Last summer my car was stolen. The thieves were apprehended thanks to a cell phone they also stole. The car would never have been found were it not for the diligence of a police officer who is a friend of the family. He kept calling the wrecking yards until my car showed up at Kar Krushers in New Orleans East.

All of a sudden, the city has a conscience and is unable to tow away festering cars that have been abandoned for seven months for fear of litigation. For anyone who hasn't been to New Orleans since Katrina, beneath every interstate overpass lays a patchwork of dusty cars. Each one is a petri dish; an estimated 25-30,000 vehicles still contaminate the city and they're not going anywhere fast.

According to the Times Picayune, six months ago K&L Auto Crushers offered to pay the city $100 per car. Instead, Nagin's administration decided to pay prominent national engineering firm CH2M Hill $23 million to do the job. You're not the only one who saw something wrong with this picture. For once, the state and FEMA bureaucratic delays in approving the contract were beneficial.

In today's news a CH2M spokesperson said, "We can do the math. If something is better for the city of New Orleans, if there's a better way to do this, we're willing to back away and let the city explore other avenues." I'd have more appreciation for his mathematic abilities if he had solved the problem before the contract came out negative in public opinion.

The cars and trash need to go. FEMA needs to help. The World Trade Center was unbuilt in less than a year. It was a smaller area, but complicated and dangerous piles of steel weighing tons had to be hauled away. It was a case of emergent leadership. Initially, one was assigned the job of overseeing the operation; people stepped up to the plate. In New Orleans, people have the jobs and they're not doing them.