Members of the New Orleans City Council will meet Tuesday to decide whether Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s communications director, Gregory Joseph, should be fired.
It would be a rare action, and it comes as a result of his alleged involvement with campaign-style mailers that went out last year during an attempt to recall the much-criticized mayor. Could it really happen?
Council President J.P. Morrell joined WWL’s Newell Normand to outline how it might go down.
“So essentially, the first step on Tuesday is for the council to agree as a group…” he said. They would need to agree that Joseph violated policy and warrants termination.
Next, they would send a resolution to Cantrell officially requesting his termination.
“If the Mayor declines to do so, then we’ll have a special hearing, which will be after that first hearing in which both Mr. Joseph and the administration would have the ability to attack the underlying... indictment, so to speak,” Morrell explained.
He said the “prosecutor” of the case would be the executive council of the New Orleans City Council. On the other hand, the city attorney would not be able to represent Cantrell and she would also use executive council.
“The mayor has executive council, like the council has executive council, that taxpayers pay for... the appropriate person to represent the mayor will be her executive council,” said Morrell. “As far as Mr. Joseph's attorney, he has to hire one.”
Morrell said it is important to set up expectations about the proceedings before Tuesday rolls around because “this is not going to turn into a kangaroo court kind of proceeding like Judge Judy,” and that they need to stick to facts.
According to the council’s investigation, the facts indicate that Joseph broke state law and mislead the city. However, the council president also said their investigation found no indication that either Mayor Cantrell or Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño had knowledge of the extent of Joseph’s activities regarding the mailers.
Listen to Normand’s full conversation with Morrell here to learn more about what can be expected of the emergency meeting.