With roads still in disrepair, sections of the police department operating out of trailers, and a Lakeview library being run out of a bus, some people could not help but raise their eyebrows when Mayor Ray Nagin said that the hopes of building a Hurricane Katrina memorial, the City Council handed him a check.

$1 million in tax payer money to build a mausoleum to honor and house the unidentified bodies found after Katrina.

“You got people that don’t have no shelter—nothing—still in New Orleans, and you want to do something for people that already passed, think about the people first that’s living,” said James George, a New Orleans resident.

The City Council’s vote to allocate the money came just days before the second anniversary of Katrina, in the middle of a council meeting on August 23. Board members were notified then that Nagin had issued an emergency ordinance. So what normally would have been a two week voting process was cut down to minutes without notice.

“I am resentful of being put in this position, frankly. I'm just resentful,” Councilwoman Shelley Midura (District A) said during the meeting. “We had nothing to say about this; no input, and we're deciding at the last minute before you absolutely have to have this to do this. And to give a million dollars, it's not right to for the executive branch to treat the legislative branch like this."

Nagin said it’s money well spent, adding that the emergency ordinance was just a normal way to get the funds, but during that meeting, other council members voiced otherwise.

“I think in the future, we’re going to have to really look a little deeper at these last minute items coming before and people not having the background to vote on them,” said Cynthia Hedge-Morrell (District D)

The memorial is supposed to be built at the old Charity Hospital Cemetery. Had the City Council commissioned the project, Councilman At-Large Arnold Fielkow said the council would have undergone a competitive process to choose the contractor, receiving a handful of designs and prices before selecting the option that would be the best fit for the city.

Fielkow said at the meeting, City Council members did not have an opportunity to see the plans for the project, but instead were given a verbal explanation of the project.

However, Morrell said preliminary designs of the memorial had been available for close to a year, even though they weren't presented at the council meeting, and she believes spending the million was a must.

“It's not the first time we did an emergency ordinance, it was just something we wanted to complete by the second anniversary,” Morrell said. “These people have been sitting in refrigeration for two years.”

Following the vote to approve the project, Fielkow responded, “At the end of the day, we were trying to be humane about the situation and given that there had been a verbal commitment by the city for the project, and we were days away from the national spotlight, it would not send the right message to reject it.”

Eyewitness News attempted to contact several other council members, but was unsuccessful in getting a response.