Diversity means illiterate government employees

New Orleans “Recover Czar” Ed Blakely

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans hired a “Recovery Czar” at $475,000 a year. As you might expect in Ray Nagin’s “Chocolate City”, the job went to a black man, Ed Blakely. He’s no longer on the job, and a lot of folks in New Orleans seem to think they didn’t get much in return for his half million dollar salary. He was interviewed recently by a TV station in California and they discussed the city’s prospects for the future. Blakely painted a grim picture. And what’s the biggest problem New Orleans faces? Well, Blakely is a black man, so what would your first guess be? Yep. It’s racism. “Everybody’s racist”, he says. He also says that nearly 30 percent of city employees needed literacy training when he got there. That’s right; nearly one in three government employees couldn’t read, but “racism” is the biggest problem facing New Orleans.

While Blakely pointed out the many faults of the city, both environmentally and socially, he said he believes he was successful in streamlining the city’s bureaucracy, explaining that 20 people used to report to the mayor and now only five do. He said trimming 4,000 employees from city government’s workforce to 2,000 employees was beneficial to the city.

Saying that cities such Los Angeles and San Francisco has very sophisticated professional bureaucracies, according to him, nearly 30 percent of the city government staff needed literacy courses and many were underqualified for their jobs.

Source:
Diversity means illiterate government employees
thepoliticalcesspool.org