Armed with roughly $50-million in pandemic relief money, New Orleans is buying 791 new vehicles. However, these vehicles don't meet a city ordinance mandating low emissions.
What's going on?
We asked Political Analyst Clancy DuBos to explain.
"This is part of a bigger pattern with the current administration," DuBos says. "Of doing things that seem to catch the public's attention because they seem to run counter to what the Mayor says."
The entire list of vehicles does not have one hybrid, gas saver or electric vehicle. Most of them are bound for the Police Department, as it is the Interim Chief's idea to give officers take home vehicles.
It comes on the heels of Mayor LaToya Cantrell's international trip to promote environmental health.
"She just recently went to South Korea as the only mayor from America on a panel discussing climate change, and yet here she is in her own city buying gas guzzling vehicles with $50-million in federal funds... and no explanation."
The city got around the clean fleet ordinance simply when the Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano issued a blanket exception to the law, allowing for the purchase of the vehicles.
City Councilman JP Morrell looks to take issue with how the city did this when the City Council meets on Thursday.
"What I have been filing for a meeting come this Thursday is language that removes the CAO's unilateral ability to grant an exception and instead requires that the Council grant the exception; and that the administration or respective department will have to submit in writing why an exception is necessary."
It is not known if the proposed action will head off the purchase agreements on the 791 vehicles.