The post-Katrina recovery of City Park has a two-steps-forward, one-step-back quality about it.

For example: FEMA recently determined that the park's headquarters received more than 50 percent damage from the storm, and thus will be replaced at government expense.

The caveat: It's going to take at least two years, meaning the staff will remain in trailers in the interim.

I usually enjoyed City Park’s East Course but occasionally I’d give the West Course a turn because it was supposed to be more of a championship layout. I never saw that side of it but it did offer private time with the alligators.

What will happen to the City Park golf courses and the neighborhood surrounding the St. Bernard public housing complex? The two facilities are located along opposite shores of Bayou St. John near Lake Pontchartrain north of downtown New Orleans.

Rumors have run rampant for months about a mixed-use, mixed density redevelopment of the blighted, former housing project and the City Park golf courses.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin confirmed the project is being discussed and said he fully expects it to happen. Some former residents of the St. Bernard projects have vowed to file lawsuit after lawsuit to see that it doesn’t.

These rumors will fuel either consternation or hope about the future of the housing development and City Park depending on one’s viewpoint.