Recent editorials from Louisiana newspapers:
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March 31
The Advocate on vaccine and internet access in rural Louisiana:
World, national and state health officials have made it plain: We’re in a race to get as many people vaccinated before various coronavirus variants significantly ramp up their spread and cause greater damage.
Our nation is rapidly increasing the number of people who are vaccinated against COVID-19. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the top 10 states in terms with the most people fully vaccinated include New Mexico with 22.65% as the state doing the best. Hawaii, weighing in at No. 10, has a fully vaccinated rate of 17.89%. As of Monday, Louisiana is No. 35 among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., with more than 719,000 of our 4.6 million people fully vaccinated. That’s about 15.49%. That’s good, but it’s not good enough.
Our more urban areas, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, are doing well with vaccinations, much like other urban areas across the nation. Unfortunately, the early rush to get vaccinated in Louisiana has slowed. Some days we have more vaccine doses than we have volunteers providing arms in some places. Some of this is hesitancy. Some of this is limited vaccine access. Some of this is limited broadband access.
It was encouraging to hear newly-elected Julia Letlow from the 5th Congressional District tell a national television audience how important it is to get vaccinated. “You know, I just want to take a second to acknowledge all of the Americans out there who have lost family members to COVID. I want to say that I see you. I hear you. I, most importantly, pray with you,” Letlow said during a “Face the Nation” interview. “I’m a huge proponent of the vaccine. It has lifesaving capabilities. And I want to encourage anybody out there who’s eligible to go ahead and get that vaccine. It’s so important.”
Letlow, whose husband was lost to COVID-19 complications shortly after being elected to the seat she recently won, encouraged others to “look at my family, use my story” to understand why getting the vaccine is important to individuals, families and the state. “I experienced a tragedy in my immediate family and COVID can touch every family out there,” she added.
Letlow also used the national platform to talk about the need to expand rural broadband in underserved districts like hers in northeast and central Louisiana. Since broadband and internet access are important ways to schedule vaccine appointments, better access likely would have enhanced vaccine participation in situations like this one. President Joe Biden has indicated that he wants an infrastructure bill to include such expansions. Many Republicans have indicated that they are not interested another big-ticket spending bill just now. To her credit, Letlow said she is open to a discussion. That’s good.
Rural residents across the state seem less likely to get the vaccine, reducing our state’s chances of reaching herd immunity. Biden announced Monday that he’s insisting that vaccine access be within five miles of most U.S. residents. That’s a big help for rural Louisiana.
Thank goodness we have at least one congressional representative willing to say vaccines are a critical part of getting us out of this pandemic, and perhaps broadband access might help us now and later.
Online: https://www.theadvocate.com/
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March 29
The Advocate on the possible ending of a civil rights consent decree aimed at improving police standards:
Times were grim in New Orleans nine years ago, when a city still reeling from police shootings of civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina entered a civil rights consent decree aimed at bringing the police department up to constitutional muster.
So word that practices have improved enough for the end of court-ordered oversight to be within reach is welcome on multiple fronts.
Monitoring costs taxpayers $115,000 per month, money that Mayor LaToya Cantrell has long argued could be better spent on other needs. But even more encouraging than the potential cost savings are the benefits of better, safer, more modern policing to the city’s citizens.
At a public meeting last week, lead monitor Jonathan Aronie said his team plans to take a good hard look at the NOPD’s most historically troublesome areas, including bias, street stop practices, officer supervision, performance evaluations and community engagement. If they like what they find, the city could be considered in “substantial compliance” with the reform plan by summer.
“This is not in any way a guarantee,” Aronie said. “But we think this is possible. The actual timeline depends on the New Orleans Police Department.”
Since entering the legal agreement, Aronie and his deputy said, the department has made significant improvements in areas such as recruitment and training, and its peer intervention program has become a model for other departments.
More troublesome have been the task force units that Superintendent Shaun Ferguson disbanded in May after monitors called out a pattern of civil rights violations. And during the summer social justice demonstrations, the department was criticized after tactical officers fired tear gas on protesters on the approach to the Crescent City Connection - which, after an internal investigation, Ferguson attributed to departmental failures as well as provocation by a small group of protesters who tried to force their way onto the bridge.
A “substantial compliance” determination by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan wouldn’t be the end of the saga just yet. Such a finding would trigger a two-year period of lighter and less expensive monitoring.
That would be an important step in the process, one that would hopefully ensure that the department won’t backslide once nobody from the outside is watching quite so closely.
The good news is that the NOPD has come far enough since the bad old days to make its best case. So says an official with the U.S. Department of Justice, anyway.
“Substantial compliance is achievable in the months ahead,” Jude Volek, a special counsel for the department’s civil rights division said last week. “We do believe that the two-year sustaining period is close. We’re on the precipice of getting there.”
Online: https://www.theadvocate.com/
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