(Listen to the entire segment here)
Two of my favorite guests were on my show today: The first, President of New Orleans & Co. Walt Leger. The second, New Orleans City Councilman JP Morrell.
I must say, having these two conversations back to back was jarring. It was the definition of a tale of two cities. Dickens would’ve had a field day.
On the one hand, we have so much to celebrate. Walt Leger and I crowed over the fact that Time Out magazine ranked New Orleans as the world’s #1 food city (and the only US city included on that list of 20).
Walt Leger also expressed that his company has been plowing forward on getting New Orleans designated as part of UNESCO's Creative City Network. They’re currently in the application process, where a city can gain recognition as a creative leader in any of these seven areas:
- Crafts and Folk Art
- Design
- Film
- Gastronomy
- Literature
- Media Arts
- Music
Other US cities on this list include Austin, Detroit, San Antonio, Santa Fe, Iowa City, Tucson, and Paducah. As part of the network, UNESCO connects you to its global list of over 300 creative cities, providing opportunities to spread awareness of the incredible events and artists in your city.
Walt Leger explains, “Just a couple of weeks ago we received our notification that we had been approved as one of two cities to be sent to the full UN creative cities network for consideration for designation as a creative city of music.”
Leger continues, “Now we've got to go through a process where cities around the world that are part of this network will vote to determine whether or not we should be admitted and designated as a creative city… So we're excited about the elevation it brings to us and the opportunity it brings for partnerships and cultural exchange to further solidify us as one of the most elite and preeminent music cities anywhere on the planet.”
This news is as awesome as it is unsurprising. On the fronts of music, food, and art we’re killing it. We’ve always killed it, and we’ll continue to do so.
It was a great, uplifting conversation with Leger. Then JP Morrell took to the airwaves.
Nothing against JP, he just happened to be the bearer of bad news. He jumped into the dirty details about the wrestling match between Mayor Cantrell and the NOLA City Council.
“You’ve seen the polling,” Morrell says, “Everyone thinks this city is going in the wrong direction. And everyone attributes that to the almost bipolar management the mayor is doing of city government and services.”
Frankly, to me, it appears Cantrell has lost any interest in governing and has resorted to self-protection.
Morrell breaks it down, saying, “Shortly after the council finally got the information regarding the mayor's illegal travel to DC, the mayor had a gang of four lawyers run to civil district court and file for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block an ordinance she never vetoed. As you saw yesterday—myself, the council president, and our lawyer waited three hours to debate this TRO… but the judge passed the TRO, granting no debate.”
Morrell and I agreed that In either of our experiences as attorneys, we’ve never seen anything like this happen.
Morrell says, “In 21 years I’ve never seen that happen, not allowing them to make an argument is bizarre. You can’t file an argument against them… By circumventing and not allowing the council argument, the judge basically kneecapped the council’s ability to appeal the TRO because we have nothing on record in opposition to it. So the TRO is granted, our actual preliminary injunction hearing is on the 28th, and that’s our next step.”
Essentially, as Morrell says, Cantrell is again free to vacation again on taxpayer dollars. Morrell says, “In the interim, while the TRO is in place, the mayor can resume traveling. And I think what’s really interesting and offensive to any taxpaying resident of New Orleans is that a veto is free. The mayor, if she had disagreed with the ordinance, could’ve vetoed it.”
“We would’ve had to have a special council hearing on that veto,” Morrell continues, “and that would have afforded the mayor's argument, the council’s argument, and the public’s ability to weigh those arguments. All of that would’ve been free. Rather than going through the free process, which is the process in the charter for the mayor to oppose an ordinance, the mayor circumnavigated all of that and instead paid for four private high-price lawyers to go in and circumvent the charter, and try to get a judge to put their finger on the scale. And the judge did in this instance.”
The juxtaposition was disillusioning.
Of course, we ought to celebrate our wins as the world’s greatest cultural destination. But simultaneously we have to take our licks from a mayor who is actively dodging the law, spending what’s likely somewhere around $1,200/hour to play legal Jiu-Jitsu with a city council trying to keep her from spending $500/night on lavish D.C. hotel rooms while she refuses to pay to public schools what they’re owed.
And she does this after crying chicken little about a ghost deficit we still aren’t sure exists.
There’s no other way to put it. It’s a tale of two cities, folks.
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