(FinalCall.com) - In early November, Mayor C. Ray Nagin delivered his 2008 fiscal year budget address to the New Orleans City Council and proposed initiatives to accelerate the city’s recovery. His budget proposal focuses on four main issues—public safety, recovery and livable communities, opportunities for youth, and high performing government.

“The city is now poised for a full recovery,” said Mayor Nagin. “The dollars have begun to flow to the city so that we can continue to accelerate the rebuilding of critical infrastructure enhancing the quality of life for our citizens. 2008 will be the turning point in our recovery.”

The budget offers a blueprint for the city’s recovery and highlights reconstruction of city facilities, the creation of community assets, such as walking trails, improved streetscapes and major roadway improvements.

But Katrina survivors have heard many plans and promises from city officials that have not been executed.

After reelection in 2006, Mayor Nagin launched a “100 Day Initiative Plan” that was to focus on crime, sanitation, housing, municipal finances, universities and colleges, health care, and betterment of his administration’s relationships with federal and state officials and the city council. He appointed a committee to implement the recommendations of his Bring New Orleans Back (BNOB) Commission, which was supposed to have been a turning point as well.

The results? According to the BNOB website, the last time the commission convened was over a year ago and final documents posted to the site are research papers with unmet plans of action.

The mayor’s proposed sanitation strategy seemed to be non-existent with areas like the Lower Ninth Ward still in deplorable condition and debris covering many parts of the city. The bad conditions sparked a huge rally led by Susan L. Taylor of Essence magazine during the second commemoration of Hurricane Katrina in August.

Residents may ask why they should believe their mayor this year?

“New Orleans is embarking upon an unprecedented recovery effort and to accomplish this, we must change the way that city government operates,” said Mayor Nagin. “These changes will allow us to move more quickly and to get projects started and completed.”

According to the mayor’s office of communications, New Orleans was the first city to have its recovery plan, which focuses initially on 17 target recovery zones, approved by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, granting the city access to $117 million in rebuilding funds. The city is also slated to take advantage of a $300 million state revolving loan fund, a $260 million bond issue approved by voters before Hurricane Katrina, $514 million in GO Zone Bonds for local projects, $54 million from the Federal Highway Administration and $77 million in federal matches for roadway projects. In total, the city plans $363 million in roadway projects.

Many residents, however, have not forgotten that over two years ago Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city, leaving hundreds of thousands displaced and eventually dispersed to 44 states across the country. Thousands remain disappointed, stressed, and frustrated with the slowness of recovery efforts at the federal, state and local level.

“I keep hearing about all of this money being approved and it sounds nice but why then is Nagin still allowing them to demolish the complexes that will leave poor New Orleanians homeless? Can’t they be saved?” asked Jerome Shaw, who evacuated to Texas after the flooding. “He and others do not care about the poor and they really don’t want us back.”

A federal judge ruled in favor of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) Nov. 15, allowing demolition of the city’s four largest public housing developments. The obliteration will begin in early December with the Lafitte housing project. The other three developments slated for destruction are St. Bernard, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper.

Bill Quigley, an attorney representing many public housing residents, plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the Times Picayune, Mr. Quigley said HANO’s plans for so-called improved public housing are deceptive. They will “permanently displace thousands of long-term New Orleanians from their community and erase nearly 70 years of New Orleans culture and history,” he said.

An editorial by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund points out that “as of October 2007 only one-fourth of the public housing units have been reopened and reoccupied. The Bush government refuses to reopen the public housing units in New Orleans because it appears intent on destroying the public housing system, demolishing the existing structures, and turning over the properties to private real-estate developers to make profits.”

Mayor Nagin sees things differently. “Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the failure of the federal levees, we have worked diligently and developed creative strategies to accelerate our recovery. Because of the slow pace at which federal recovery dollars have reached the local level, we have had limited access to much-needed funding. In partnership with the city council, we have borrowed $45 million from departments throughout city government to begin critical infrastructure repairs,” said Mayor Nagin. He pointed to the reopening of the Criminal District Court, repairs to police headquarters, and work on the Mahalia Jackson Center for the Performing Arts as signs of progress.

“Why were a police headquarters and a criminal court a top priority before the rebuilding of people? How can we enjoy the performing arts when many of us don’t know where we’re going to live at?” asked Mr. Shaw. “Sports and partying is more important than the poor.”

On Nov. 13, Gov. Kathleen Blanco visited Washington D.C. for the ninth time since Katrina. She applauded the $3 billion in funding and legislation signed by President Bush to assist with Louisiana’s Road Home Program. In the past, the Road Home program has been called the “No Home” program by survivors burdened by its bureaucracy, paperwork and string of deadlines.

“I ask for patience from every citizen as these construction projects begin and create some inconveniences,” said Mr. Nagin. Many New Orleanians may be short on patience.