New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell may have only three months left in office, but she's acting as anything but a lame duck.
Cantrell has issued a new request for proposals for an emergency French Quarter garbage contract to service the French Quarter. IV Waste's current contract to provide those services expires in December, and the emergency contract Cantrell is seeking would allow the winning bidder to service the Vieux Carré for six months, a period that will extend into Mayor-elect Helena Moreno's term in office.
According to one political analyst, Cantrell's latest move is no surprise.
"It's not unusual for mayors to continue to want to serve right up until the last day," Clancy Dubos said, noting that former mayors Ray Nagin and Mitch Landrieu took a similar approach of working until their successors took the oath of office.
However, Dubos says Cantrell differs from Nagin and Landrieu because she is stubborn. Specificially, he says Cantrell is trying to steer the French Quarter garbage contract away from the city council's preferred vendor.
"Here we are in the last two-and-a-half months of her tenure as mayor, and she still wants to award contracts worth millions of dollars," Dubos said.
"She just won't let go. This is just who LaToya Cantrell is. When she makes up her mind that she wants to do something, she will not take 'no' for an answer even when the answer is definitely 'no.'
Still, Dubos says Cantrell is well within her right to make a decision of this sort, regardless of its popularlity. However, he says Cantrell could handle the situation better.
"This is not a time for her just to take off and pretend that she's not mayor any more. It's your job until the day the next mayor takes the oath," Dubos said. "There's also a way to do it gracefully and graciously and not put your thumb on the scales of things beyond your time in office."