Hawaii State Buildings To Become Energy Efficient

The state of Hawaii is doing what all states should be doing in order to help curb the effects of global warming:

Eleven state government buildings, on four islands, are going to be "retrocommissioned" to increase the state's energy independence, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism announced.

The state Department of Accounting and General Services and the energy efficiency branch of DBEDT will look for opportunities to save energy in buildings and reduce operating costs, the department said. They also will improve occupant comfort, extend equipment service life and reduce the volume of emergency calls for maintenance staff.

The 11 buildings, including the State Capitol, contain more than 1.4 million square feet of space and use about 33 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, the department said.

The City of New Orleans would have been on the right track of making its' city buildings more energy efficient if it were not for the actions of Stan "Pampy" Barre, a confidant of former New Orleans' Mayor, Marc Morial. Now Mr. Barre is a convicted felon, who is awaiting sentencing for his role in looting from the massive energy savings contract.

Find Out What Your City Is Doing To Curb Global Warming

Today is day 14 into the new year and I have been discussing what some states and countries have been doing to curb global warming. I have also discussed how the City of New Orleans missed the mark when Stan "Pampy" Barre was allowed to steal from an energy savings contract under former Mayor Marc Morial's administration. The city really blew it with that one. I also urged all of my readers to find out what there city was doing to curb global warming.

It is time that you should ask that question because New Orleans is suffering right now and it may take years for the City to recover from Stan "Pampy" Barre's actions.

Actor Brad Pitt's 'Make It Right Project' Benefits New Orleans' Residents

STAFF PHOTO BY MATTHEW HINTON
Actor Brad Pitt near the corner of North Roman and Deslonde in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans.

Actor Brad Pitt's "Make It Right" project consist of building affordable, environmentally friendly, storm-safe houses for residents of the Lower 9th Ward on the same lots where their old homes once stood. In announcing the project in September at a meeting of world leaders on global warming, Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bingler pledged $5 million each to jump-start the project.

"This cannot be about me," he said Sunday from inside a trailer at the project site. "I am fortunate to have a big spotlight in my hand, and I can point it in a direction."

Today that place will be the section of the Lower 9th Ward best-known as the spot where a barge came to rest after floating through a fractured levee. Pitt is slated to lead news reporters on a tour around the area's conglomeration of pink art pieces, then to issue a public call to corporations, foundations and church organizations around the world to "adopt" the blocks, for $150,000 each, to support his project.

Donors also will be invited to make smaller gifts -- from $5 to $45,500 -- to sponsor the individual elements of the houses' eco-friendly designs, such as fluorescent bulbs, low-flush toilets and solar-panel installations. More information is available at the project's Web site, www.makeitrightnola.org.

With the average house slated to cost between $100,000 and $174,000, planners expect participants to contribute some money, including insurance and Road Home proceeds, toward construction. But they expect most homeowners will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes. To fill the gap, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable loans of as much as $100,000, with the caveat that applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina.

Nine other firms — all of whom donated their services — are involved, including Adjaye Associates; Billes Architecture; BNIM Architects; Constructs; Eskew & Dumez & Ripple; MVRDV; Pugh and Scarpa Architecture; Shigeru Ban Architects; and Trahan Architects. “We wanted to have a mixture of voices,” Mr. Pitt said.

The green building elements will reduce upkeep costs by at least 75 percent, Mr. Pitt said, and reduce some of the problems that devastated the Lower Ninth Ward during Katrina, when multiple levee breaks forced thousands of people from their homes.

Responding to critics who question the wisdom of rebuilding at all in an area likely to get hit again, Mr. Pitt said: “My first answer to that is, talk to the people who’ve lived there and have raised their kids there. People are needing to get back in their homes.”

Levee System Increased Hurricane Katrina's Wrath

Louisiana's levee system has once again made headlines. According to hurricane expert, Ivor van Heerden, the magnitude of Katrina's storm surge in Mississippi was partly the fault of the Louisiana levee system.

Van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, described how sea water from the storm built up against Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, and when the eye of Katrina passed over and began its migration to Mississippi, it took the wall of water with it.

Had there been no levee, he said, the water would have fanned over the wetlands, and the eye would have carried far less to local shores. Van Heerden is also a civil and environmental engineering professor at LSU.

Van Heerden is often credited with having predicted Katrina. In the years before the storm, he created computer models showing how New Orleans would flood if a category 3 storm hit. The levees were built based on outdated models, even though new ones were available. Some levee sections were built on sand, easily allowing water to breach.

"It was a man-made catastrophe with a hurricane trigger," he said. "What happens to sand castles on beaches? They don't last."

He said his research fell on deaf ears, as outlined in his book, The Storm - What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina - the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist. He wants an inquest like the 9/11 commission to look into the failures that led to flooding in New Orleans and destruction along the Coast.

To protect Mississippi in the future from Katrina-like storms, he said, efforts must go toward restoring wetlands and rebuilding the barrier islands. Giant waves in the open ocean become smaller when they break over the islands.

Quiet Hurricane Season For New Orleans

New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast this year enjoyed a quiet hurricane season, which ends today, as dire predictions by federal and university forecasters turned out to be wrong for the second consecutive year.

That was good news to the Army Corps of Engineers, as its contractors continued to raise levees throughout the New Orleans area -- some to the heights and strengths they should have been before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

The corps also completed engineering work and issued the first contracts to improve hurricane protection to match its new understanding of the storm surge caused by hurricanes with a 1 in 100 chance of hitting the area in a given year.

Of 14 named storms in 2007, only four hit the U.S. coastline, with only one reaching hurricane strength.

KICKBACKS

Kickbacks are another example of the type of corruption that the citizens of New Orleans had to endure from some of its elected officials and businessmen who are cronies of those elected officials.


A kickback is an official's share of misappropriated funds allocated from his or her organization to an organization involved in corrupt bidding. For example, suppose that a politician is in charge of choosing how to spend some public funds. He can give a contract to a company that isn't the best bidder, or allocate more than they deserve. In this case, the company benefits, and in exchange for betraying the public, the official receives a kickback payment, which is a portion of the sum the company received.

This sum itself may be all or a portion of the difference between the actual (inflated) payment to the company and the (lower) market-based price that would have been paid had the bidding been competitive. Kickbacks are not limited to government officials; any situation in which people are entrusted to spend funds that do not belong to them is susceptible to this kind of corruption.

Feds take aim at corruption by officials in New Orleans

The voice on the radio assumes the tone of a high school principal: "Public service is not about stealing from the people — it's about giving to the people."

The voice belongs to James Bernazzani, the FBI's special agent in charge in New Orleans. He, along with the U.S. Attorney's Office here and a new inspector general at City Hall, is launching a very public assault on public corruption.

The FBI's New Orleans office has tracked a 452% jump in corruption indictments the past five years. Corruption convictions in eastern Louisiana climbed 33% in the same period, making it one of the top spots in the country for such convictions, according to Justice Department statistics.

Among those convicted: 23 Orleans Parish school officials, 16 workers from city hall and 14 traffic court employees, along with judges, councilmen and other officials, said Jim Letten, U.S. Attorney for eastern Louisiana. "We're going after anyone — whether it's a teacher or minor public official — who engages in any kind of public corruption," he said.

Many of the investigations were launched before the 2005 floods and destruction unleashed by Hurricane Katrina. But the post-storm recovery, with billions of dollars in federal aid streaming into the area, can lead to further corruption and triggered agents to step up investigations, Bernazzani said.

Robert Cerasoli, a former inspector general for the state of Massachusetts who has a long résumé of fighting waste and corruption, was recruited this summer for the position. Cerasoli stunned city officials by not taking a city car, opting instead to use his personal car, and moving into a small, loaned office on the third floor of Loyola University's Monroe Library.

Unlike the FBI, which investigates individuals, Cerasoli said his job will be to examine the system to see where changes can be made to prevent corruption. He said his first task will be to study the city charter and its many agencies, commissions and quasi-governmental bodies, looking for conflicts of interest. "I'm certainly going to find corruption along the way," he said.

Though hired by the city, Cerasoli said it is still not known whether the city will block access to records and files or give him the money and access needed to do his job. The City Council is expected to announce his budget Nov. 1.

3rd probe of Pumps on Canals requested

Is the Army Corps of Engineers putting New Orleans' residents safety at risk? Perhaps their incompetence resulted in the failure of the levees holding up during Hurricane Katrina. The entire Army Corps of Engineers need to be investigated.



Secretary Robert Gates has been asked to investigate a whistle-blower complaint that questions the reliability of 40 pumps the Army Corps of Engineers initially installed at three New Orleans canals after Hurricane Katrina.

It will be the third official review of the temporary pumping stations built under corps supervision at the 17th Street, London Avenue and Orleans Avenue canals after the storm's surge inundated the region 25 months ago, much of it rushing into the canals from Lake Pontchartrain and breaching substandard walls along 17th Street and London Avenue.

Corps commanders in New Orleans continue to say the once-troubled pumps have been overhauled and will work properly in a hurricane. The agency is providing information and running the pumps for a General Accounting Office team conducting a second investigation at the request of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans.

All probes were triggered by a corps engineer with the Los Angeles district, Maria Garzino, who says corps officials haven't properly addressed the critical issues she first raised in the spring of 2006 in her role as leader of the corps' pumping systems installation team.

"My office has received serious allegations which cast doubt on the integrity of costly pumping equipment installed in three main structures by USACE and its ability to protect New Orleans from further flooding," according to a Sept. 21 letter to Gates from Scott Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

In his letter Bloch determined that Garzino's claims warrant further investigation under the federal whistle-blower statute.

"I have concluded that there is a substantial likelihood that the information Ms. Garzino provided discloses a violation," he wrote. "Consequently, I am referring this information to you for an investigation of and appropriate action regarding Ms. Garzino's allegations and a report of your findings within 60 days of your receipt of this letter."

Neither Bloch's office nor the Defense Department could be reached for comment. But Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the corps' Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans, said Friday that he is familiar with Bloch's call for an investigation and the supporting documentation.

"I am confident that all the pumps currently in place on the three outfall canals will operate as they were designed to operate in the event a hurricane requires that we close gates," Bedey said.

Group releases documents

Jeff Ruch, executive director of the national whistle-blower advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, predicted Gates will assign investigators independent of the corps to conduct a more detailed technical probe than he says has been done to date.

In the end, Ruch said, Bloch could reject as unreasonable any or all of the findings of the Gates-directed inquiry, require more information, or accept all the findings outright.

Ruch released Bloch's letter to Gates and Garzino's official five-page "disclosure" in support of her allegations to The Times-Picayune.

Ruch's agency isn't representing Garzino, but because she consented to being publicly identified for the purposes of the investigation, Ruch said his group opted to release the documents to ensure the process is made public.

Garzino, who could not be reached for comment, was dispatched to New Orleans last year to oversee quality control in the manufacture and installation of hydraulic pumps in temporary stations that the corps and its contractors were building at the mouths of all three canals.

The stations were built alongside massive floodgates, also constructed post-Katrina, to provide internal drainage for surrounding neighborhoods in the event the gates were ever closed against storm surges in future hurricanes. The pumps are designed to lift rising canal water up and around the closed gates.

The hydraulic pumps that Garzino questions are installed at all three canals. The corps also subsequently added new nonhydraulic, direct-drive pumps to increase capacity at the much larger 17th Street Canal, and the reliability of those pumps isn't in question.

But Garzino says shortcuts taken by the corps and the contractor, Moving Waters Industries of Deerfield, Fla., to meet a June 1, 2006, deadline set by Congress produced inherently flawed pumping systems that she says still have not been properly tested.

Corps vouches for pumps

Bedey said neither Garzino's allegations nor his response to them has changed.

"I absolutely believe that the (pump) team took the information from Ms. Garzino, who was correct to write her report, and all the other things we learned over time, and made the changes required in order to operate these pumps as intended," he said.

Bedey and other corps officials said publicly last summer that they were encountering problems with some of the pumps so severe that various components would be rebuilt after the 2006 season.

They also have said they didn't test the pumps as extensively in Moving Waters Industries' laboratory as ordinarily would be done because of the critical need to provide some additional flood protection for the 2006 storm season, the first since Katrina.

But Bedey said he still thinks the decision to install the troublesome pumps in New Orleans and continue to work on them during hurricane season was a more prudent decision than simply having no drainage pumps at all had a storm threatened the city.

"Just last week, when the GAO was out here, we turned on the pumps, and they ran as long as we had enough water to run them," Bedey said.

A major challenge to testing the hydraulic pumps on site -- rather than in the lab before delivery -- is that they must have a minimum amount of water in which to operate at full capacity, and that's been hard to come by during the mostly dry days since Katrina.

"We have done everything we can do. And some of those pumps have run five or six hours continuously," Bedey said. "But it is a fact that we've never had enough water at 17th Street to operate all the 43 pumps there at one time, nor do we believe we ever will unless there's a hurricane."

In its initial probe this spring, the GAO found no evidence of fraud or improper influence behind the corps' decision to award the multimillion-dollar contracts to Moving Waters Industries. But the GAO did criticize the corps for giving false assurances to the public during the 2006 hurricane season.

Once it became apparent that they wouldn't be able to correct serious vibration problems during the season, corps officials should have provided a more honest, less optimistic assessment of the ability of their troubled pumps to perform during a hurricane, the GAO said.

Just a few weeks later, a separate "technical review" was ordered by Brig. Gen Robert Crear, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division in Vicksburg, Miss., which oversees the corps in New Orleans. He summoned corps engineers from other districts to do the work, and in a June 4, 2007, memo, Crear and the engineers insisted the pumps have been tested and will work properly.

But the report also confirmed that another round of needed repairs that would provide even more reliability were only just getting under way.

As a result, Landrieu ordered a second GAO investigation.

Bedey said he hasn't yet been apprised of those findings and doesn't know whether that probe is complete.

Former Soviet Leader Tours the 9th Ward

Posted by:

John Pope, Staff writer
Times Picayune

Mikhail Gorbachev drew loud cheers in New Orleans Friday when he promised to lead a local revolution if the Army Corps of Engineers doesn't keep its promise to improve levees by 2011.

"We will be coming back," the Soviet Union's last leader said, through an interpreter, during a ceremony in the Lower Garden District. "If this pledge is not fulfilled, we will start a new revolution in New Orleans."

After the applause died down, Gorbachev said that action should be a last resort, even though, he added, most Americans apparently have forgotten that their country is the result of a revolution.

"We shouldn't want another revolution," he said. "We should do our best in every (other) way."

Gorbachev, who is in New Orleans as the board chairman of a worldwide organization that promotes environmentally friendly construction, spoke at the International School of Louisiana after a quick tour of the Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward.

"A few brief hours are not enough to see everything," he said, "but it is enough to appreciate the scale of the disaster that the city had to go through."

As a result of that trip, "my impression was that New Orleans is beginning to come back," Gorbachev said, "but, still, there is a lot that remains to be done. ...

"We saw many traces of the devastation, but we also saw the signs of the city coming back."

In a meeting with City Council President Arnie Fielkow earlier Friday, Gorbachev said he had been told of the work that businesses and citizens' groups have done to help restore the city.

Such action is commendable, reflecting the citizens' courage, he said. But, he added in an interview, it is not enough.

"The government of the state and the federal government should express to the world .¤.¤. the intent to rebuild this city, because I think that this great country will be a loser if it is not able to assure this.

"If such a great country cannot rebuild this city, then what about all the other small countries?"

Gorbachev, who won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, indirectly criticized President Bush and the Iraq war, in which the United States has been involved longer than it was in World War II.

"Unfortunately, money is easily found for war," he said. "It takes just a few days. I have to say that that's not the first time that money is easily found for wars but not for this kind of trauma, not for this kind of tragedy."

When asked whether he would deliver this message to Bush, Gorbachev replied, "If there is an occasion, I certainly will volunteer my opinion."

Different kind of chairman

Gorbachev, 76, is the board chairman of Green Cross International, which is made up of about 30 organizations, including the U.S. affiliate, Global Green USA. That is the organization working with actor Brad Pitt to build environmentally friendly, energy-conserving homes in the Holy Cross neighborhood and, perhaps, the rest of the Lower 9th Ward.

Green Cross' board chose New Orleans for its first meeting in the United States to express solidarity with New Orleanians and their struggle to rebuild, Gorbachev said.

The board meeting, which is not open to the public, will be held today at the Hotel InterContinental. Gorbachev will speak tonight at a dinner at the Foundry. Tickets for the fundraiser, which benefits Green Cross, range from $250 to $25,000.

Gorbachev, who wore a suit but no tie, and his retinue were at the International School because Global Green USA has chosen the school to be made more energy-efficient and improve indoor air quality, Global Green spokesman Ruben Aronin said.

The changes will include daylight sensors that will turn off lights when use is low, solar panels and solar-powered water heaters, said Matt Petersen, Global Green's president and chief executive officer.

The school on Coliseum Square, which goes from kindergarten through the seventh grade, is the second in New Orleans to be designated a Green Seeds School. The first was A.P. Tureaud Elementary School; five more will be named, Aronin said.

The changes to these schools, which are underwritten by a $2 million grant from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Foundation, cost between $75,000 and $100,000 per school, Aronin said.

Warm welcome

For the Friday visitors, the students strung welcoming signs, in Russian, on brightly colored sheets of construction paper -- one Cyrillic letter per sheet -- across a hall. Pupils serenaded them with "This Earth Is Your Earth," a retooled version of the Woody Guthrie folk song "This Land Is Your Land," that ended with this line: "Keep this Earth green for you and me."

The welcome extended to the former head of what used to be the biggest Communist country was just one example of the changes that have occurred since the Soviet Union fell apart 16 years ago.

Other changes were evident Friday. In a sharp contrast to the overheated rhetoric from the Cold War, Gorbachev called for international dialogue, and the former leader of a country that was officially atheist credited God for the fact that more people were not killed by Katrina and the ensuing flooding.

"I think that the world is changing so rapidly that I feel that even I am not keeping pace," he said in the interview.

"In this situation," Gorbachev continued, "it is very important .¤.¤. to lay the foundation for the building of our future so that we don't have to say one day, 'We're so sorry that we didn't take the opportunity at the beginning of the 21st century to promote whatever is positive and eliminate whatever is negative.'¤"

A capitalist idea

Gorbachev has changed, too. The man who grew up under communism has worked in advertising campaigns for Pizza Hut and Louis Vuitton, the upscale luggage manufacturer.

In one ad, Gorbachev is sitting in a car with a $900 Louis Vuitton duffel bag, driving past a remnant of the Berlin Wall.

He said his reason for joining the ad campaigns was simple: He needed the money for his family and for the Gorbachev Foundation, which promotes diplomatic values and moral principles, according to its Web site.

"The money was very timely for a good cause when we were in great difficulty," Gorbachev said.

His compensation didn't include a set of Louis Vuitton luggage. "More like a briefcase," he said.

Actor Brad Pitt Supports New Orleans' Residents With Environmentally Sound Building

"In keeping with one of Pitt's driving principles, architects explained elements of "green" construction to residents who lost decades-old homes that, while rich in family history, were riddled with cracks that let cool air and heat escape, driving up power bills. Many structures in the Lower 9th Ward also were caked with dangerous lead-based paint.

Homes built through the Make It Right program, the architects said, would have energy-efficient appliances, south-facing roofs laden with solar panels, outdoor space for composting and interior finishes made from products that are not harmful to residents' health or the environment.

At each weekly session, residents and architects shared their ideas for the revival of an area that Mayor Ray Nagin described for months after the storm as a place residents should beware of rebuilding." |Read more|

Global Warming - "Coastal Nibbling"

"Global warming -- through melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding -- is expected to cause oceans to rise by 1 meter, or about 39 inches.

That's the troubling outlook projected by coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona with data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Some scientists believe that it will happen in 50 years, others in 100, still others in 150.

But on this they agree: "We're going to get a meter, and there's nothing we can do about it," said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, held in Paris. "The question is when."

How would some of the best-known U.S. places look?

Galveston

Galveston Island survived the 1900 hurricane, which killed 6,000 people and is the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. But a sea level rise of 3 feet could bring a new form of fear to this sturdy little beach city of 57,000.

Water would cut Galveston off from the Texas mainland by submerging Interstate 45, and it would cover large portions of the bay side. In addition to flooding tourist shops and restaurants, water would make a mess of the University of Texas Medical Branch, future home of a U.S. lab for some of the world's most dangerous germs.

New Orleans

If the levees broke again and the nation gave up the fight to save the lowest parts of New Orleans, the Big Easy would be reduced to a sliver of land along the Mississippi River, leaving only the French Quarter and the oldest neighborhoods dry.

"It would be to a large extent the city of the mid-19th century," said Robert Tannen, an urban planner. "The original marsh and cypress groves of the city would perhaps prevail again.""

|Read more|

Mayor Nagin Announces Shelter Locations

"New Orleans city officials announced Friday evening three locations throughout the city where those living in FEMA trailers or who feel unsafe in their homes can seek refuge during tomorrow's tropical storm." |Read more|

New Orleans Inspector General Makes Appeal To Council

"New Orleans' first inspector general made his first appearance Thursday before the City Council, getting assurances that he will be given a 2008 budget large enough to do his job of uncovering waste, fraud and inefficiency in city government." |Read more|

"Green" Model Homes To Be Erected In New Orleans

"New Orleans recovery director Ed Blakely said Saturday that the office will erect a "Recovery Village" in City Park consisting of eight model homes demonstrating "alternative" building methods such as steel framing, concrete, insulating panels and modular construction.

The village, which Blakely said should open sometime in October, is intended to spread awareness of what he said are cheaper, faster and more environmentally sound alternatives to traditional wood-frame construction." Read more..

Actor Brad Pitt Helps New Orleans Build "Green"

Stan "Pampy" Barre & Oliver Thomas: The Year "2007" Version of the Laurel & Hardy Show

Laurel & Hardy




Bye bye, Stan & Ollie. New Orleans will be better off without you. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy entertained America. New Orleans' version of Stan & Ollie are a public disgrace.

Convicted Criminals: Stan "Pampy" Barre & Oliver Thomas. How Did They Become Partners In Crime?

Gee Stan and Ollie. How did you two become partners in crime?

Why did Stan, New Orleans' most notorious criminal, really choose you Ollie? What does he know about you?

Pressure's On As Morial Cronies Near Trial

"The most frequently asked question on the street these days is whether the feds will ever indict ex-mayor and now-Urban League President Marc Morial.

Speculation on the issue has been rife since the FBI used a battering ram to gain entry to his brother Jacques' digs early one morning more than two years ago. Meanwhile a string of indictments and guilty pleas has opened up the seamy underbelly of the Morial administration.

Next month Morial's former property management director, Kerry DeCay, and three others go on trial for their roles in one of the more spectacular scams allegedly pulled off under hizzoner's nose. If anyone has the goods on Morial, the pressure to rat him out must by now be severe." |Read more|

Letter Reveals Private Deals

"A long-whispered-about document describing a slew of undisclosed interests in public contracts held by members of former Mayor Marc Morial's inner circle surfaced in court records Monday courtesy of federal prosecutors, eight days before some in the group are scheduled to stand trial in a case alleging extensive corruption at City Hall.

Among other arrangements, the counter letter filed with the court, which describes a partnership between lawyer Roy Rodney and restaurateur Stan "Pampy" Barré, indicates that their firm, S & J Consulting LLC, stood to earn about $1.4 million over 12 years as a subcontractor for a city recycling program, and was in line for a one-third share in a joint venture to run the recently reopened Old Gentilly Landfill." |Read more|

Morial Friend Agrees to Deal in Tax Probe

"New Orleans political consultant William Schultz, a member of former Mayor Marc Morial's inner circle, was charged Tuesday with failing to file federal tax returns for two years during which he made money from companies run by other Morial associates.

Schultz, 57, has agreed to plead guilty to the charges and has paid nearly $187,000 in back taxes as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that requires him to help the government with other investigations, according to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

Schultz, for whom the deal proposes a one-year prison term, is accused of not reporting his 2001 and 2002 income to the Internal Revenue Service, including consulting fees he was paid by restaurateur Stan Barre's firm, Pampy's Inc., and Moss Creek Development, a construction company owned by Reginald Walker." |Read more|