With popular momentum building against it and the scrutiny of the national media growing brighter around the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's, state officials carefully managed the roll-out of the governance agreement inked by Tulane and LSU that will determine how board appointments and residency slots are filled for the proposed LSU/VA medical center. Allies of the proposed LSU/VA complex seized the opportunity to advance the notion that the governance agreement signals a "done deal," but in reality, little has changed.

This past spring, we advocated for the passage of House Bill 780, which would have required LSU to submit a viable business plan to the State Legislature for approval before the state would be permitted to begin expropriating homes and businesses in the Lower Mid-City red-lined for the proposed medical complex. Concurrent to our efforts, LSU and Tulane became embroiled in a dispute over the eventual governance structure of their proposed medical center. From our perspective, this was a political sideshow about board appointments and power - not something with which to concern ourselves.

Ultimately, efforts to pass HB 780 to protect homeowners and taxpayers from irreversible land transfers and demolitions in this case of uncertain development unfortunately fell just short. However, the state suddenly halted the land acquisition process in Lower Mid-City voluntarily after attempts to negotiate a cease-fire in the power struggle between Tulane and LSU failed.

The reason that Angele Davis of the Division of Administration gave for putting the brakes on expropriation was that without a negotiated agreement between the universities, "financing the project becomes a bigger challenge." This was a candid acknowledgment that the state was unprepared to build the hospital because there was no contemporary business plan for getting it funded. The connection between the governance dispute and the lack of financing became significant because the power struggle between Tulane and LSU forced the state to concede that officials had previously been misrepresenting the status of the project's financing to the Legislature and public.

As it stands now, though Tulane and LSU have distributed the power to appoint board members to a governing board for a new hospital, whether it is built in Charity's facade or on top of Lower Mid-City, the proposed LSU medical center remains at least $900 million short. The state has no complete business plan to present to Wall Street lenders, and remains committed to an operating model so dependent on federal reimbursements, that it will have to be totally reconsidered under most of the anticipated healthcare reform initiatives currently under debate in Congress.

Thus, the situation is almost exactly the same as it was last spring when State Treasurer John Kennedy explained that if LSU tried to take their medical center proposal to Wall Street, they'd get "laughed out of the building."

The difference between then and now is that New Orleanians have grown ever more wise to the con. Before, the official chorus of "done deal" had a lot more traction before it became clear how woefully unprepared the state is to actually deliver on their proposal on budget and in a reasonable time frame. That's why over 1,200 New Orleans residents took the streets this past Monday in the face of a new push to misrepresent the LSU/VA boondoggle as a "done deal." It's not an accident that a recent Renwick poll showed that New Orleans voters preferred the RMJM plan to gut and rebuild Charity Hospital to the proposed LSU/VA by a 2 to 1 margin and prefer hypothetical candidates who support the RMJM plan over hypothetical candidates who do not by a 4 to 1 margin. That's why over 1,200 New Orleanians came out in the summer heat on a Monday to parade and protest in what was one of the biggest local grassroots mobilizations in since Hurricane Katrina.

Local representatives have refused to deliver on even the most timid of requests - the public hearings by City Council and the City Planning Commission required by law (favored by 83% of voters according to the Renwick poll) and an independent side-by-side analysis of the two plans (favored by 71%). Thus, it's not an accident that approval ratings for those politicians are in the tank. Nor is it not an accident that 1,200 New Orleans residents cheered as local musician Glen David Andrews called on the crowd to vote them out of office.