A day after her handpicked police chief announced his resignation, and following months of controversies over her use of official perks, Mayor LaToya Cantrell gave a State of the City address Wednesday where she promised the beleaguered residents of New Orleans that change is on the way.
The economy is picking up, city coffers are filling, the City Council just passed a massive budget package and New Orleans is hosting new development projects like a bioscience district, the mayor said.
In a speech that called for unity but also featured some combative moments, she said she was tired of critics picking on city employees after the years of sacrifice they made during the pandemic.
“I’ve talked a lot about fighting. Fighting to get here, fighting to take on the issues and the challenges. But you know what? I’m tired of fighting,” said Cantrell. “Right now, we’re ready to build. We’re going to build on our progress that we have fought to have happen in our city.”
Litany of projects
In recent opinion polls, residents have ticked off the many ways they feel city government is failing them, from endemic violence to rotten trash piling up on curbs to half-finished road work projects.
Cantrell’s speech was in many ways a long list of the municipal projects that the mayor said were quietly transforming life for residents.
“Much of the work isn’t flashy, and many of the results are not speedy – but the real work is getting done,” said Cantrell. “It’s not for show, and it doesn’t make the news, but it does make a difference.”
There was a city-administered project that helped over 17,000 households with rental and utility assistance during the pandemic, $13 million in down payment assistance for homebuyers, $8 million in investments for supporting the city’s homeless population, $5 million for a tourism and cultural fund that makes grants to “culture bearers,” and a long-awaited, $34 million Sewerage and Water Board power substation that broke ground this week.
Imploring residents to see a city where “the glass is half full,” Cantrell also ticked off recent awards the city has won, like a “Most Desirable City” designation from Wanderlust Magazine and a Gold in Best culinary Destination at the Travvy Awards.
Crime fighting
Some New Orleanians have spent the year dwelling on another distinction — the city’s return, by some estimates, as the nation’s murder capital.
Yet Cantrell said crime is trending in the right direction and promised that there was more progress to come.
The all-hands-on-deck redeployment the city rolled out in September has helped drive 911 response times down to their lowest average in months, Cantrell said. She also expressed optimism about growing the size of the department in the future with a $32.5 million in recruiting and retention package approved by the City Council as part of the Dec. 1 budget.
The city is also investing in projects meant to reduce violence by giving youths and formerly incarcerated people jobs and counseling, the mayor said.
“We have to continue to invest. We have to give it time to work,” Cantrell said. “If we give up, we’re giving up on our city.”
A long year
Cantrell’s speech to an audience packed with government employees came 11 months after her second inaugural, which she delivered outside Gallier Hall to a masked crowd in the middle of last winter’s COVID surge.
While the pandemic has gradually faded as a public concern, that doesn’t mean that Cantrell’s second term has been easier. She has faced an unusually assertive council that is quick to pounce on the administration’s missteps, and the city has been grappling with a violent crime surge and a troubled road work project.
Those issues haven’t lost their bite — and Cantrell’s other woes have mounted. Critics say many are of the mayor’s own making, from her pricey foreign travel to the apparent federal investigation of her campaign’s spending on a personal stylist.
Cantrell made glancing mention of those controversies on Wednesday, asserting that her foreign travel helped draw French President Emmanuel Macron on his visit last weekend. She also defended her use of the city apartment in the Upper Pontalba building, referring to the city-controlled property traditionally used for official functions as “my apartment.”
Across St. Charles Avenue on Wednesday, supporters of the three-month-old push to recall Cantrell were gathering signatures under a tent.
The recall effort seemed to be losing steam as of the latest count, but it’s another concern looming over Cantrell's second term.
Only 31% of voters approve of Cantrell’s job performance, according to a UNO Survey Research Center poll conducted in September.
“I think it’s going to take more than one speech to turn attitudes around,” said Ed Chervenak, the pollster who conducted that survey. “Things have to happen on the ground. People need to be able to feel and perceive that things are changing.”