their support for ethical reforms.

Sen. A.G. Crowe, R-Slidell, said he and his colleagues “look forward to sending out the message that it’s a new day in Louisiana.”

Financial disclosures

Gov. Bobby Jindal has not said what measures he will propose during a special session on ethics starting Feb. 10, but a transition advisory council he named has offered many suggestions, including making financial disclosure requirements apply to all levels of government, including judges and local officials.

Questions about who should be forced to disclose their income helped doom a disclosure bill during the 2007 legislative session, and Jindal’s campaign platform called for disclosure only by legislators and statewide elected officials.

“It would be disingenuous to have ethics laws apply only to state legislators and not to local officials,” Fielkow said.

Jindal’s task force also recommended barring legislators from receiving free tickets to concerts and sporting events; banning legislators from entering into new state contracts, including those that are competitively bid, during their terms in office; requiring lobbyists to list all their income sources and any business relationships with legislators or appointed officials; and overhauling campaign finance laws to require more detailed reporting and to prohibit candidates from using campaign money to employ their relatives.

The state legislation proposed by Cerasoli and backed by the committee would apply only to New Orleans and Baton Rouge and would designate those cities’ ethics review boards or inspector general’s offices as “a law enforcement agency under state law,” giving them access to information on the criminal histories of individuals.

It also would affirm their right to investigate any public or quasi-public body or official and any contractors, licensees or groups receiving public money, whether nonprofit or for-profit, “in any legally appropriate manner,” including the right to examine all their books, records, computers and e-mail messages. It specifically affirms the right to issue subpoenas for such material.

The legislation also provides that ethics boards and inspector general’s offices can keep their activities and records confidential during “preliminary investigations.” After investigations are completed, the records would be subject to disclosure laws.

Several legislators, including Reps. Jeff Arnold, D-Algiers, and J.P. Morrell and Walker Hines, both D-New Orleans, pledged to support Cerasoli’s legislation, though they warned it might be amended during the legislative process. Cerasoli said he understands that.

Sparring over subpoena

The vote to require appearances before the council by two top administration officials threatens to renew a September showdown that was defused at the last minute. In that case, Fielkow issued a subpoena to compel testimony by the director of the Property Management Department over a malfunctioning air conditioner at a police station in Head’s district.

The Nagin administration challenged the legality of the subpoena, prompting the council to threaten contempt charges against the official, Pamela Smith. The two sides finally resolved the matter, and Smith met privately with Head.

In this case, Head said, the administration has failed to correct problems with the city’s Web site that the council pointed out in November and has offered no explanations for the failure.

. . . . . . .

Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3320.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008By Michelle Krupa

Staff writer A long-awaited audit of New Orleans’ 2006 finances reveals an overburdened, disorganized system of fiscal oversight at City Hall that is prone to bookkeeping delays and lacks a variety of internal controls, including barriers to prevent corruption of the public bidding process, according to the accounting firm that conducted the audit.

The report is striking in the breadth of its concerns. Beyond offering general criticism of how the city manages its accounts, auditors identify sloppy procedures for handling cash transactions, gaping holes in the protection of electronically stored information and deficiencies in the collection and recording of property, sales and franchise taxes. Referring generally to the ability of Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to oversee municipal finances, the auditors with the firm KPMG state: “The city does not have adequate policies, procedures and related internal controls to prepare accurate and complete financial statements.” In response to nearly every problem uncovered, city officials attribute their shortcomings to a lack of capacity owing to significant layoffs that followed Hurricane Katrina. In the sections of the audit reserved for City Hall reaction, officials say they are working to rehire accounting staff and consultants to rectify the problems. “Our Finance Department recently began working with PFM, the financial consulting firm who assisted with the development of our budget, to put additional policies in place to further decrease or eliminate future findings,” Nagin spokesman James Ross said Tuesday. In some instances, city officials say they strayed from established accounting practices, such as keeping open their 2006 ledger far into 2007, because of the large number of invoices that remained unpaid for months following the storm. Deadline extended The audit was submitted to the state Dec. 18, nearly six months after its due date and minutes before a deadline set by the Legislative Audit Advisory Council, which oversees audits of public agencies. The panel, after extending the original June 30 deadline several times, had threatened to withhold millions of dollars in state money if the city failed again to submit its annual financial review. Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot released the audit Tuesday on his Web site, www.lla.state.la.us Although the city beat the submission deadline, the 184-page audit offers a dismal view of how well officials kept track of the billions of dollars in cash and assets under its control in 2006. For instance, KPMG states that the city failed to remit federal payroll taxes for the last four months of that year, a serious oversight that “resulted in a significant liability” to the Internal Revenue Service. Though the IRS waived all penalties and interest, the auditor recommended that the city institute a policy to make sure the money gets transferred monthly. The firm also notes problems in tracking the city’s capital assets. Lists of city buildings and other structures were maintained in 2006 in an Excel file that provided general building descriptions but lacked addresses, “which made it time-consuming to identify the location of certain assets.” KPMG attributes part of that problem to the city’s efforts in 2006 to convert its computerized ledger system to a new Microsoft Windows-based system. The process, the auditor states, has resulted in “multiple significant problems,” including difficulty accessing data by some city employees who were not taught how to use the new system. Lack of internal controls Auditors also took note of the kind of fissures in local law that allowed former City Councilman Oliver Thomas, who was named in the audit, to direct a public parking contract through a quasi-city agency to a businessman who had paid him a bribe. “The city does not have systems of internal controls in place to deter and detect improper influences related to awarding contracts for public works and purchases of material and supplies,” the report states. City officials responding to that point noted the creation last year of the Inspector General’s Office as a means to stave off fraud and corruption. While most problems detailed in the audit are connected directly to the city’s daily fiscal oversight processes, criticism is not limited to the Finance Department. KPMG states that the city attorney’s office failed to keep accurate records of how much money the city may have been on the hook to pay out in lawsuit settlements in 2006. The Office of Recovery and Development Administration, meanwhile, failed to track the status of federal loans that it administers for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, auditors state. The audit also singles out the Office of Information Technology for its flimsy control over who gets broad access to data stored on city computers. User privileges “are not appropriately controlled,” KPMG states. Perhaps most surprising was the lack of a plan for the city’s computer nerve center to rebound after another hurricane, the report states. “A documented disaster recovery plan did not exist for 2006,” it states. ‘Material weaknesses’ In all, KPMG finds nine significant deficiencies with the city’s internal fiscal controls, including five so-called “material weaknesses” that create a “more than a remote likelihood” that the city’s internal system of checks and balances will not catch a material error in a financial statement. Among auditors’ other observations in those areas: — Cash journal entries related to outstanding checks and deposits-in-transit did not show evidence of review and approval by someone other than the preparer. — The city did not perform timely review of construction projects so that projects can be properly designated as depreciable assets. — The city’s sales tax receivable was not complete and also included sales tax transactions from 2007. . . . . . . . Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3312.

http://www.futureproofnola.com/contact/contact.html

Marty Rowland, coordinator for Transparent Accountable New Orleans introduced himself as a professional civil and environmental engineer (whose doctorate concerned natural resource management systems) who has an understanding of how government operates. Rowland’s expertise for coordinating the study includes certification as a federal facility auditor as well as an auditor for the Carnegie-Mellon University’s Capability Maturity Model Integration that is used at a major aerospace facility in eastern New Orleans. He sees an opportunity to take a small part of government, its parking lots, and evaluate performance against the City’s intention regarding their operation. His idea for conducting the study came after City Councilman Oliver Thomas admitted that he had taken a bribe to influence the awarding of a city contract to a parking lot contractor. Ever since teaching a course at Tulane’s College of Engineering on urban infrastructure, Rowland has sought an opportunity to implement his system of infrastructure management that he developed and taught. He says he seized the opportunity to study parking lots and convinced Councilwoman Midura to put him on the agenda for an upcoming meeting of the Governmental Affairs Committee (note: what was to be presented on February 4^th will now be presented on February 14^th). He sees subsequent opportunities to study more complex agencies upon a successful study of parking lots.

Transparent Accountable New Orleans is a volunteer group of professionals that currently includes five engineers, an architect, two urban planners, a management systems expert, business people, neighborhood activists, and concerned citizens. The group would study City-owned parking lots for the dates of 1997 to 2007 and present a final report with recommendations at the end of a 90-day period. The group is not organized to root out corruption, but to understand what the City intends to do in its official capacity and measure the performance of City government in achieving that intent. Rowland is looking for an accountant, and an attorney, as well as professors and students of political science, accounting, engineering, law, sociology, economics, and urban planning.

University professors and students are sought for the evaluation so that scientifically-designed field work could be conducted to measure parking lot performance. Five intentions for running parking lots were identified: a) maximize public revenue; b) maximize revenue to a private parking lot contractor; c) set operation to break even and thereby give parking customers the cheapest fares; d) set operation to maximize flow to adjacent businesses; and d) run them such that the time a City worker has to deal with their operation is minimized. Other studies that may be performed include those that would report satisfaction of those using the lots and opinions of business people near the lots regarding how they be better operated. How many studies are conducted will depend on the number of volunteers for the study. For parking lot performance, students would monitor parking lots during selected average weekdays and weekends.

A map from a 1994 City Planning Commission Report was presented showing parking lots, that does not identify which are public or private. (See note below about which lots are public.)

Rowland explained public agency transparency as the free opportunity for anyone to access records on any aspect of government and have clear explanations as to what any record means regarding public revenue, public outlays, capital budgeting and expenses, and current operational expenses. He expressed concern about the general tendency among cities, especially New Orleans, to enter into public-private partnerships for public service provision, considering the fact that open meetings and open records laws that pertain to a city may not apply to the private company. He explained accountability in two ways. First, “certified public accountant accountability” means, for example, that a city orders 10 stop signs and 10 stop signs are purchased; books balanced, case closed. The other type of accountability, and the type of concern to the group is “end result accountability” whereby the 10 stop signs are installed exactly where and how they were intended to be installed.

A meeting attendee pointed out that more locals would shop in the French Quarter if the parking rates were not so expensive. Those in attendance generally agreed, confirming the appropriateness of learning the intent of the City on how their lots are run and if it were not their intent to attract business to the French Quarter, why is it not.

Another attendee asked if we would be reviewing contracts, to which Rowland said yes.

Note 1: Next meeting of Transparent Accountable New Orleans is Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 6:30 pm, 3500 N. Canal St, 2^nd floor.

Note 2: The current parking lot contractor introduced himself at the end of the meeting to explain that the City only owns two sets of lots. The first set includes the lot between the floodwall and the Moon Walk at Café du Monde and amphitheater and the lots at the northwest and southwest corners of Elysian Fields and Decatur, near Frenchmen St. The contractor explained that the City gets none of the parking lot revenue at these locations, that it all goes to the non-profit French Market Corporation. The second parking lot is location at the Union Passenger Terminal (bus / train station). He did not volunteer anything about that lot.

Public Revenue and Public Outlay

Economics and its sister discipline of fiscal administration have been labeled the “dull” sciences for peculiar reasons, given the fact that the fates of individuals, family groups, cities, and nations hang on the outcome of decisions made consistent with those sciences. This irony washed against our faces with the regularity of ocean waves recently with the financial frauds of Enron, Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, and Halliburton, to name a few. An important reason for the irony is that the current application of economic science is divorced from key fundamental principles of its origins. In years prior to the writings of colonial East India Company’s scribe Adam Smith, administrators using basic economic principles did not tolerate the lack of oversight of commerce that provides the lifeblood of nations and societies as we are seeing tolerated today.

One of the originators of modern finance was Prussian economist Justi (1717-1771), who described wealth as blood in his analogy that compares fiscal administration of a republic with the maintenance of a healthy human body2. Later, Sonnenfels (1773 – 1817), in the same tradition as Justi, described “principles according to which the revenues of the State may be most advantageously raised.”3 A more simple but precise formulation of economic principles for fiscal administration cannot be devised. First, estimate the needs of he State (public), and dra(w) up a corresponding budget. Second, determin(e) the resources of the State (public). Third, by comparing the former with the latter, discove(r) the proportion of the resources (that) it will be necessary to use in order to cover the needs. Fourth, (apply a) technique of assessing and collecting the revenues. However, without an understanding of the two classes of governmental revenues and two classes of governmental expenses described below, these simple principles cannot be applied competently or sustainably.

Sonnenfels divides the sources of revenue into “mediate” and “immediate.”4 Mediate revenues are those that originate with the conduct of the nation’s business, such as from protective tariffs and taxes on commerce and industry. Today, mediate revenues include funds from the creation of public indebtedness such as through the sales of revenue bonds and the taking out of loans, and federal grants. Immediate revenues are those that originate from payments by individuals through income and property taxes, user fees, and penalties. Sonnenfels advocated the use of mediate revenues for covering the ordinary expenses of the state, such as the promotion of manufacturing and other “occupation enlarging” endeavors, and the provision of the general happiness of the citizens.5 In complementary fashion, he advocated the use of immediate revenues for extraordinary expenses of the State to cover unanticipated (e.g., war) or “luxury” expenses, i.e., those beyond the simple maintenance of society.6 A significant advance in understanding public finance and measuring the performance of fiscal administrators would be made if the ideas of Sonnenfels were systematized into a framework for use in economic analysis.

The public revenue / outlay transparency diagram is presented below, followed first by three public finance models described in terms of the diagram, then examples of the practical use of the diagram.

Public Revenue / Outlay Transparency Diagram

Figure 1 illustrates the basic public revenue / outlay transparency (PR/OT) diagram, consisting of two pie charts. The chart on the left is for revenue (receipts), and the other chart is for outlays (expenses). The revenue pie is divided into slice “a” for mediate revenues and “b” for immediate revenues. The relatively larger size of “a” over “b” is characteristic of a mature economy.

The outlay pie is divided into slice “x” for current services expenses and “y” for capital expenditure and debt payment outlays. Likewise, the relatively larger size of “x” over “y” is characteristic of a mature economy. Few would disagree that a fiscally responsible government would seek a relationship of a + b >= x + y (Eq. 1).

The divisions within the revenue and outlays are such so that what Mikesell describes as the “golden rule of governmental finance” can be attained; i.e., “…match current revenue to spending on current services, but borrow only to support capital spending and thereby maintain the net worth of the public sector.”7 The importance of this condition is detailed below.

Crisis

We sometimes hear, read, and use words that upon reflection have multiple context-specific meanings. “Crisis” is one of those words. It can be used appropriately to rally the public toward a just cause, but just as easily used to advance hidden agenda of private interests, thus placing society’s physical and financial resources at risk. Public administration practices would be advanced if that word had a more precise meaning.

America faces a post-September 11 intelligence crisis, as well as crises in education, healthcare, ecological sustainability, and urban infrastructure management. These and other crises will never be resolved with the financial resources currently available. However, there is no common frame of reference by which crisis-focused policies can be prioritized, and thereafter monitored, evaluated, policy change advocacy advanced, and post-change evaluation conducted within a logical loop of analysis. Some may argue that that referential frame is the project specific benefit-cost (BC) ratio, routinely used to justify and prioritize public projects. Upon analysis however, this default frame of reference is (necessarily) the status quo institutional arrangement. As hypothetical benefits are typically not monitored to validate BC ratios, the BC exercise becomes an administrative hurdle for ex ante justification of a politically popular course of action. Additionally, BC ratios are typically not required to take into account tangential social goals which, we are told, manifest magically through activities of Smithian self-interest in our nation’s market economy.

I developed the hope-crisis continuum to make the “crisis” word more precise. That development and descriptions of the four resource use outcomes described within the continuum are subsequently presented, followed by a discussion of three resource sustainability models. I conclude with examples of practical use of the continuum.

Hope-Crisis Continuum

I conceived of the hope-crisis continuum upon listening to concerns about the sustainability of withdrawals of groundwater from Louisiana’s four principal aquifers. Various experts expressed support or downplayed calls for regulation of groundwater withdrawals. Comments such as “…yes, this is a crisis and something needs to be done now to protect our groundwater supplies,” and “…no, it is not a crisis yet…we need more time to study the situation” were typical of the range of views.

Clearly, recognized experts using the same set of facts arrived at opposing conclusions. Until now, no analytical framework was available to make commensurable these opposing frames of reference. Knowing that the emotionally charged “crisis” word obligates a believer to action, non-believers are conveniently relieved of responsibility to act. If the opposing referential frames of these experts were depicted on a single diagram, agreement on a word definition is eliminated and dialogue on effective resource management policy enhanced. In the Figure 1 hope-crisis diagram, hope of effective resource management declines as crisis increases to a point of non-sustainable resource rate of use. Thereafter, crisis declines sharply as the resource is no longer recoverable to its previous state.

The expert that sees no crisis sees instead a wide gap between current resource use rates and the point of non-sustainable resource use rates. The expert that sees a crisis sees an accelerating rightward movement toward non-sustainability, with no measures in place to stop resource decline. Thus, it is no longer a problem of word definition, but a disagreement about the rate of resource decline . The importance of this is that that is a technical issue subject to measurement. So rather than a “no crisis” show stopper declaration, the resource management debate is subject to further evaluation and analysis.

Kaiser and Binion2 describe how the public typically responds to surface water shortages by first denying that a problem exists, then recognizing that there is a problem, then taking action to reconcile the problem. However, Kaiser and Binion are short of a complete description, in that they lack an appreciation for the peculiar institution of property that Bromley3 describes as a “benefit stream the State (i.e. , the government) is duty bound to protect” that I describe further below.

Four Resource Use Outcomes

Kaiser and Binion come close to identifying the full set of resource use outcomes, as their denial / recognition / reconciliation stages are the first three outcomes illustrated in Figures 2 and 3.

They did not anticipate, however, a transitional “vanquished victim” zone and a point of non-sustainable activity as illustrated in Figure 4. That zone and point are reached when the State fails to protect benefit streams that are owed protection, whether by law, ethics, or morals. A vanquished victim may be a resource system that could recover with sufficient commitment and care, but each day that probability declines. The point of non-sustainable activity is the fourth resource use outcome in which, at the extreme, the resource is exhausted and, at a minimum, the resource system is recoverable, but at a lower quality and lower rate than before. Should a decision to reverse non-sustainable activity be made once reaching this point, a new hope-crisis continuum is created with a new problem “reconciliation” starting point. Measures to reconcile a slide toward renewed non-sustainable activity would be required to promote a healthy leftward movement along the continuum.

Non-sustainable Resource Use Models

The two models of non-sustainable resource use are the corporate welfare model and the vanquished victim model. In the former, dominant players within a resource market deny the existence of problems as long as possible, long after the public recognize the problems and organize to reconcile them. These dominant players subsequently walk away, leaving the problem for others to solve. An example of this model is the petroleum consumer funding of the leaking underground fuel tank (UST) program.4 Leaking petroleum tanks contaminate groundwater and present a potential explosion hazard. State regulations require the removal of unsafe gasoline service station fuel tanks and their replacement with more leak-resistant tanks. A revenue stream generated by a present and future surcharge that consumers pay for gasoline funds the program. In this way, the polluter’s customers, not the polluter, pay for the problems related to vehicle fuel storage.

In the vanquished victim model, non-dominant players within a resource market are misled about their property rights and find that dominant players unknown to them caused those rights to end. The mothballing of a New Orleans Fire Department fireboat in 1999 is an exemplary case. The City of New Orleans rescinded its duty to fight yacht fires with that act. That duty was to protect the property (i.e. , the benefit stream of occasional pleasure) of yacht owners. The City did not respond to a fire on a motor yacht berthed in the New Orleans Municipal Yacht Harbor in 2002 and the yacht was a total loss.5 In this case the denial of a problem was the deletion of the budget for maintaining and operating the fireboat. The recognition of the problem probably occurred once the motor yacht was ablaze. Reconciliation options include private replacement of the yacht or compensation (via a negligence suit) by the financially strapped City. The latter option requires time and resources perhaps better spent on yacht replacement.

Sustainable Resource Use Model

The common pool resource management system6 exemplifies the sustainable resource use model. Two examples of this model include the formation of a new regional water management authority in the Tampa Bay region of Florida and the adjudication of water rights in western US States. In the Tampa Bay case, the three counties and two major urban centers that comprise the region’s principal watershed ended adversarial water rights litigation and began seeking new sources of water for the rapidly growing metropolitan area, rather than continuing to fight over a diminishing per capita supply. The new authority conformed to what E. Ostrom7 describes as common pool resource (CPR) management. In CPR management, operational rules concerning resource use, protection, and sustainability are developed and clearly delineated by the members of a collective organization, and strictly enforced by agents of the collective. The other example involves water rights adjudication in the western US States, in which a water master is selected according to the laws governing groundwater supplies. The water master establishes schedules and groundwater withdrawal rates for the various parties who share access to water bearing aquifers. In this manner, a water master establishes property rights that the State is duty bound to protect.

In the early days of each example, denial of a water supply crisis was expressed. In the Tampa Bay region, denial of water supply problems cycled with a normal annual rainfall of 55 inches. Recognition of a water supply crisis came during the extended droughts of the 1960s to early 1970s and again in the early 1990s. Reconciliation of the problem began with the 1998 formation of the new water authority that adopted CPR management principles. In the relatively drier western US, those with early claims (prior appropriation) denied having water problems because they had water property rights. Eventually, Los Angeles and San Francisco had to go hundreds of miles to secure additional supplies.8 Politically powerful interests in those cities recognized their water supply problems and took steps toward reconciliation. Described recently is the use of previously adjudicated water for critical wildlife habitat and natural surface water flows.9 Such alternations in water rights structures would broaden the field of view of hope-crisis continuum evaluation from single to multiple, interconnected watersheds and from anthropogenic centered to ecologically based uses. However, the use of the continuum device is the same.

Practical Use of the Hope-Crisis Continuum

I proposed the use of the hope-crisis continuum concept in the following manner:

1. Assemble people who recognize a resource use problem. The resources under scrutiny could range from the nation’s intelligence resources in the FBI and CIA, educational resources among parents, teachers, and school administrators, to the water resources. Local, State, and national legislators must be among the assemblage to provide linkages to political, legislative, and economic seats of power.
2. List all problems associated with resource use rates and develop a hierarchy of resource subsystems within the larger, macroscopic system. Unanimous agreement on the point that the resource system currently operates along the hope-crisis continuum is not required at this stage.
3. Set regional performance objectives, measure periodic performance, and appropriately discuss performance status in public meetings, establishing initial settings of resource systems on the hope-crisis continuum and making arguments for rightward or leftward movement along the continuum.
4. Develop corrective resource usage programs to address the identified problems on the lowest hierarchical level.
5. Set appropriate performance measures to be used in subsequent resource use evaluations.
6. Periodically assemble representatives of the several lower hierarchical groupings to discuss progress toward achieving local or regional, macroscopic objectives. Near unanimous agreement on the direction of movement of the resource system along the hope-crisis continuum is necessary at this stage.
7. Hold periodic public meetings to evaluate progress made toward performance objectives on all hierarchical levels.
8. Lobby elected representatives to advance the achievement of regional and local performance objectives for resource use, through the funding and implementation of enlightened programs directed to advance resource system sustainability and continued performance monitoring.

No meeting concerning the use of public resources ends without an explicit requirement to return with performance data at a later date that either supports or does not support the benefits of a status quo program. In this way, the non-dominant social critic’s call for social change has weight in subsequent discussions. But by the same token, when any program change advocated by such critics becomes status quo, there is the same requirement to perform and have measurement data presented and analyzed.

Conclusion

The hope-crisis continuum provides a means for opening dialogue among those with conflicting frames of reference concerning resource use. It provides voice for those advocating change to the status quo concerning the use of society’s resources and allows status quo advocates a forum to clarify the intent of their policies and programs. Its utility comes when performance monitoring suggests current policies and programs are failing to achieve a desirable rate of sustainable resource use. Rather than believe a declaration that everything is under control, that there is no crisis, the measurable basis for such declarations is demanded and expected. The hope-crisis continuum thereby democratizes decisions about resource stewardship and promotes transparency in the decision making process of how resource management problems associated with non-sustainable uses are reconciled.

References

Bromley, Daniel W. 1991. Environment and Economy; Property Rights and Public Policy. Cambridge, MA; Basil Blackwell Publishers.

De Buys, William. 2001. Navigating the River of Our Future; The Rio Poco-Grande. Natural Resources Journal 38 (Winter): 157-196.

Kaiser, Ronald A. and Shane Binion. 1998. Stakeholder Concerns Regarding Instream Flow. Natural Resources Journal 41 (Spring): 265-281.

Karhl, William L. 1982. Water and Power; The Conflict Over Los Angeles’ Water Supply in Owens Valley. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons; The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press.

Rowland, Martin A. 2000. The Evolution of Two Water Resource Management Systems; Case Studies of Tampa Bay and the Middle East. Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 11 (Summer): 411-469.

Footnotes

1. Adjunct Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tulane University, PO Box 29792, New Orleans, LA 70129. Dr. Rowland is a registered Civil and Environmental Engineer in the State of Louisiana (No. 19886) whose doctorate is in urban studies. His webpage is www.thirdlegconsultants.com

2. Kaiser and Binion 1998, 160-165.

3. Property is established by a set of rules, the enforcement of which maintains the value (i.e. , the benefit stream) of those objects. It is important to note that physical assets such as real estate provide the basis for many benefit streams. (Bromley 1991, 22)

4. Joan Lee of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (June 24, 2002) said that 0.8 cents per gallon of gasoline sold to consumers is he surcharge that funds the Louisiana UST trust fund. Ms. Lee works fro the agency’s Office of Management and Finance’s Financial Division. She said such surcharges are the typical source deductible for a cleanup that averages approximately $115,000.

5. Times-Picayune, New Orleans, June 19, 2002, B-1 to B-2.

6. Rowland 2000, 414.

7. Ostrom 1990, 13.

8. Kahrl 1982, 5.

9. De Buys 2001, 265-281.