WNC residents face hurdles while rebuilding from Helene
Venezuelan couple fight ICE detention in El Paso, Texas after three judges say they should not be held; Groups nationwide eye Supreme Court hearing on Montgomery County, Maryland LGBTQ books in schools case
Editor's Note: I added additional information to the Limestone story after I sent the email. It can be found here.
It's Friday, April 25, 2025, and in this morning's edition we're covering: WNC residents facing hurdles while rebuilding from Helene, Venezuelan couple fight ICE detention after judges say they should not he held, Groups eye Supreme Court hearing on Maryland LGBTQ books in schools case, Utah officials concerned over DOGE's plans to end National Park Service facility lease, What happens when communities are cast away, New Orleans mayor says city is financially stable, Byron Donalds' gubernatorial race in Florida is in full swing, A Puerto Rico library is in perpetual reconstruction.
Media outlets and others featured in this edition: NC Newsline, El Paso Matters, Maryland Matters, National Parks Traveler, Next City, Verite News, Open Campus.
To continue reading the rest of each article, please click the link at the end of the excerpt.
A new resource from the State Democracy Research Initiative makes the current text of all 50 state constitutions available and searchable on one site. This was from State Court Report.
Journalist Ben Ledbetter started and edits Down Ballot, a weekly roundup of the best state and local news from nonprofit news outlets.
Few were insured against Helene’s floods. Those that were faced delays, frustrating hurdles
by Galen Bacharier, NC Newsline
April 22, 2025
Just a fraction of homes and businesses in western North Carolina were insured against the floodwaters that deluged the region during Hurricane Helene.
An estimated 10.2% of commercial properties had FEMA-backed flood insurance, and just 5.2% of homes were protected.
The low figures had devastating implications in the face of Helene, a lower-windspeed, heavy-rain storm that hit mountainous communities poorly acquainted with flooding. When the water subsided and recovery began, it became clear that many wouldn’t be reimbursed for the kind of damage their buildings had suffered.
But even for those that were protected, it’s been a long road. Six months after Helene, some property owners looking for a bounce back through insurance have struggled to access it.
It took until late March for one business owner to see any payment — and when it came, it was just a fraction of what she had expected. Another was able to recoup some flood money, but was bewildered when he was denied payment on other parts of his policies. And a larger group of business owners in the region’s largest city are considering going to court to pursue money they believe they qualify for.
Two businesses’ long paths to payment
Bryan and Angela King, who own 12 Bones Smokehouse & Brewing, filed claims on both of their locations: one on the river by Asheville’s downtown River Arts District, and the other further south.
The Kings had been paying into their insurance on the south location since it opened in 2019; they had put down around $300,000 total there, Bryan King estimated.
They were able to get about $100,000 from flood insurance, he told NC Newsline, but they were denied reimbursement on two other policies: contents and business disruption. Contents insurance covers flood damage to movable objects within a building; business disruption insurance covers lost income, often after a disaster.
King kept in frequent contact with other business owners in the area. He heard similar stories — particularly as others tried to navigate those same contents and business disruptions policies. Now, he told NC Newsline, a group of them are considering going to court over the matter.
“There’s discussion of trying to pursue a class-action lawsuit,” King said in a late March interview. “I honestly think that’s basically going to be the only way that we get anything out of this.”
North Carolinians who have sought insurance payouts in the months since Helene described other similar frustrations and bureaucratic hurdles that complicated an already fraught process.
That includes homeowners who told the Asheville news station WLOS that they had received cancellation notices from their providers months after the storm.
Among the other layers of complexity: adjusters who live out of state, multiple subcontractors and extensive documentation requirements.
Carly Brown, who runs Ashewell Medical Group in Asheville, told NC Newsline her provider had subcontracted out to another group, which had then subcontracted out to another adjuster.
When Brown finally received a flood insurance payment in late March — six months after the storm — it was a “fraction of our losses.” Her practice’s office had filled with 11 feet of flood water during the storm. She, too, has now engaged with a law firm.
“They just nickel and dime you after paying faithfully on a flood policy for eight years,” Brown said. “You think you’re doing everything right, being a responsible business owner and citizen. Then the insurance companies essentially keep all their profits, without upholding their responsibilities.”
The Kings ran into other barriers as they filed their claims.
They were told by their Utah-based adjuster that as part of their documentation, they needed a letter from Duke Energy testifying that the damage to their south Asheville location was from wind, and not water.
That seemed unnecessary, Bryan King said — there was no real flooding in that area, but there were plenty of downed trees and power lines to show for the whipping winds.
“You definitely get the sense that it’s like they’re trying to make it as hard as possible,” he said. “So that people just give up. Like, you know, ‘screw it — I don’t have time to work on this, I’ve got a business to run, and I don’t think we’re going to get it anyway.’”
Duke Energy said customers could request a power outage verification letter by contacting the company’s customer care team.
“During significant weather events, multiple factors can contribute to outages, making it difficult to identify a single cause of a power outage,” a Duke Energy spokesperson said in a statement to NC Newsline. “Our primary focus is restoring power as quickly and safely as possible for our customers and communities.”
The chair of the North Carolina House Insurance Committee, Rep. Jennifer Balkcom (R-Henderson), said she had heard from constituents about slogging through insurance in the region — specifically on business disruption claims, some of which are denied outright.
“I’m asking the insurance commissioner to kind of help me look into what’s going on, and we’re trying to get some specifics so that we can work with those individuals,” said Balkcom, whose district was among those that were hardest hit by Helene.
In western North Carolina, spotty insurance coverage meant confusion
There are around 150,000 flood insurance policies in place in North Carolina, according to FEMA and NC Department of Insurance data. The vast majority of those (around 130,000) are federal policies; the rest are private.
A total of 1.8 million North Carolinians live in the 25 counties that were part of Helene’s disaster zone.
Jason Tyson, communications director for the NC Department of Insurance, said in an interview that Helene had brought about “a whole variety of situations and scenarios” in the region. The minimal flood coverage, he said, combined with early communication struggles and a host of different providers, often led to confusion.
“I think the industry and the carriers have done the best they can, in light of difficult circumstances,” Tyson said.
The department has asked providers to report updated data on claims periodically in the months after Helene.
The scope of that information is limited, as it does not include federal flood policies. And only data from one reporting deadline — January — is available publicly. NC Newsline requested and received claims data from October 2024. Data from the department’s other reporting deadlines, in November and December, are not posted publicly and were not provided.
But the data that is available gives a sense to how complex — and long — some flood claims can be.
As of January, 32.4% of those private flood claims were closed. That’s a far lower closure rate than other types of claims made after Helene. Residential property claims had closed at an 84.4% rate; just over 70% of business interruption claims had closed as of January.
Those 547 reported private flood claims account for more than a half-billion dollars in damage, according to DOI’s data. Just over $240 million had been paid as of January.
The department is expected to have updated data from providers in the coming weeks.
FEMA’s federal flood insurance program (NFIP) paid out almost $214 million to North Carolinians in 2024, across more than 2,500 claims. That’s roughly 20% of the total paid out by the program to the state over the last decade.
NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com.
Galen Bacharier
Venezuelan couple fights ICE detention in El Paso after 3 judges say they should not be held
by Cindy Ramirez, El Paso Matters
April 22, 2025
A couple who fled Venezuela in 2022 and were paroled into the United States were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at El Paso International Airport last week – after three judges had found they should not be held.
Cesar, 27, and his wife, Norelia, 34, will appear before an El Paso federal judge Wednesday as they fight again to be released from government custody.
The couple came to the United States after crossing into El Paso in October 2022 with their three children, turning themselves into U.S. Border Patrol agents at the border wall. They were paroled into the country and remain under protected temporary status. They both have applied for asylum.
El Paso Matters is not using the couple’s full names as they fear for their safety if they’re deported to Venezuela.
The couple, who work as hotel custodians, live in the Washington, D.C., area, and had come to El Paso on April 14 for a pretrial hearing on misdemeanor illegal entry charges. A magistrate judge that day maintained their release on bail and set another hearing for June 23. On their way back to Washington two days later, they were taken into custody by ICE at the El Paso airport.
A day later, on April 17, U.S. District Judge David Briones granted them a temporary restraining order prohibiting the government from removing them from El Paso or from deporting them – at least for now, court documents show. Another hearing for the government to show cause on why it believes the couple should be continued to be detained and deported will be held in Briones’ court Wednesday, April 23.
“They’re extremely distraught,” the couple’s attorney, Christopher Benoit of Benoit Legal, told El Paso Matters Tuesday. Benoit said the couple is especially worried about being separated from their children. “And having no certainty, even after a third time of courts ruling that they should not be detained, that this won’t happen again. It’s a roller coaster. It’s torture for them.”
The couple is being represented by Benoit and other attorneys under the National Immigration Project.
The couple’s temporary protected status – a type of humanitarian relief that allows some migrants from designated countries to live and work in the United States temporarily – was withdrawn by the Trump administration on April 1. They were given 31 days to appeal, allowing them to remain in the country legally during that time.
The couple’s case, which was first reported by the Washington Post, is one of many that illustrates the Trump administration's sweeping actions on mass deportations – in many cases without due process and in defiance of the courts.
Trump on March 15 issued a proclamation attempting to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove Venezuelans with alleged ties to the Tren de Aragua gang, which had been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Deportations under the act remain blocked by a federal judge.
Cesar and Norelia’s court journey
The couple’s saga began on March 10, when they were arrested in front of their crying children at their Washington home on criminal warrants issued in El Paso on the misdemeanor offense of unlawful entry. The warrant was filed on Feb. 27 this year – just about a month after Trump took office – though the alleged offense date was Oct. 13, 2022.
“They both work multiple jobs, including for a professional cleaning company,” Benoit said about the couple, adding that they volunteer to take meals to those in need. “They’re been very centered and foundational parts of their community – until they were arrested on March 10 for the first time.”
On March 12, a magistrate judge for the District of Columbia ordered they be released pending their trial. A day later, U.S. Marshals placed them in ICE custody and the two were taken to the ICE field office in Chantilly, Virginia, according to court records. They were released later that day and told to report back April 29.
However, on March 21, the couple were driving with their 4-year-old in Suitland, Maryland, when they were stopped by masked agents, arrested and taken back into ICE custody in Chantilly. They were processed and served with notices to appear for removal, records show.
Cesar was transferred to the Farmville Detention Center and Norelia to the Caroline Detention Facility, both in Virginia.
A week later, on March 28, the couple appeared before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia.
Brinkema asked why Cesar and Norelia were being held. Citing immigration statutes, Matthew J. Mezger of the U.S. Attorney’s Office responded that the couple was being detained because they were a “threat to public safety,” according to court transcripts.
The judge asked if there was any “genuine evidence” of their threat, to which Mezger replied that Norelia was a “well admitted affiliate” of the Tren de Aragua gang, adding that she admitted to being a member and that ICE investigated and validated she was a member of the gang, documents state.
Benoit said Norelia denies ever stating that, and said she’s not a member of TDA.
Brinkema questioned a statement submitted under Erik Weiss, the assistant field director of the ICE ERO Office in Washington, D.C., who was not in the courtroom that day, calling it the “sorriest statement” she’d ever seen.
The judge cited a paragraph from the statement that, according to court transcripts, said Norelia was previously married to a TDA member – from whom she separated 10 years ago and who was killed by the Venezuelan government due to his affiliation. Norelia also stated she’s from the town of Aragua where the TDA is based, according to the transcripts.
Norelia “is a senior member of the TDA,” another paragraph in the statement attributed to Weiss reads.
“How do you get from somebody who was married possibly 10 years ago to a TDA gang member, marriage, all of a sudden she’s a senior member?” Brinkema asked, according to the affidavit.
The judge granted the petition, saying the couple is under protected status and ordered they be released.
On April 1, DHS withdrew their temporary protection status, giving them until May 4 to file an appeal.
In the meantime, the couple traveled to El Paso for an April 14 pretrial hearing on their misdemeanor unlawful entry charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne T. Berton maintained their release on bail and set a subsequent pretrial conference for June 23, records show.
But on April 16, when the couple was at the El Paso airport about to board a plane back to Washington, they were detained by ICE agents.
According to court records, the agents who detained them stated that they did so because they had not yet appealed the withdrawal of their Temporary Protected Status – even though they were well within the window of their appeal deadline.
The El Paso ICE Division of Enforcement and Removal Operations on April 21 posted on X that a “senior member” of Tren de Aragua known as “La Licenciada” was in custody and was awaiting removal. The post showed a photo of Norelia in handcuffs, being escorted into a black vehicle by two plain-clothed women.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Cindy Ramirez
Groups nationwide eye Supreme Court hearing on Montgomery County LGBTQ books in schools case
by William J. Ford, Maryland Matters
April 22, 2025
When the Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in Mahmoud v. Taylor, it will be considering whether Montgomery County parents have a right, on religious grounds, to opt their children out of classes in county schools that use LGBTQ+ friendly books.
But to the scores of religious, legal and educational groups across the country who have filed friend-of-the-court briefs, it’s a case with national implications.
“Whatever rule the Court promulgates in this case will apply far beyond the circumstances of this dispute,” says a 30-page brief filed on behalf of the School Superintendents Association, Consortium of State School Boards Associations, Council of the Great City Schools and National School Attorneys Association. That brief does not support either side in the dispute, but asks the justices to tread carefully.
Most of the other briefs, however, are decidedly on one side or the other: With the parents who argue that the county policy infringes on their right to raise their children according to their religion, or with the school board that says the books are part of an inclusive curriculum and are not coercive or targeting any religion.
The case began at the start of the 2022-23 school year, when the county unveiled a list of “LGBTQ+-inclusive texts for use in the classroom,” including books for grades as low as kindergarten and pre-K. After initially saying that parents could opt their children out of lessons that included those and other books, the school board reversed course in March 2023 and said opt-outs would not be allowed beginning in the 2023-24 school year.
Parents are allowed to opt their children out of parts of sex education classes, but not other parts of the curriculum, like language arts.
The parents sued the school board in May 2023, saying the inability to opt their children out of the classes infringes on their First Amendment freedom of religion rights. They also wanted the schools to notify them when lessons involving the books were coming up, and to plan alternative lessons for their children.
But school officials claim the books were not part of “explicit instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in elementary school, and that no student or adult is asked to change how they feel about these issues.”
In its December filing that urged the Supreme Court to reject the case, the county said, “MCPS (Montgomery County Public Schools) believes that representation in the curriculum creates and normalizes a fully inclusive environment for all students and supports a student’s ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with diverse peers and encourages respect for all.” It went on to say “teachers are not permitted to use the storybooks to enforce a particular viewpoint.”
Lower courts have rejected the parents request for a preliminary injunction, with a divided panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the county policy did not have the coercion required to make it a burden on religious exercise.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, the parents cited a few of the elementary-aged books the school board includes as “LGBTQ-inclusive” and the guidance for teachers that went with each:
“Born Ready,” a story about Penelope, a student who identifies as a boy. “Teachers are told to instruct students that, at birth, doctors guess about our gender, but we know ourselves best”;“Love, Violet,” a story about two young girls and their same-sex playground romance. “Teachers are encouraged to have a think-aloud moment to ask students how it feels when they don’t just like but like like someone”; and“Intersection Allies,” a picture book for children to ponder what it means to be “transgender” or “non-binary” and asks, “what pronouns fit you?”
Mark Graber, a regents professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey Law School in Baltimore, said in an interview Monday that a Supreme Court decision in favor of the petitioners, or parents, would create “an administrative nightmare.”
“There are a lot of religions out there. Schools have to figure out what violates religion, what parents they have to contact,” he said.
Graber said the court will have to determine whether county teaches the topics “as secular” subjects.
“The parent has the right to go in and say, ‘What are you teaching?’ Public schools can teach one plus one equals two, regardless of what your religion says about the simpleness of mathematics,” he said. “They can teach about different forms of couples, regardless of what religion says about the simpleness of different kinds of relationships.
“The crucial thing is public schools must teach it as secular,” he said. “They may not praise or condemn any religion for holding opinions consistent with the public schools, or inconsistent.”
Even though parents have lost in lower courts on their preliminary injunction request, Graber said it makes senses for them to press the case with the current Supreme Court, given the justices’ openness to free exercise claims.
“The court has been extraordinarily sympathetic to free exercise claims brought by evangelical Christians,” he said. “They think they got the most sympathetic court they’ve ever had, so why not [petition the court]?”
‘Case is very important’
The fact the high court will be hearing the case based only “on an undeveloped and untested, preliminary injunction record,” and not hearings on the full merits of case in lower courts, was concerning to the school groups that filed the brief in support of neither side of the case.
“There are great risks presented by asking the Court to potentially adopt new rules for evaluating Free Exercise claims or constitutionalizing notice and opt out requirements,” said the brief from the School Superintendents Association, Consortium of State School Boards Associations, Council of the Great City Schools and National School Attorneys Association.
One other brief that supports neither side in the dispute came from the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that focuses on “eradicating the disparaging treatment of Hinduism” in that state’s public schools.
The organization’s brief proposes the court adopt a four-part test to determine if school policies violate free exercise rights: Does the curriculum material negate religious beliefs or practices?; does the curriculum material itself or the process through which it was adopted reflect targeted hostility toward religion or a particular religion?; does the material or the adoption process lack neutrality toward a particular religion?; and is the curriculum material coercive?
“The outcome of this case is going to clearly affect my client’s rights, but whatever test the court comes up with … we have ideas in what would make sense in litigating the case,” Glenn Katon, counsel representing CAPEEM, said in an interview Monday.
“We’re not there to help either party. We’re there to try and get the court to adopt the test that makes sense, that will help Hindus get treated fairly in California,” he said. “This case is very important for schools in California [and] even across the country.”
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
William J. Ford
Utah Officials Concerned Over DOGE's Plans To End National Park Service Facility Lease
By Kurt Repanshek
April 18, 2025
Utah officials, including a U.S. senator, are concerned by the Trump administration's intention to end a lease on a facility in Moab that houses National Park Service operations for two national parks and two national monuments in one of the most rugged stretches of the Southwest.
The Department of Government Efficiency has targeted the Park Service's Southeast Utah Group's offices, from which the Park Service staff oversees Arches and Canyonlands national parks and Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments. DOGE calculates the savings from canceling the lease of the 35,358-square-foot facility at $805,408 over ten years, although there's been no mention of the cost of relocating the staff and operations to another facility.
First-term U.S. Sen. John Curtis, a Republican who took Mitt Romney's seat after Romney retired last year, is aware of DOGE's intentions.
“We are aware that several federal offices in Grand County are under review for potential closure as part of broader cost-saving measures," a spokesman for the senator said Thursday. "Senator Curtis will work with the NPS, (U.S. Geological Survey), county commissioners, and local leaders to ensure the community’s needs and concerns are fully considered during the evaluation process.”
As the Traveler has noted, the Moab office is just one NPS facility DOGE has targeted. Others include facilities in Naples, Florida, connected with Everglades National Park; one in Ventura, California; one in Yankton, South Dakota; one in Harrison, Arkansas; one in Flagstaff, Arizona, that serves Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano, and Walnut Canyon national monuments; a large facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, that acts as an extension of the Washington, D.C., headquarters and houses the agency's Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate; the headquarters facility of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio, Texas; an NPS facility in Homestead, Florida, connected with Everglades National Park; an NPS facility in Mountainaire, New Mexico; and a large NPS historic and cultural preservation operation in Charles Town, West Virginia.
The Southeast Utah Group has a wide range of duties, including:
- Budgeting, contracting, concessions and permits, human resources, park planning, property management, telecommunications, and information technology.
- The facilities management division operates and maintains roads, trails, buildings, utilities, vehicles, and grounds. It also ensures public safety in facilities and manages building and rehabilitation projects attached to park facilities.
- Interpretation and visitor services tasks that involve fee collection; visitor centers, campgrounds, and the park's volunteer program; and signs, exhibits, social media, and websites. Park rangers in this division also present guided walks, talks, hikes, evening programs, educational activities, and other special programs.
- The resource stewardship and science division studies, inventories, and monitors a wide range of park resources, including geological features, vegetation, wildlife, water, air, and historic and cultural resources. This division also manages the parks archives and museum collections.
- The visitor and resource protection division is responsible for law enforcement and visitor safety, emergency medical services, search and rescue, and managing the backcountry camping permitting system.
Kurt Repanshek
A Sinner’s Shrine and the Sacred City
From a threatened urban shrine to the isolation of suburbs, what happens when communities are cast away?
Story by Simmons Buntin
Published on Apr 21, 2025
Simmons Buntin is the author of the poetry collections Riverfall and Bloom; the co-author, with Ken Pirie, of Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces as Places; and the co-editor, with Elizabeth Dodd and Derek Sheffield, of Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy. He is the editor-in-chief of Terrain.org, the president and director of the board of Terrain Publishing, and the director of marketing and communications at the University of Arizona. He lives in Tucson.
At the edge of Barrio Viejo, a half-mile south of downtown Tucson, lies the nation’s only Catholic shrine dedicated to a sinner instead of a saint. Many tales are told about the origin of the shallow portico framed by a high adobe wall, arched like an old Mexican fort. The most popular stories date to the early 1870s, when a local ranch hand, Juan Oliveras, fell in love with his mother-in-law. Caught in the arms of his lover, the young man was stabbed by the woman’s wealthy husband. Or he was axed. Or he was shot — the details vary.
Pulling himself out of his in-law’s house, Juan staggered onto the street before making it to the edge of a barren lot, where he died. His lover wept for him, lighting candles with neighbors in the hopes of guiding his soul to heaven. They buried him where he lay, for he was an adulterer who had died before confessing his sins, and the Catholic priest would not inter the man in the church’s cemetery. He was el tiradito, the castaway.
Today, El Tiradito — “the only shrine in the United States dedicated to the soul of a sinner buried in unconsecrated ground,” according to its onsite plaque — remains a sacred and celebrated place where candles flicker and visitors leave personal messages to honor the dead, and as a means of bringing good fortune. Legend whispers, among the crumbling adobe and overhanging branches of mesquite, that one’s wishes will come true if a candle lit in the evening remains burning the next morning.
Though the original shrine was destroyed during road construction, the small lot that today houses the grotto was deeded to the city in 1927 before being named an official Tucson monument thirteen years later, when the adobe wall was built. By the late 1960s, however, urban renewal that had already claimed many of Tucson’s most historic barrios threatened the shrine. A proposed federal highway would bisect central Tucson and require, according to government officials, the shrine’s demolition. Outraged, residents held a series of protests, demanding that the altar and broader neighborhood be spared.
But how could a monument of seemingly little national significance convince federal bureaucrats to change their minds? The neighbors’ answer: by taking advantage of federal protections and rallying around historic preservation. Years of neighborhood activism delayed highway siting while residents pushed to add the shrine to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1971, the residents succeeded: The National Register sanctioned the monument as “the only such shrine in the U.S… . [and a] symbol of the belief that certain deceased individuals grant the wishes of those who light votive candles for them.” When construction of Interstate 10 eventually began, its path lay 600 yards west.
While the plaque marks the altar’s historic significance, it doesn’t mention the neighborhood’s efforts to save the shrine. Spiritually and culturally, however, the aromatic candles, ornate ironwork, and flow of visitors attest not only to the altar’s original importance but also to the perseverance of community itself.
Read More:
Simmons Buntin
Reversing position, Cantrell admin says New Orleans is financially stable
by Katie Jane Fernelius April 17, 2025
Sign up for Verite's free newsletters and get the New Orleans news you need three times a week.
When New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell backed out of a $90 million legal settlement with the Orleans Parish School Board earlier this year, her administration pointed to the city’s own troubled finances.
In public appearances, her top deputies — particularly Chief Financial Officer Romy Samuel — warned of a coming crisis, claiming that the city’s spending is “out of control” and that “financial instability is imminent.”
“Given that the financial situation is stable, has there been an offer made to the school?” asked Councilmember Joe Giarrusso.
“I’m not aware, but I would defer to law and legal,” Montaño answered.
“I would like to get the answer to that, because my understanding of this situation … was that part of the reason for not doing the deal is that we had a financial crisis,” Giarrusso said, noting that the administration has claimed it might be interested in an alternative offer.
The news of the city’s stable financial outlook comes after months of drama between the New Orleans City Council and the Mayor’s Office over whether the city could afford the settlement with the school board. That settlement would’ve provided $20 million to the district before the end of the school year, helping to alleviate the impact of an estimated $50 million budget shortfall for the city’s schools. The remaining $70 million was to be given to educational programming over the next 10 years.
Cantrell maintained that the settlement, which her top deputy — Chief Administrative Office Gilbert Montaño — was involved in drafting, would be too costly to the city. In response, the School Board and the council took Cantrell to court. But a judge ultimately ruled that the city was not obligated to carry out the full terms of the settlement — just the first $10 million payment, which had been appropriated to the school board during hearings on the city’s 2025 budget.
In recent weeks, the council has passed a series of ordinances designed to fulfill the terms of the settlement anyway: appropriating an additional $10 million to the district and eliminating the city’s practice of charging fees for tax collection – a practice that had been at the heart of the case that partly spurred the proposed settlement in the first place.
Though the officials who appeared before the council said that the city’s finances are currently stable, they did caution that the financial environment could change, citing the potential of cuts to the city’s bottom-line through reduced revenues, the spend-down of American Rescue Plan Act dollars and external risks, including the potential of further funding cuts from both the state and federal governments.
Both Samuel and Montaño presented a slate of options to reduce the city’s spending and generate more revenue, including potentially issuing revenue bonds to pay out the city’s unpaid and outstanding judgments, which currently total $88.1 million.
When asked after the meeting why and how the administration’s perspective on the state of city finances had changed since their initial warnings of imminent “financial instability” two months ago, Samuel denied that there was any meaningful change.
“My position hasn’t changed,” Samuel told Verite News, saying that the city’s reserve funds are not where she would like them to be.
Montaño also said that despite some reporting suggesting otherwise, his office and the finance department were working cooperatively.
“I want to reiterate that the CAO and Finance are working together, and we will continue to work together,” he said. “We’re teammates, we’re partners, and I have great respect for the cautions that finance does provide, and we’re going to manage the city accordingly.”
Katie Jane Fernelius
Byron Donalds’ Florida Gubernatorial Race Is in Full Swing
As rumored challenger Casey DeSantis fights off corruption allegations, Donalds raised more than $11.5 million last month, including $5 million from megadonor Jeff Yass.
April 18, 2025
A year-and-a-half out from Florida’s governor’s race, Byron Donalds is already boxing out candidates by racking up endorsements from Republican lawmakers.
Meanwhile, his highest profile likely challenger, Florida’s first lady, Casey DeSantis, is busy fighting off a growing corruption scandal over allegations her nonprofit Hope Florida funneled $10 million in taxpayer funds toward political ads. Though Casey DeSantis hasn’t officially joined the race, both she and her husband have hinted at her possible running.
When reporters asked her in February if she was planning a run, she responded cryptically, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” NBC News reported in March that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ allies have been urging Florida Republicans to hold off endorsing Donalds.
But Donalds, who in February received President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has already been lining up support, including from most of Florida’s congressional delegation and a string of state lawmakers. Pennsylvania megadonor Jeff Yass has given Donalds’ political action committee $5,000,000. According to the latest campaign finance reports, Donalds has raised more than $11.5 million since Trump’s endorsement.
“What it does say is, ‘If I endorse somebody, I’m not going to run myself,’ and so that’s where there’s value in those things. When you’re racking endorsements from state legislators and politico types in Florida, that takes them out of the equation. And that’s really what he’s trying to do at this point,” said Michael Binder, a Florida politics expert who runs public polls at the University of North Florida. “State senator X or state House member Y that nobody knows who you are, those are circumstances where they’re probably boxed out at this point.”
Donalds is starting his campaign early. DeSantis announced his campaign for governor shortly after landing Trump’s endorsement in December 2017 (DeSantis officially announced his bid in January 2018). Donalds has a much longer campaign runway until the August 2026 Republican primary, and it’s likely he’ll find challengers soon.
But in the meantime, in a likely boost for Donalds, state-level lawmakers under Republican leadership are investigating evidence that Casey DeSantis’ flagship project, Hope Florida, sent $5 million in Medicaid settlement funds to two groups that then passed the money onto a political committee just days later, as the Tampa Bay Times first reported.
The governor tried to defend his wife this week even as more unflattering evidence against the organization came out during a state House hearing.
“Hope Florida, because of the first lady’s vision and leadership, has made a real difference in our communities,” Gov. DeSantis told reporters Wednesday, lobbing jabs at state House Republicans and alluding to political motivations.
“There’s some people that are threatened by that. There’s some people that don’t like that. Maybe it’s because it conflicts with their vision of government first. Maybe they just don’t like seeing other people have success in the political sphere. Maybe they have their own agenda,” he said.
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez called the governor’s comments a “temper tantrum” and doubled down on criticism of the first lady’s project.
“All he does is deflect with lies and stories that never happened instead of just owning it. It is very clear by what has been put out there that Hope Florida could have been ran better, that maybe transparency would be a benefit for Hope Florida,” Perez, who has not endorsed anyone in the gubernatorial race, told reporters at the state Capitol. “He refuses to acknowledge that.”
Donalds’ office did not respond to a request for comment on Hope Florida. He visited the Florida Legislature earlier this month and avoided weighing in on the DeSantis-Perez beef.
But more than a year out from the primary, things are looking pretty good for Donalds, Binder said.
“Casey DeSantis is somebody who’s never been in elected office,” Binder said. “The fact that she is your chief rival who hasn’t even entered a race yet and is a political novice in a lot of ways — you’re in pretty good shape.”
—
Claire Heddles is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Claire Heddles
La Lázaro: A library trapped in a never-ending reconstruction
Since Hurricane María hit in 2017, the José M. Lázaro Library at the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus has been plagued by leaks, moldy books, and seven study rooms that remain closed. Home to much of the island’s cultural and historical heritage, the library is still far from a full recovery. University officials estimate it will take at least three more years to complete the repairs.
by Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez April 7, 2025
Six years ago, I walked the halls of La Lázaro Library at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras campus to observe the reconstruction process following the damage caused by Hurricane María two years earlier. The cyclone’s wind and rain left deep scars on the building, marks that were still visible two years after it struck, as if the space held on to memories of the disaster.
Today, these halls look virtually the same. While federal aid was allocated for repairs, Puerto Rico’s national library is still full of mold, bad odors, and streaky walls.
Friday
At 9:00 a.m., Christopher Acevedo opens his laptop to study at the José M. Lázaro Library, La Lázaro for everyone here. He studies here at least three times a week, traveling by train from the northern city of Bayamón, where he lives with his grandmother. The journey takes him 30 minutes.
Born in California, Christopher, 19, navigates between Spanish and English, instinctively responding in the language he inherited from his Puerto Rican parents. He is studying History at the Faculty of Humanities and plans to pursue a career in Law.
He sits on a blue sofa on the library’s first floor, near the door leading to the Social Sciences and Business Administration faculties, seeking to “escape” the musty smell of the second floor where he used to study.
“I stopped studying there because of that smell,” he tells me, fingers poised on his laptop keyboard. It’s a rancid odor, like a damp dirty rug or a humid sock that’s been wet for days.
It’s Friday, and the library is nearly empty. For Christopher, the Lázaro Library, or simply La Lázaro, as it is affectionately known, is a “center of information and culture” and a significant symbol of the University. However, the deteriorating infrastructure prevented students from entering the building, which was inaugurated in 1953.
“I think it affects many students. There are closed rooms. It’s very bad… I don’t know how to say it, but it’s not fair,” he says.
Silence envelops the space for a few seconds until the noise from the library’s back door brings us back to reality. I thank Christopher for his testimony and head upstairs to the second floor. Ahead, a black streak runs down the white wall. The musty smell hits my nose. I climb another floor and find the source of those water lines that dripped from the ceiling. A brown mold stain emerges from a beam, also affecting the ceiling and part of the floor.
In 2021, the university administration announced the completion of the library’s roof waterproofing, which was damaged by Hurricane María in 2017. It was a temporary solution by Tropitech Inc. to stop the leaks, costing $545,229. However, the drops continued to seep from the ceiling because the treatment was not a permanent fix.
In early March, Astrid Lugo López, president of the General Student Council (CGE in Spanish) of the campus, spoke with me about the lack of study spaces at the public university and the challenges for students trying to study under increasingly precarious conditions. That conversation, filled with frustration, resonates with me as I walk through the library.
“There are parts in La Lázaro that some students have never seen during their university career,” she said, sitting in the Council’s office at the Student Center.
“Let’s remember that the public university not only serves the university community. La Lázaro is supposed to be the island’s public library. It’s our national library, and it cannot provide services because entire rooms are closed due to mold and deterioration,” the CGE president said.
The library should be a safe place to study, but it is difficult for visitors to find areas not plagued by leaks, mold, and bad odors.
“We need study spaces, and there are fewer and fewer,” the CGE President complained.
The problem has persisted for over a decade, when authorities classified the structure as a “sick” building — a designation tied to issues like poor air circulation, mold, and water damage. Conditions worsened further after the hurricane seven and a half years ago.
The damage was evident not only in the library but throughout the campus. The reconstruction works progressed slowly, while the library struggled to heal and regain its place, with trash cans and buckets used to collect leaks and dehumidifiers in the hallways to combat spores.
Six years after that visit, some of the deteriorated spaces remain unrepaired. La Lázaro remains, in many aspects, frozen in time. The library operates in a fragmented manner from improvised corners where the different collections were moved.
At least seven of the 14 rooms and libraries have remained closed since that fateful September of 2017: Library Services for People with Disabilities, the Zenobia and Juan Ramón Jiménez Room, the Documents and Maps Room, the Film Library, the Library of Library and Information Sciences, part of the Caribbean Regional Library, and the Arts and Music Collection.
Although these collections’ services are offered from other spaces, their operation is not optimal. For example, the Library of Library and Information Sciences, which absorbed the texts from the School of Communication when it merged with the Graduate School of Information Sciences and Technologies to become a faculty, was closed. Currently, the texts can be consulted in the online catalog and picked up in the Circulation Room, where both collections were relocated. The transfer process was lengthy and included exhaustive cataloging and discarding of texts, an employee told me in confidentiality.
Back on the second floor, my gaze falls on two exposed ceiling holes, where leaks reveal their brown mold and white fungus marks.
I take a few steps forward, and to the left, I encounter the Zenobia and Juan Ramón Jiménez Room, which is dedicated to materials for studying the work of the Andalusian poet and Nobel Prize winner. Two papers taped to the door glass announce that the “area is closed” and that services are relocated next to the Josefina del Toro Fulladosa Collection (Rare Books), also on the second floor.
“Services offered from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.,” the paper warns. The phone numbers and emails included in the notice attempt to fill the void of what is missing: the human presence of those who should be there.
Back on the first floor, glass doors flanked by wooden paneling have also remained closed since 2017. I take a photo and search my phone for the same image I took a few years ago. Little progress has been made in that space that housed library services for people with functional diversity.
Once again, a paper announces that services are on the second floor, behind the Circulation and Reserve Collection. To get there, there are only two options: the stairs or an elevator barely visible a few steps ahead. There are no ramps. On days when the electricity fails — which is frequent in Puerto Rico — an employee who prefers to remain anonymous tells me that only the stairs remain for the 1,179 students with functional diversity or reasonable accommodation registered on campus, according to the institution.
The library, designed by German architect Henry Klumb and inaugurated in 1953 at a cost of $1 million, lacks an interior ramp. Over the years, the building was altered and expanded. Modernity brought air conditioning systems and the urgent need to connect to the internet, but no investment was made in access for people with mobility issues to reach all library spaces. Constant power outages not only prevent some from reaching the second floor but also damage elevators and air conditioners, and temperature fluctuations cause more humidity, which, in turn, promotes mold growth on walls, ceilings, and books.
The ravages of Hurricane Fiona in September 2022 and Storm Ernesto in August 2024 caused asbestos-laced material to detach from the ceiling in the Circulation and Reserve Collection, according to an email from the director of the campus Library System, Nancy Abreu Báez, sent to the director of the Technical Support and Infrastructure Unit, Ramón Canto, which I accessed. The incident prompted the UPR’s Office of Environmental Protection, Health, and Occupational Safety to order the air conditioners to be turned off for cleaning. When the air conditioners were turned back on, they did not cool adequately, allowing mold proliferation to worsen, the report says.
Although the situation was partially neutralized, in her report, Abreu Báez acknowledges in the document that “if temperatures are not stabilized, the mold will resurface.”
Six months after the incident, Abreu Báez tells me that the Library System, which includes La Lázaro, has had the company In-Viro Care conduct deep cleanings of its collections.
Monday
I arrive at 11:00 a.m. in a rush for an appointment at the Río Piedras campus. A weekend separates me from that tour of La Lázaro. At the Chancellor’s Office, I am greeted by architects Mayra Jiménez Montano, special assistant in Infrastructure Affairs, and Jomarly Cruz Galarza, director of the campus’ Physical Planning and Development Office.
Although the agenda was to discuss the campus reconstruction process, the library situation inevitably dominates the conversation.
Both acknowledge the challenges of delays in the restoration works, the complexities of meeting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) requirements, the labor shortage in Puerto Rico, and an almost endless list of tasks that highlight the restoration’s complexity.
“When you restore a building, you start from the top down,” explains Jiménez Montano. “That’s why we’re starting with waterproofing. Once the leak problem is addressed, the next phase is the air conditioning systems to assess their condition and install suitable equipment for libraries with humidity controls,” she adds.
She refers to a new phase of the library reconstruction process, announced last January by the then-president of the UPR, Luis Ferrao. It involves the removal and disposal of the temporary waterproofing system (which cost over $500,000 four years ago) and the installation of a new system in accordance with the 2018 building codes. This phase will cost $3.1 million from FEMA funds and CDBG-DR disaster recovery funds provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The inevitable question lingers: why has so much time passed between the temporary waterproofing, completed in 2021, and the start of this permanent work?
“It must be seen as a very ambitious project. Here alone, it’s $260 million [for the entire campus], but these are processes that must meet each stage and are very rigorous. A competitive process must be carried out, which takes time,” says Jiménez Montano.
“Now, in the last two years, it has moved forward a bit more. Obviously, it’s because we’ve been pressed and have to use the funds, but yes, they are slow processes,” adds the architect, referring to the progression of leaks and the progressive deterioration in the library.
She dismisses the notion that the urgency now arises from instability in the federal government, where President Donald Trump’s policies threaten agencies like FEMA and threaten to cut funds to universities.
She adds another factor: Puerto Rico’s construction challenges, due to the labor shortage and the increase in construction workers’ wages, which rose to $15 per hour for skilled employees.
“Right now, there have been projects, like La Lázaro, where the auction had to be done a second time because there weren’t enough bids. A bidding process can take 60 or 90 days. If it has to be redone because it was vacant, that’s three more months that a project is delayed,” she mentions.
It’s not, then, a matter of missed deadlines, UPR officials assure, but of the inherent complexity of the infrastructure of a historic campus, where every decision and step must be carefully calculated.
Cruz Galarza says the construction had to go through two phases of complex bidding, one for the project design and another for construction, something common in all types of infrastructure development.
“[The design phase] includes aerial photos, humidity studies with thermographic cameras, asbestos and lead studies to confirm that no additional mitigation is required, and making the plans to then hold the bidding process,” adds Cruz Galarza.
The room that served people with functional diversity on the library’s first floor will no longer serve that purpose. The University Archive will be located there, the architects explain.
There will not be a specialized room for people requiring accommodation, as the idea, they said, is to adapt all library spaces to be inclusive.
“According to the regulations, all library service spaces must be accessible. Now, rather than designating a closed or isolated space for services for people with functional diversity, we start from the premise that all libraries and all services they offer must be accessible to everyone,” said Jiménez Montano.
In the first-floor Reference Room, however, two booths will be integrated for deaf people to be there with an interpreter.
While all this is happening, the Lázaro Library will remain open, and no further relocations of services or collections are anticipated, the architects estimate.
It’s already noon, and I leave the Chancellor’s Office. Almost without realizing it, I end up in front of the library doors.
The familiarity of the place, with its grand architecture, greets me with no surprises, but this time something in the atmosphere is different: more people are walking inside La Lázaro.
Some go down to clock out for lunch, while others, perhaps out of habit or simple efficiency, cross that first floor from end to end, shortening the campus path, as if the library were nothing more than a shortcut to their route.
Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez
-30-
