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(CNSNews.com) -- A former president of the New Orleans City Council and member of the Orleans Levee Board blames corruption "down to the bone" and "unbelievable ineptness" for the loss of life and injuries during and after Hurricane Katrina. The Republican politician also fears the worst for her city if local officials are allowed to manage the federally funded rebuilding efforts.

"The corruption in city hall was horrible, and it was the same thing at the levee board," Peggy Wilson told Cybercast News Service. "The corruption in Louisiana and in the City of New Orleans goes down to the bone."

Wilson was first elected to the New Orleans City Council in 1986 and served through 1998, including two terms as its president. When she lost her re-election bid in 1998, Louisiana Republican Gov. Mike Foster appointed her to the Orleans Levee Board.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, state lawmakers and the levee board engaged in an ongoing battle between 1996 and 2001 over how the board spent money. Residents of the levee district also defeated a tax increase proposed by the board.

Wilson recalled those battles.

"Nobody was convinced that [the levee board] needed any more money and, of course, they didn't," Wilson charged. Instead of spending money on levee maintenance and improvements, the levee board focused on widening bridges and making other accommodations for riverboat casinos, she said. The casinos are a major source of the levee board's funding since they pay for use of the riverfront property adjacent to their "boats."

Wilson said her frustration over the levee board's priorities spilled out at one of the board's meetings.

"I raised my hand and I said, 'Excuse me, I'd like to ask a question. When are we going to talk about levees?' And they told me that that was not on the agenda," Wilson recalled. "It pretty much never was on the agenda."

Wilson also alleged that some of the levee board members, as well as some of the elected officials with oversight of the board, engaged in nepotism.

"The chairman of the board and [State Sen. Francis Heitmeier] were related to some of the people at the company that provided the insurance," Wilson claimed, "and all the recommendations and the research and the commissions that we paid (to that company) were all absolutely unnecessary."

At the time, Heitmeier -- a Democrat from New Orleans -- chaired the Louisiana Senate's Transportation, Highways and Public Works Committee, the panel that oversaw all of the state's waterways and flood control projects, including the levee districts. He disputes Wilson's claims.

"She's talking about me being related to someone (that did business with the levee board)?" Heitmeier asked Cybercast News Service. "I don't know what she's talking about."

Wilson claims that her intense questioning about the board's activities bothered even fellow Republicans and resulted in her being "fired.

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