The New Orleans City Council is planning its next steps after an appeals court dismissed its lawsuit against the Cantrell administration over the disputed Wisner trust. That includes a large tract of land bequeathed to the city and heirs of Edward Wisner, that generates millions of dollars a year in revenue.
The New Orleans City Council argues the trust dissolved in 2014 and all proceeds should go into the city's general fund, while the mayor argued it should still be in the control of the mayor's office and Wisner's heirs.
Appeals court judges in the Louisiana Fourth Circuit ruled the council does not have standing to sue and dismissed the case. Councilmember Joe Giarrusso says that does not make any sense to him.
"The council's stuck? We can't do anything? We have to sit there, and we legislate, and now the mayor's the only one who has the capacity to deal with any of this?" Giarrusso said to WWL's Newell Normand. "I really don't understand from a common sense standpoint or a substantive standpoint or a procedural standpoint how this ruling came to be, and we're going to challenge it."
So the council this week will change tactics, and designate council members at large Helena Moreno and J.P. Morrell as individual plaintiffs.
"A citizen has to now bear the burden of challenging the mayor of New Orleans," said Giarrusso.
Giarrusso said the council still thinks the Fourth Circuit issued a bad ruling, but if this is the route they have to take, they'll take it and go from there.
