When the mayor of an American city repeatedly breaks the law and rules of government and allegedly abuses taxpayer money, something must be done, and that's the dilemma that New Orleans is facing right now.
I was born in New Orleans, and grew up here and spent most of my career on the air here, and I am deeply saddened and frankly, irate over Mayor LaToya Cantrell's disregard for the rule of law and the City Council.
After grossly abusing her right to spend time in a city-owned apartment at Jackson Square in the French Quarter, the City Council passed an ordinance forbidding any mayor from spending the night in the apartment. But During Essence Fest this year, Cantrell brought some of her friends to spend the night in there. By defying the council's ordinance, Council President J.P. Morrell said Cantrell flipped off the citizens of New Orleans and the City Council, and now the council may consider blocking Cantrell's use of the apartment altogether. Why can't they take the keys away from her or change the locks? Cantrell is acting like a petulant teenager and should be treated as such.
The City Council has also discovered that as the effort to recall her from office was well underway. Mayor Cantrell violated policy and hid costs by illegally producing and mailing a brochure bragging about her accomplishments in office. You can’t spend public money on that, and even if you could, you can’t get that work done without an official bidding process, which didn’t happen. Cantrell seems to have violated black-letter laws and misused $80,000 of public funds.
These misjudgments are recent, and only the tip of a mountain of improper decisions and behavior, most of it coming after Cantrell was re-elected. She seemed to morph into a different person after winning a second term - when she knew she would not face the voters of New Orleans again, and had no reason to try to do a good job.
Cantrell’s sense of entitlement appears to be a heavy influence on her moral compass. When challenged about her moral judgments, she has publicly and repeatedly said that she is a woman who "walks in faith." No person who honestly walks in faith is capable of the deception and disregard for laws and rules that we have witnessed from our mayor.
The degree of arrogance displayed by Cantrell is unprecedented - even in the context of the historic corruption that has defined New Orleans politics for decades.
Perhaps the City Council can dig deeper and take some cues from responsible parents to rein in our petulant-acting teenager in the Mayor’s office!
