Six months ago, the officials in charge of New Orleans’ $2.2 billion street and waterline program promised that big changes were coming, to speed projects that were bogged down in endless delays.
Today, City Council members say they’re still deluged with pleas for help, from weary residents of the 2,800 blocks that are under construction. But they hold out hope that a no-nonsense, 26-year Marine Corps veteran who is tasked with turning around the troubled program, Joe Threat, can follow through on his mission.
In an interview this past week, Threat said he’s been hitting the streets to talk to contractors, engineers, project managers and residents – and knocking heads together when required. On Thursday, he visited the Vincennes Place home of Karen Kersting, who showed him the convoluted construction work that left her sewer line looking like a “noodle.”
“I like him a lot, because he’s as horrified as the rest of us,” Kersting said afterward. “He’s listening and trying to find ways of identifying how we go forward with this work, and not continue to make mistakes.”
Mission impossible
Threat, previously the manager of project delivery in Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration, was elevated to deputy chief administrative officer for infrastructure after the May departure of his boss, Ramsey Green. He said that when Cantrell offered him the job, he asked for a weekend to mull it over. She called him back the next day, telling him the administration couldn't wait.
“When I took this job, it was like walking into a lion’s den with pork chop pajamas on,” said Threat. “I knew when the mayor asked me what I was walking into.”
Among his myriad responsibilities, Threat has authority over the sprawling, FEMA-backed program that aims to rebuild 400 miles of streets. So far, the administration has completed 139 projects costing $455 million; another 57 projects valued at $635 million are underway right now, the administration says.
In the estimation of many neighborhood leaders, the vast program turned into a boondoggle during the last two years of Cantrell’s first term. Streets were torn up over and over again as contractors discovered new issues. Poor planning turned neighborhoods into mazes of traffic cones and pavement cuts.
Frustration was a factor that fueled the election of a new group of City Council members in 2021. And in April, after hearing testimony from a phalanx of fed-up residents, the fresh faces voted to withhold money from the Department of Public Works until it got the work under control.
‘He doesn’t play’
Threat has taken it upon himself to repair the administration’s relationship with council members, who are often the first to hear complaints.
Council member Lesli Harris, who campaigned with an advertisement that showed her struggling to navigate her neighborhood, called Threat “a breath of fresh air.” He’s been on about 35 site visits, including several to her District B.
“He doesn't play. When we go on these walk-throughs, he doesn't mince words with the contractors, with the [subcontractors] or with his team, or with me,” she said. “He absolutely says, ‘This is not right. We need to get it fixed.’”
District A council member Joe Giarrusso said he’s seen contractors called out for failing to arrive early for meetings. Threat says he’s told contractors to get off residents’ lawns.
Despite his blunt talk, Threat has also won over the construction companies that City Hall hires for the work. In February, the regional manager for the Louisiana Associated General Contractors, Andre Kelly, had described the industry-City Hall relationship as “toxic.”
Not anymore, Kelly said recently: Contractors are getting approved payments more quickly, a longstanding sore spot, and communications from City Hall are much improved.
“I would say Joe Threat and his mission-focused approach to leadership is just what the department needed,” Kelly said.
While Threat’s responsiveness has won him kudos, City Council members say his mere presence hasn’t quieted the frustration they hear on a daily basis.
Giarrusso, whose office tracks street work complaints, has a chart showing they have risen during Threat’s months on the job. Complaints about streets and other issues in the purview of the Department of Public Works, such as streetlights, outpace other departments by far.
Part of the problem, according to Giarrusso and a report issued this past week by New Orleans Inspector General Ed Michel, has been the turnover at the top of the Department of Public Works and at the Sewerage and Water Board.
The man who had served as acting Public Works director for more than a year, Josh Hartley, resigned in August. Threat said he’s interviewing candidates for a successor, who would report to him, in early October. He also promises to stick around to finish the street program, which has a nominal deadline of next summer.
Change at last?
Despite the new leadership at City Hall and the improved working relationship with private contractors, it’s still not hard to find residents and business owners whose lives have been interrupted by nightmarish street conditions.
Near Earhart Boulevard, the proprietor of the neighborhood watering hole Broadway Bar, Oscar Poydras, says he hasn’t been able to open for two years because of street and sidewalk closures that began just as the early pandemic shutdown of bars was ending. Instead of being packed with New Orleans Saints fans or second-lines stopping for a toast, his bar stands empty. Construction vibrations have damaged the building's structure, he suspects.
"It's just a big old mess up back here," he said. "This has been a real financial stress on me."
A few blocks away on Vincennes, Kersting described a series of street cuts since work began in April, as contractors discover new problems underground. A longtime construction project manager herself, Kersting thinks a lack of coordination and information from the Sewerage and Water Board, City Hall's partner in the infrastructure program, has worsened her neighborhood’s woes.
“They’ve been digging and re-digging and digging and re-digging. And we were told there is maybe one more digging to be done,” she said.
City officials have acknowledged a historical communication gap with the S&WB, which was exacerbated by a rush between 2018 and 2020 to get the projects started in order to demonstrate progress to FEMA.
However, officials say that 19 projects will wrap up by the end of this year. In their place, contractors will begin work on 12 new projects in the first quarter of 2023, said Sarah Porteous, acting Public Works director.
Threat said Cantrell asked him to bring some "wins," and he delivered on Tuesday, when officials held a news conference to mark the completion of a 24-block project costing $8.5 million in the Lower 9th Ward. The reconstruction of those streets began in June 2020, and was initially supposed to end in fall 2021.
The administration has recently given the go-ahead to the first four projects with a new style of contract, which requires companies to complete work on one section of blocks before beginning another section. Since August 2021, the administration has hailed this approach as the answer to residents’ prayers, although none of the new projects has moved forward to the notice-to-proceed stage until now.
Millions on deck
While some residents might feel they’ve had all they can handle of street projects, there are plenty more to come. Currently, the administration has 38 projects worth $435 million in the bid and contract award phase, 79 projects costing $471 million in final design, $193 million in preliminary design and $280 million in planning.
Giarrusso thinks the new projects will be the real test of the overall program's new leadership.
“He inherited this system that is such a mess,” Giarrusso said. “I think where Joe really needs to be judged is the new projects that are being let.”
Other changes are coming, Threat said. Most notably, the administration last week asked project management firms for for proposals to guide strategic decisions on the infrastructure program.
While that job calls for only five employees and a perhaps a few million dollars, Threat hopes it will help the administration prevent some of the most glaring problems encountered thus far, such as the neighborhoods that were boxed in by multiple projects launched at once. The winning firm also will manage the relationship between the administration and the Sewerage and Water Board.
Harris, the council member, said the contract should have been issued years ago, but its release now is better late than never. On Friday, she allowed herself a bit of wary optimism.
“I think there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel. I hope,” she said.