Pollyanna had nothing on New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
Cantrell said the other day that she encounters “nothing but love, nothing but support and nothing but just words of encouragement to just keep going and to keep getting things done.”
She was not at City Hall at the time. She was down in the Lower Ninth Ward cutting ribbons for one of the many road projects her administration should have gotten done long ago.
If she had been at City Hall, she could have stepped outside to be reminded that not everyone loves her after all. Organizers of the campaign to recall her were holding a news conference on the steps to announce rapid progress.
Cantrell seems increasingly unwilling to confront reality. At her Lower Ninth news conference, when reminded that New Orleans just claimed the title of Murder Capital USA, she responded, “I do not embrace that terminology.”
While it is impossible to attach any meaning to that pronouncement, she sought vindication by noting homicides are on the increase nationwide. Over the Labor Day weekend, moreover, both Chicago and Philadelphia logged more homicides than New Orleans.
That line of defense is manifestly stupid. We are way ahead per capita, which is how these grisly league tables are figured. Everyone knows this is a dangerous city with a disastrously undermanned and demoralized police force, and our preference would be for a mayor who faced facts. Denying the truth is never the key to a solution.
A suspicion of financial impropriety also hangs over her nonprofit Forward Together, which is under investigation by the city's inspector general. The City Council meanwhile has won a court order forcing Cantell to quit playing fast and loose with the multimillion-dollar income from the Wisner Trust.
When Edward Wisner, who owned vast tracts of land that included the site of the future Port Fourchon, established his trust in 1914, he stipulated that it run for 100 years. After that, its assets were to be passed to the control of the city.
Cantrell, however, has cut the council out of the picture and assumed the right to distribute the proceeds at her sole discretion, forcing a court challenge that has now succeeded. Henceforth, there will be proper oversight and no hole-and-corner deals, Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese has ruled.
The only surprise here is that it took so long for common sense and the rule of law to be upheld.
A further court defeat must surely await Cantrell if she persists in her refusal to pay what she owes in flight upgrades.
It is therefore no surprise that the organizers of the recall petition report brisk business. A month into their campaign, they say they have 20% of the 53,000 signatures needed by Ash Wednesday. If Cantrell really hears nothing but words of love and encouragement, her handlers must be doing a bang-up job of keeping the mob at bay.
Support for the recall is evidently biracial, with Black voters particularly incensed over her excessive flight expenses.
She in turn resents the council's threat to make her pay her debts, on grounds that it is “dangerous” to confiscate money she has earned by doing her job. That makes no more sense than her claim that she has to fly first class for the sake of her safety and mental health.
Cantrell may not be the worst mayor New Orleans ever had, but then the competition is pretty stiff. Playing Pollyanna must be a real challenge.
Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.