Big Insurance, meet Connie Moran – a Fulbright Scholar with a master’s degree in finance/economics and international commerce – the Mayor of Ocean Springs, Mississippi with all perils insurance on her mind.
Moran wants more than stories about businesses and residents having trouble rebuilding due to insurance costs, she want hard data. According to the Mississippi Press Register, she plans to provide that data to Congressman Gene Taylor.
A small town Mississippi mayor may not sound like a threat – unless you happen to have read about her accusing FEMA of “creating trailer trash” in the Seattle Times.
The mayor first gained national attention when she locked horns with FEMA, preferring the traditional and sustainable Katrina Cottages to the standard-issue mobile homes that “within 18 months create a trash-heap of trailers up for auction.”
She envisioned a neighborhood of "Katrina cottages" — tiny, yellow houses built in a Southern style, with sloped metal roofs and big front porches.
Ocean City has actually created “a planned village of 20 ‘Katrina cottages” about a mile from Ocean Springs’ downtown.”
You don’t mess with Texas or Connie Moran – if you don’t believe me, contact the Mississippi Department of Transportation and ask about that bridge they almost had to sell.
1 comment:
Mayor Moran along with Mayor Warr are two of the very bright leaders that have emerged here since Katrina. Both are somewhat controversial locally, in my mind because they are breaking the old power structures that have, in many instances, held us back.
I would hope that other cities in the coastal areas would follow suit. Certainly our political leadership already knows the answers as those of us in business live this everyday, but hard data will help empower Gene Taylor in his quest to bring sanity to the debate on the lack of insurance markets available on the coast and why a federal solution is needed.
sop
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