On Friday, a lawsuit on behalf of New Orleans taxpayers and Lower Mid-City residents against Mayor C. Ray Nagin took an important and exciting step forward. Judge Ethel Julien of Civil District Court ruled that the lawsuit can move forward, definitively squashing an attempt by the city to have the case thrown out.

The lawsuit challenges the legality of an agreement (a Memorandum of Understanding or MOU) made between the Mayor and the Department of Veterans Affairs in which Mr. Nagin agreed to surrender 34 acres of Lower Mid-City to the VA for a proposed new medical complex and exposed city taxpayers to financial penalties without seeking the approval of the City Planning Commission and the City Council as stipulated by the City Charter.

Judge Julien ruled that the four plaintiffs had standing to sue as taxpayers and residents and that the argument in the suit had enough merit to warrant a trial.

In a twist beneficial to those looking to force public hearings on the controversial LSU/VA medical complex, the Judge agreed with an argument from the defense that an injunction against the Memorandum of Understanding was premature because the City Council and City Planning Commission may still exercise their charter-mandated rights to hold hearings and vote up or down on the MOU, as the attorney argued, the Mayor had always intended.

Though the Mayor's team claimed this portion of the ruling to be a victory in a press release, the judge's ruling on prematurity is precisely what advocates for Lower Mid-City and the plan to gut and rebuild Charity Hospital were looking for. Immense legal pressure is now squarely on the shoulders of the CPC, the City Council, and the Mayor to allow the public hearings for which dozens of community organizations and thousands of citizens have been clamoring for months to occur. The ruling implicitly rebukes the arguments made by City Planning Commission officials that they had no authority to evaluate or weigh-in on the hospital controversy when they held a "forum" last Spring.

The SaveCharityHospital.com team went to court on Friday and produced a brief video play-by-play.

Check it out!

Additional resources:

Bill Barrow's article summarizing Friday's proceedings for the Times-Picayune is spot-on.

For even more background on the lawsuit, see posts from our archive:

This describes lawsuit in detail and allows readers to download the suit itself.

Here we demonstrate how this lawsuit might save city taxpayers $5 million in fines.

This one compares how city charter provisions protecting taxpayers were used during the debate over whether or not to relocate City Hall but not in the case of the decision to expropriate private property in Lower Mid-City.