Ray Nagin

Clarence Ray Nagin, Jr. ( born June 11, 1956 in New Orleans, Louisiana ) is an American politician and former mayor of the city of New Orleans. He was elected as the successor to Marc Morial to this position in May 2002, and practiced it out until 3 May 2010.

Life

Ray Nagin was born in New Orleans and grew up in modest circumstances. Because of its good Fähigkeitem in baseball, he managed to get a scholarship to Tuskegee University, and made in 1978 with a degree in accounting. He then worked in Los Angeles for General Motors and Associates Corp. .. In 1985 he returned to New Orleans and became employees of Cox Communications, a provider of cable TV, and there rose to vice president. After an MBA, he began to be interested in a career in politics.

He is married to Seletha Smith Nagin since 1982, together the couple has three children: Jeremy, Jarin and Tianna.

Political career

Prior to his election as Mayor Nagin was a member of the Republican Party and had little political experience. Nagin donated regularly to politicians, such as U.S. President George W. Bush and former Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, and previously for the Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and Bennett Johnston.

A few days before he decided to run for office, Nagin switched to the Democratic Party - mainly to increase his chances of winning the Democratic tribe area of New Orleans. In the first round, he received 29% of votes against opponents such as the Police Chief Richard Pennington, the State Senator Paulette Irons and others. In the runoff election with Pennington in May 2002, Nagin received 59 % of votes. His campaign was largely self- financed. Shortly after taking office, Nagin launched an anti - corruption campaign in the city government.

On 23 August 2005 was formed over the Bahamas Hurricane Katrina. In the following days, the signs that this storm would move to the vicinity of New Orleans compacted. Because of the location of large parts of New Orleans below sea level large-scale floods were expected. On August 28, 2005 Nagin ordered the evacuation of New Orleans, when Katrina approached the Gulf Coast of the United States. The hurricane destroyed New Orleans for the most part.

On August 31, Nagin estimated that hundreds, possibly even thousands of people in the environmental disaster lost their lives, the day after he was interviewed by the American broadcaster WWL- TV, accusing the U.S. government as well as individual organizations and individuals, with the help of New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina wreaked the to have failed.

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In some media Nagin, however, was later accused of having himself also did not use all the resources available to the city. Thus, for example, the city buses and school buses were not used for evacuation and remained in the depots.

In 2006 he was re-elected. He won in the runoff election against challenger, the lieutenant governor and Democratic Party colleagues Mitch Landrieu, by a margin of four percentage points. Because of the restriction to two terms Nagin came in 2010 not for re-election at. On 7 February 2010, his successor, the turn is Mitch Landrieu occurred, elected with 66 % of the vote on the new mayor of New Orleans. The handover took place on 3 May 2010.

After the end of his term Nagin was confronted with allegations of corruption that led to an indictment in 21 points. In essence, Nagin is accused of favoring business in the awarding of construction contracts in the amount of round five million U.S. dollars and to have accepted in return about $ 200,000 bribes and luxury travel for himself and his family