After video showed New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell going in and out of a city-owned apartment at the Pontalba all hours of the day and night with just her security officer from NOPD, the city council is now considering banning officials from using that or any other city owned housing for free.
Lawmakers vote today to require the mayor or anyone else pay fair market value for use of publicly-owned housing.
The inspector general called on Cantrell to pay back $40,000 dollars after word spread of her alleged affair at the Pontalba, citing already existing state law and the city charter.
A note from the city council says they will take up "Ordinance 34,125 amending and reordaining the City Code to provide relative to residential occupancy of City-owned property by City employees and elected officials."
The text of the proposed ordinance says, "No immovable property owned or controlled by the City or by a public benefit corporation may be used for residential occupancy by a city employee or elected official, except upon payment of fair-market rent pursuant to a written lease."
It also states that no public funding could be used to pay that rent.
