In fine-tuning preparations for hurricane season, Gretna will use its new $6.5 million multi-purpose center to house almost 200 police officers, firefighters, paramedics and public works employees in the event of a major storm. But the Mel Ott Multipurpose Center on Belle Chasse Highway needs some adjustments to accommodate essential personnel during and after a storm, Deputy Police Chief Anthony Christiana said.

The additional equipment will provide sleeping quarters, a kitchen and dining area and could cost $100,000 to $125,000, Christiana told the City Council last week.

Michael A. Dodele, whose crimes had earned him a place on California's sex-offenders registry, was murdered by neighbor Ivan Garcia Oliver in November 2007, 35 days after Dodele moved into a mobile home in California's Lake County. Oliver, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2012, never denied killing the man.

Instead, in a jailhouse interview with the Los Angeles Times, Oliver gave what amounted to a manifesto.

In a sweet, decent and honest world, sweet, decent and honest women like Ann Williams would never encounter me at the seedy downtown corner where I sometimes ply my trade. New Orleans' criminal court fortress on Tulane and Broad is no place for a genuine lady.

Tragedy brings her there. No one deserves to have her life shattered in a radically violent second. Yet that's what happened to Ann Williams when her son turned his back to the front door of an eastern New Orleans restaurant one March night in 1995.