New Orleans mayor to return more than $30K spent on first-class flights
Attorney Laura Rodrigue joined "Fox & Friends First" to discuss LaToya Cantrell's commitment to reimburse the city for the tickets and address the broader crime surge in New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS — Organizers working to recall New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said they're confident enough voters are dissatisfied with her leadership amid an uptick in violent crime and questionable trips and expenditures that have raised ethics concerns.
The recall drive began airing television ads last month and mailers have been sent to voters across the city asking them to sign a petition containing their name on postage-prepaid cards that can be sent back at no cost.
At issue is the city's violent crime rate, Cantrell's expensive international travel on taxpayers' dime, and lackluster city services such as insufficient garbage removal and nonworking streetlights, said Eileen Carter, Cantrell’s former social media manager who partnered with Belden "Noonie Man" Batiste, a former New Orleans mayoral candidate, to file the recall petition over the summer.
In addition, critics allege Cantrell has been absent during several crucial city events and meetings.
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French President Emmanuel Macron, center, walks with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell in the French Quarter during a recent diplomatic tour. A group is leading a recall effort against Cantrell, focusing on the city's high violent crime rate and questions about Cantrell's overseas trips using taxpayer dollars. (Fox News Digital)
"The national term 'quiet quitting,' that's what our mayor has done," Carter told Fox News Digital, referring to the term for employees who do the bare minimum in their jobs. "Our mayor literally won't say the word ‘crime.' She has disassociated herself from crime. She refuses to be involved it in at all."
"Our mayor literally won't say the word ‘crime.' She has disassociated herself from crime. She refuses to be involved it in at all."
As of Monday, the New Orleans Police Department has investigated 248 murders this year, a police spokesperson told Fox News Digital. In 2021, the city had 218 killings, the most since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.
The city has a population of nearly 377,000 residents, according to 2021 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, making its murder rate one of the highest per capita in the nation. In September, the city became the so-called murder capital of the country as it saw a 140% increase in homicides.
"I don’t embrace it at all," Cantrell said at the time regarding that label.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Cantrell's office several times as well as her PAC, Action New Orleans.
Carter said her group has about one-third of the 53,000-plus signatures needed from registered voters to get the recall question on a ballot. The deadline to submit the petition is Feb. 22, 2023. Carter said she is aiming for 70,000 signatures to make up for any that may be deemed invalid by registrar officials.
She hesitated to reveal the latest number of signatures received on the recall petition because of fear of sabotage by Cantrell supporters. Cantrell's team previously dismissed the recall effort as a Republican-backed measure in an attempt to "undermine and discredit the first Black woman mayor of New Orleans."
If the petition is submitted and certified, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards must proclaim a recall election in which voters would decide Cantrell's political fate. If the petition doesn't meet the requirements, residents must wait 18 months in order to file another recall under Louisiana election law.
Organizers for the recall against New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell have mailed out petitions to registered voters. (Courtesy of Eileen Carter)
New Orleans has never recalled a mayor in modern times. If Cantrell becomes the first, the City Council would have to appoint an acting mayor from among its two members who are elected citywide — council members Helena Moreno and Jean Paul "JP" Morrell — until an election is held, said Robert Collins, a professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard University in New Orleans.
The other five council members are elected by district. Cantrell was first elected mayor in 2017 and re-elected in 2021.
When the recall was first announced, there was skepticism among those who observe local and state politics, said Collins.
"Originally, we didn't think they had a chance," he told Fox News Digital. "Before, it was just two volunteers, and now they're running television commercials against the mayor, so that's going to be effective."
Collins said he expects recall supporters to know if they have enough valid signatures by the beginning of the new year.
A recall petition request with the state of Louisiana, dated Aug. 26, 2022. (Courtesy of Eileen Carter)
The main issue Cantrell opponents keep focusing on is the city's crime woes and the mayor's alleged negligence in addressing the matter amid a shrinking police force. The New Orleans Police Department lost more than 150 officers in 2021 under Cantrell's watch amid a surge in murders and carjackings.
New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson announced his retirement last week and will officially step down on Dec. 22. The City Council has recommended a national search for a replacement.
"We need to do everything we can to recruit more police officers," Councilman Eugene Green told Fox News Digital last week after Cantrell's State of the City address.
"We need to do everything we can to recruit more police officers."
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Aside from the uptick in killings, some residents have questioned Cantrell's Aug. 18 court appearance in support of a teenage carjacker at a sentencing hearing. The 14-year-old was convicted of five counts of carjacking for crimes committed in the span of two days.
He was sentenced to three years' probation and no jail time after Cantrell's courtroom visit. Citywide, carjackings have increased 168% from 2019 to 2022, according to the Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC), a nonprofit group that tracks crime in New Orleans.
As of Dec. 11, the city reported 265 carjackings, according to MCC data. Shootings and armed robberies were also up.
Then there are the mayor's costly trips abroad to the European cities of Ascona, Switzerland, and Juan Antibes-les-Pins on the French Riviera this past summer. Her travels have cost the city close to $45,000, including first-class international airfare with lie-flat seating.
"It just started to seem like she was going to milk her last term for every penny of the taxpayer dollar for her enjoyment," Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, a former Orleans Parish prosecutor and member of the Bayou Mama Bears, told Fox News Digital. "It didn't seem genuine that these trips were to help New Orleans. It seemed like they were self-serving, like a bucket list."
In September, Cantrell defended the cost of her travel, saying that "my travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury. … I need to be safe as I do business on behalf of the city of New Orleans."
The mayor has also come under fire for the alleged use of a pricey two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the French Market Corporation’s Upper Pontalba Building in Jackson Square as a personal residence without paying rent, despite the property being owned by the city. The mayor’s comings and goings from the apartment were the subject of a two-monthlong investigation by FOX8 New Orleans, which reported in September to have combed through more than 600 hours of surveillance footage.
The outlet found Cantrell at the apartment nearly every day over a 26-day period, often staying for hours at a time and sometimes staying overnight.
Cantrell defended her record in November when asked by the news outlet if it was appropriate that she spent nearly 20% of the year out of town or out of the country.
Mayor Cantrell's itinerary in Ascona, Switzerland (City of New Orleans)
"I can point to the results on the ground," she said. "The budget hearings that are underway right now speak to my work that my administration and team have done and continue to do for the city of New Orleans relative to public safety, relative to housing, relative to infrastructure, and I can literally go on and on."
During her State of the City speech last week, Cantrell touted investments by NASA and other groups in the city.
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Carter, the recall organizer, took issue with the mayor taking credit for things that preceded her administration. She said the mayor has failed to properly attend to the daily business of running the city, leaving various city departments lacking in proper planning and control.
"The mayor is the executive branch. She has every department," Carter said. "Every department is on fire because she literally is not at work."
"Every department is on fire because she literally is not at work."
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