The New Orleans City Council has unanimously overriden Mayor LaToya Cantrell's veto of an ordinance prohibiting her from spending city funds in her final days in office.
That vote came during Thursday's regular council meeting, the final meeting of the outgoing council. One council member used the vote as a chance to give his parting shots to the outgoing mayor.
"I'm asking my colleagues to join me in unanimously overriding this veto and cementing the end of this awful legacy that this mayor has been leaving us," council president J. P. Morrell said moments before council members cast their vote. "To veto this ordinance knowing that we would be coming here today and that the last official act of this mayor would be to be overriden yet again shows such a consistent, consistent, and consistent disregard for how government should operate."
Morrell said Cantrell's veto would have set up Mayor-elect Helena Moreno and incoming council up for failure as they prepare to tackle the city's ongoing budget shortfall.
"We are in the midst of a staggering budget crisis that we've seen over just the last 72 hours; we've had to lay off a tremendous amount of qualified people to address the significant budget shortfall that we have," Morrell said. "As a new council and a new mayor are seated, they should have all the resources at their disposal to address this crisis."
According to Morrell, those layoffs at city hall should have spurred Cantrell to approve the spending freeze.
"In the face of this council unanimously trying to be fiduciarily responsible, we had a mayor essentially say, 'Hold my beer,'" Morrell said. "It is not hard. We should all be in agreement that the next council and the next mayor who are going to be tasked with repaying the loans we took out have every dollar available. Yet, an outgoing mayor in the waning days of the end of a term saw that as something that was worthy of a fight."
Morrell expressed disappointment that Cantrell failed to work with the council to solve the city's problems.
"It is common in my experience at both the state and the local level that even in the most acrimonious relationships, there is a peaceful balance of power. That's accepted to be the standard," Morrell said. "I can tell you that in the last two months, I would have settled for civility and common sense, which is in short supply in City Hall."
