WWL’s midday talk host, and former Jefferson Parish Sheriff, Newell Normand teed off on the twitter video of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell having what appears to be a verbal upbraiding of a patron in the Polo Club Lounge of the Windsor Court Hotel—one of the tawniest drinking establishments in the city.
In true fashion Normand dissected the Mayor’s rant: “If elected officials responded to inappropriate comments, disrespectful comments while out and about in the public, I can tell you I can think of a dozen, two dozen, three dozen cases right off the top of my head… the one thing I’ve learned is you don’t reward ignorance with more ignorance. That never leads to a positive outcome.”
Newell proffered what the video is going to be used for moving forward… “A new economic development video for the city of New Orleans? ‘You called my name, what do you have to say to me?’ More importantly it might be a new training video on emotional intelligence an example of what a total lack of emotional intelligence sounds like. If you reacted to every negative comment made to you, as an elected official you will be busy, each and every day, eight hours a day reacting to negative comments like that, it’s foolish, get a hold of yourself!”
Newell brought the conversation around to an example of conflict resolution. “We’ve been out and about talking with our children about conflict resolution... Getting into somebody’s face at a restaurant or a bar, because somebody might have said something stupid, is not going to lead to a positive outcome.”
“Now we have this video, audio, with the Mayor of the Great City of New Orleans and then she defends herself saying ‘I’m glad my child wasn’t with me’—yeah, I’m glad, too because she would’ve seen idiotic behavior on both people’s part.”
“The ability to manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others,” Newell contends. “And let me dare say this is not the first time this has happened. I’ve heard from any number of business leaders that have gone into meetings with the Mayor where she uses the F-word, the MF-word to the point of being ridiculous that in some cases these business leaders have gotten up and walked out of the meeting because they’re not going to be talked to by anyone, much less the Mayor like that. They don’t accept that conduct in their private business life, why would they accept that conduct by the Mayor?”
In closing, Newell doubles down on the alleged bad behavior on the part of Mayor Cantrell: “And I have no reason not to believe what they tell me. Because I’m hearing it repeatedly, over and over again where they’re thoroughly disgusted in being involved in a meeting with this individual.”
In closing, Normand wrapped up the discussion thusly: “I don’t know about you, this is not what I look for in a leader, and I don’t think this is what you look for in a leader. Why would you drag yourself down when you’re supposed to be the model, the front person for this city? In economic development in trying to lure business here, and now we’re burdened.”
And in the end, what was the patron bothering the Mayor about? He took issue with the Mayor's voluntary evacuation plan and wanted to know why she didn't go with a mandatory evacuation. The matter is moot, as the Mayor stated in her press conference before the hurricane hit, there was not enough time for a mandatory evacuation and to prepare freeways and expressways for contraflow.
