MICHAEL BROWN FEMA MANAGEMENT STYLE AWARDS

After a wonderful experience with our family and the Williams family when we attended the public inauguration of Barack Obama as President, the whole experience was pretty much flawless except for some incidents which left you scratching your head... while getting fearful that these types of decisions were made by people charged with making decisions that made sense.

Thus, on our return, we are proud to present unofficial "Michael Brown FEMA Management Style Awards" to the following public entities:

1. The Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police: for not providing more than one line at different entry points to the Cannon House Office Building, on 19 January, 2009, for those with appointments with their or other Members of Congress on business other than retrieving tickets for the inauguration on 20 January, 2009; thereby resulting in hours of waiting which in turn resulted, understandably, in having the Member of Congress cancel the appointment since no alterate means of ingress was provided for non-inauguration ticket purposes resulting in an efficiency reminiscent of Michael Brown's tenure at FEMA as they made strategic decision in light of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

2. The management of the DC Metro who for weeks provided public information about anticipated crowds versus their capacity to transport same, for not providing announcements of station closings, postponements, or other invaluable information to those Mall attendees who relied on the Metro to help them navigate out of the District of Columbia at the conclusion of the inaugural events; resulting, in our case, in a 6 hour wait to access an open train station, resulting in an efficiency reminiscent of Michael Brown's tenure at FEMA as they made strategic decisions in light of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

3. The management of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, who while the Governor was dancing his Goldman Sach's styled feet off at an inaugural party in DC had the foresight at the Woodrow Wilson Rest Area of only staffing one gasoline vending aisle with one employee, where self-pumping is prohibited, thereby resulting in gasoline wait lines reminiscent of the Carter era, and efficiency in management reminiscent of Michael Brown's tenure at FEMA as they made strategic decisions in light of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

4. The management of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, who while their US Senators, the Hon. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Martinez were partying in DC, had the foresight to only have open two 'cash' lanes on the turnpike where it ended for those seeking entry to the George Washington Bridge's upper deck, thereby resulting in a wait time of one hour and 40 minutes to passage through the toll, and efficiency in management reminiscent of Michael Brown's tenure at FEMA as they made strategic decisions in light of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

With media reports circulating for weeks about anticipated crowds attending this milestone inauguration, and the logical inference that people who come from somewhere to Washington will wish to return to the somewhere from whence they originated, we do hereby convey these honorary and fictitous awards with the thanks of the beneficiaries of the clairvoyance of those who made these decisions.

Seriously however, those in power in the Congress of the United States and in the Administration of the Government of the Distict of Columbia should undertake a serious and thorough review of all policies & procedure in place in DC from 17 January through 21 January, 2009.

The purpose of which study/review is to see how to improve upon the evacuation of the nation's capitol city should same ever be necessary with crowds at the type of capacity as existed on 20 January, 2009. With this nation under the on-going threat of some form of perverse terrorist intrusion, not to investigate this type of crowd control and related scenarios would arguably be negligence per se.

Metro wasn't up to the job, and those public authorities who should have anticipated crowds traveling through their jurisdictions en route home were similarly deficient.