At the Federal Courthouse on Wednesday, February 10th, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and residents of Lower Mid-City will hear a summary judgment after asking the court to speed up on issuing an opinion on its legal challenge. The National Trust, which filed the suit, alleges that FEMA and the VA violated federal environmental laws in evaluating the proposed LSU/VA in pieces instead of assessing the potential impacts of the entire development.

The practice of dividing unwieldy projects into "phases" became commonplace all over the country under the Bush administration as a means of shepherding development deals through longstanding environmental regulations. The purpose of 1979's National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, was to require federal agencies to consider and disclose the cumulative impact of a proposed development before site manipulation can begin. Under the previous administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials splintered the proposed development to demolish Lower Mid-City into a separate "site selection" phase in order to skirt NEPA without evaluating the cumulative consequences of site selection, demolition, construction, and medical campus operations for nearby neighborhoods and the city at-large.

Though city and state officials continue to promote the current proposal to demolish Lower Mid-City and claim construction to be forthcoming, the last four years of obfuscation has not resulted in a rebuilt hospital infrastructure or new medical industry jobs. Instead, it has lead to ever increasing estimations of the total cost of the project, eroded public confidence in governmental processes, a ridiculously stubborn unwillingness to examine a faster, less expensive, and less destructive compromise plan, and a refusal to propose other workable alternatives.

Tomorrow's summary judgment could finally force federal, state, and city officials to begin examining more workable - and legal - plans for the restoration of emergency care, Veterans' care and biomedical jobs to downtown New Orleans.

For more information about the lawsuit and summary judgment, click here and here.

Show your support tomorrow and join us at 9AM the Federal Courthouse on the corner of Poydras and Camp. The proceedings will take place in Judge Fallon's courtroom on the 4th floor.