ILAPA News BURST! John Paige Leads Recovery Effort

	Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana – After the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Illinois Chapter Administrator, John Paige, could not sit on the sidelines. John joined the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) to lead a local group in a “speed planning” effort. While planners from all over the country have been engaged in Louisiana’s Long Term Community Recovery planning process, most are with national firms. As one of the few with FEMA, John opened up a “storefront” operation in Belle Chase, which is the population hub north of Plaquemines Parish and about fifteen minutes south of downtown New Orleans. Having escaped the extreme damage, Belle Chase has served John’s planning headquarters. Unfortunately, the southern two thirds area of the Parish were not as fortunate, with a nearly 40% loss in structures and people and a shrimp and oyster fishing industry so instrumental in the vitality of the area almost entirely destroyed. Included on John’s team of twenty or so were an initial core of five, with a sociologist, an events planner, an administrative specialist, and two urban planners. The group had a decidedly local flare, with four of his first five members from the immediate area. John’s administrative specialist was from Port Sulfur, a small southerly hamlet literally reduced to foundations and rubble. While she’s now living in a FEMA trailer, her spirit remains unbroken. John remarks about how personally touched he has been in knowing that he has area residents on his team, stating “their local knowledge has proven indispensable” and adding, “it’s my job to help them plan long term, even while they’re responding to the shock of the devastation.” Having spent decades honing his planning tools in Chicago, never have they been more needed. And while regional planning for Chicago required broad thinking and even a deft political touch, time was always a luxury, or now it certainly seems that way. John had to establish an incredibly fast timeline where he conducted a visioning session last December; held a public house at the beginning of January to receive feedback on the proposals created as a result of the visioning exercise; produced a long-term community recovery plan for the Parish at the end of January; and then devised an implementation strategy in February that included prioritization and the search for funding mechanisms to make the vision a reality. As John points out, “it’s a fast process, but there are no short cuts.” With his work wrapping up, John takes heart knowing that a couple of local planners will stay on for a year to assist the Parish in executing the plan. And while John calls the assignment “heart-wrenching” and even “grueling,” it has been exciting for him at the same time. One thing is clear – he’ll definitely miss the food, which he describes as “fantastic.” But what’s more evident is his respect for his FEMA colleagues, which he describes as “passionate and dedicated”, and his admiration for the locals he has gotten to know. As he describes it, “even with such monumental devastation, they have been a genuine pleasure to work with, even in their time of turmoil.”
	Tim Scott Community Development Strategist Village of Hinsdale 19 E. Chicago Ave. Hinsdale, IL 60521 Phone: 630.789.7005 Fax: 630.789.7015 pr@ilapa.org