The mayor took a noteworthy trip to the nation’s capital. City councilman Joe Giarrusso called into the Newell Normand Show today to fill listeners in on the details of that trip, and if he believes it violates the council’s recent travel and spending restrictions.
Giarrusso said the purpose of Cantrell’s trip was to attend a national mayor’s conference and to meet with members of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
“That’s a good thing,” says Giarrusso. “The question is, though, on whose nickel did the mayor travel there? If the travel is either essential or pursuant to a federal grant—fine. If not, you can't use city funds to go on these trips. If we are allegedly in a financial crisis then things like travel should but in abeyance for the time being.”
Right now the city government is in a period of austerity after Cantrell refused to pay Orleans Parish Public Schools millions, citing the fact that the city was running a massive deficit. This period of austerity specifically throttled any excess travel expenses.
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So, when it cam to light that Cantrell planned a trip to D.C., it came with widespread criticism.
City council members have been among the harshest critics. Councilmember JP Morrell quickly labeled the mayor's actions as blatantly illegal. But Giarrusso isn’t convinced that the mayors recent trip flew in the face of the newly minted restrictions.
However, Giarrusso believes the mayor’s choice to withhold details is frustrating and worthy of question.
Giarrusso states, “The way the press release has been written and the fact that we haven't heard what the funds are, just to me screams, ‘just tell people what funds were used, how it was used.’”
Giarrusso says that if the mayor met with Louisiana representatives over key matters that impact the state and city, “That's what we want mayors to do, to meet with our congressional leaders. We know city and state budgets are going to be impacted likely by Trump economics…You may not be able to release all the details of that meeting…But it certainly seems at this point that we can identify federal programs that are either on or likely to be on the chopping block. And then how do we work with our partners around the state in trying to mitigate those things? And I think that would be a long way to helping the public and its consciousness about the need for travel and what's going on.”
Although there’s been tension between the NOLA City Council and the Cantrell administration recently, Giarrusso says, “I don't wake up any morning saying, I hope to fight LaToya Cantrell today. I want to make sure that kids are taken care of, and that the streets are fixed. The lights are changed. Blight is knocked down. Trash is picked up.”
The matter of legality has yet to be sorted out, but Giarrusso isn’t convinced that the trip was unessential and illegal. The councilman said, “There's a difference between I traveled for some program that's never going to happen during my term versus I went to go see the governor about something that's going to impact city revenues… So, my hope is can we bridge that divide and make sure that we have those more clearly delineated.”