Summary
Transcript
And that’s New Orleans. So I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in New Orleans to Nowlands. I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening in Nowherlands. I heard that the mayor is supposed to be getting evicted out of their apartment in Nolans, a black woman right before Mardi Gras. What’s up? Well, let’s just review this together to see what’s happening out here in these streets, man. Make sure y’all tap into the Patreon.
The best day to tap into the Patreon is in the beginning of the month. So now link is in the description as well as pinned to the top of the chat. Let’s get it starts now. Good evening, I’m Lee Zurich. And I’m Meg Gatto. New Orleans city Council vice president JP Morell sends a letter to mayor Cantrell telling her he may file a motion to institute eviction proceedings if she doesn’t clear out personal belongings and turn over the keys to a pentaba apartment by Monday.
He says he’s tried to work with the mayor’s staff on gaining control of a unit which the council voted to take from the mayor last summer. Rob Masan has more. Just showing your dedication and your commitment. On a day when Mayor Latoya Cantrell bounced from an NOPD graduation to the grand reopening of the dew drop in, she did not want to talk about the pentalba. Terry, off topic for the mayor.
We cannot do that, Ron. We’re due at the dew drop in. There was no comment on a federal investigation into her use of the Pentalba apartment and possible payroll violations for her security officer Jeffrey Vapi. You know, with everything that’s going on right now in city hall and all of the other business that’s going on, I think it’s important for the mayor to go ahead and just clear this apartment, just clear this issue.
Back in August, the New Orleans City Council voted to permanently remove the apartment from the mayor’s control with a veto override. After our outside the office series of investigations for a lot of council members and the public. The fact that you immediately saw it revert to personal use with no public purpose is what really was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But six months after that council vote, the Pentaba apartment remains under the mayor’s control.
After Fox Eight’s Lee Zurich inquired about the matter Wednesday, city council member JP Morell sent Cantrell this letter asking her to release the apartment. That letter says, it is my understanding that you and members of your executive protection detail possess the only keys to the unit. Until the keys are turned over, FMC cannot begin the repairs necessary to release the unit. The letter states. We have tried for several months to work with members of the administration, but to date those efforts have proven fruitless.
We passed the ordinance months ago. I mean, obviously we need to get the unit back. In commerce. The law is very clear in this situation. I think this is simply a situation of people ignoring the law. We don’t know if it was intentional or if it’s just an oversight. Council member Morell’s letter goes on to say that if I do not hear back from you with confirmation that the handover is complete by March 4 at noon, then I have little choice but to file a motion to bring this matter to resolution, including a directive that the city attorney Institute eviction and or mandamus proceedings.
Madam mayor, can I get a moment to ask you about. The mayor has acknowledged receipt of Morel’s letter, but it’s not known if she’s turned over the keys. And council member Morel’s letter says he had hoped to avoid public escalation of this issue. Morell says the council can’t continue to do nothing when the requirements of the law are clear. Okay, so I’m trying to understand this exactly right.
Yeah. J Mars. So they saying that she is squatter. All right, so what this is basically saying is the New Orleans mayor has an unauthorized apartment because she’s having it for personal use. Okay, so why did she have the apartment for personal use in the first place? Now what I did do just while this is playing, because again, I’m learning all about this in real time. I pulled up a video or videos that kind of break down and showcase why they started having a discrepancy in the first place.
Because what they basically saying is that she’s squatting and using an apartment that she’s not supposed to be using, that is owned by the city. But then I’m trying to understand why the city owns an apartment in the first place. So let me just play this video because this is one of the videos that showed over a year ago as to why they got to the point to where they was trying to evict her.
So let me just play this real quick up. So much for that idea. All right, let me see if I could pull up a video. Another video. You. After months of investigative work by Eyewitness News, tonight the mayor’s office is admitting Mayor Latoya Cantrell has been staying at a city owned apartment rent free in the French Quarter. This comes after the Metropolitan Crime Commission called for the city council to investigate.
The mayor’s communications director says Cantrell is allowed to stay at the apartment under the city’s agreement with the french market corporation. As Eleanor Tabone reports, the mayor is getting a near $3,000 a month apartment. The mayor’s office now admits Latoya Cantrell has been living in a city owned apartment rent free. She really has not done her job. The upper Pontabla, managed by the french market Corp. Has been her home for months, according to a detailed report from MCC to New Orleans city council.
It included pictures and allegations from neighbors. The market rate to rent there is $2,991 a month, but mayor Cantrell has apparently not paid any rent this year. A Jackson Square employee told me she has seen the mayor walking in this direction. Hold on. So y’all saying New Orleans is given competition over to New York and Miami? Hold on. Let me just see something real quick. Give me a second.
Give me a second. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. I got to get myself together. I want to understand what’s happening out here in nolans and Louisiana. I’m trying to understand what’s. Hmm. I don’t really discriminate. I like them all. I like women from all colors and creeds from every point of the globe. I don’t care if you alaskan himalayan, I don’t care what you are.
I believe that all women are beautiful. I just wasn’t expecting for this to show up. I wasn’t expecting for this to show up on my screen today. So give me a second. I’m trying to understand. Yeah, the lashes is crazy. Some stuff we can overlook, you know what I’m saying? Because if you got one out of six things is wrong, then we don’t figure it out. But I just want to understand what the competition is.
I might have a competition on room nine, the room nine channel. All right. Spaces says no. I take the New York reporter for 500, please. Why not have both? I didn’t know we had to choose. I didn’t know we had to choose. Okay, so let’s put this in perspective. I’m focused. Let’s put it all in perspective. Listen, I’m a man. They try to act like we different now.
We a man. We men. You know what I’m saying? It. They’re basically saying that she’s staying at a $3,000 apartment. Okay? So she’s saving herself $36,000 a year by staying in the city owned apartment. Here’s my question. I got two questions. Number one, is it normal for an employee to stay in a city owned buildings? Because I know here in Detroit we’ve always had the Minugian. I don’t know if y’all sure about the Minugian, but it’s called the Minugian mansion.
And the mayor of the city, for the most part, has always stayed in a Minugian mansion because it was donated and it was just a part of the city’s culfers. And so they’ve always stayed at the mansion. That’s number one. Number two. All right, is that normal for mayors of large cities to not have housing, or do they always just stay where it is that they always have stayed? Number three, are they mad at the fact that she has security? Now? A lot of these larger cities, it seemed like it’s becoming a thing where it’s a discrepancy with regard to security.
Well, let me play a little bit more of this, this direction towards apartment 530 B. Records obtained by WWLTV through a public records request found emails from the mayor asking a city staffer to get things fixed in the apartment, complaining the shower wasn’t hot in January, asking to fix a toilet seat back in February, and their wi fi wouldn’t work in March. MCC president Rafael Goynechi is questioning whether living rent free in a city property is allowed.
That is a hospitality suite. It’s not meant to be the living quarters of the mayor of the city of Orleans. Ah. So they’re saying that they held onto it for hospitality. So, for example, if you bring somebody in from a business perspective, then they’ll be able to put them in housing and they wouldn’t have to put them in a hotel. They just already have living quarters, I’m assuming.
Okay. And then the mayor took over and then they said, listen, this ain’t hospitality. This is hospitality. You all need to get the shower heater fixed, you all need to get the wifi popping, and we got to get this toilet seats getting popping. All right. And then once the city council found up or the neighbors started telling owner, they said, oh, no, you’re going to have to get out.
So the eviction comes from the perspective that they’re leveraging, the fact that they own it as a city and they’re not using it for hospitality, and they saying that we could use this for the mayor. Got it. All right. Everything is in perspective now. That’s an additional benefit tax free that she’s been receiving. A little ironic that this would be a perfect spot across the way from the alleged department, the Cantrell recall booth, taking advantage of amenities that may or may not be hers to begin with and harsh criticism of the mayor.
It’s ridiculous that we have a city that is so fantastic as New Orleans and is so poorly run, but there’s support for the mayor. On Twitter, one user called out the MCC, saying during a wave of violent crime against the citizens of New Orleans, who authorized the MCC expenditure of hundreds of manpower hours in surveillance on a mayor changing her clothes at an apartment owned by the city.
Others weighed in, calling the investigation sexist and saying past mayors use the apartment. Councilman Eugene Green said in part that he’s not aware of any regulations or procedures that may have been violated. Eleanor Tabone, eyewitness News I don’t know why people just don’t, okay, I can’t use the apartment. I’m not going to use the apartment. I’m just going to rock with what I was already rocking with so that I could remain above board and I just prevent them from being able to come after me over stuff that they shouldn’t even be coming after me for in the first place.
She probably ain’t got nowhere else to live. What’s the salary of a New Orleans mayor? I know the salary is very greatly. I know Tiffany Henyard is over there getting it in Dalton and Thornton Township. You know what I’m saying? Orleans mayor pay. Average pay range from a mayor. No, I don’t want to know how much is the mayor of New Orleans paid? $32 an hour. Annual salary of the city council, $34,000 an hour.
San Francisco mayor. Whoa. Okay, so now I’m about to pull this up. I didn’t know that they was getting it like this. I’m about to go run for San Francisco mayor. What’s the highest paid mayor? Newly released data shows that San Francisco mayor, London Breed, the chick that’s running the city into the ground, had the highest salary last year, beating out mayors in charge of more populated cities.
Breed made $444,000 in 2022, including 357,000 in wages, $887,000 in retirement, health benefits. Whoa, whoa. She make more than the mayor of New York? New York mayor make $285,000 a year. London breed made 444. Good God. Are these mayors getting it like that? Hold on. New Orleans mayor is making 154,000. Is that what they saying? Let me see. Birmingham mayoral salary. New Orleans mayor, New Orleans. New Orleans 154,000 Jacksonville, Florida, 180.
Tennessee. These are southern mayors. Omaha, Nebraska, Little Rock, Arkansas, is making 160. Greenville, South Carolina, is 192. Columbia, South Carolina, is 162. Birmingham, Alabama, is 128. Lexington, Kentucky, 120. Memphis is 170. Nashville is 180. Is this accurate? What is this? Wow. 15 highest paid mayors us in 2008. Wow. I can’t believe the London breed is the highest paid mayor. Two, three. You got to narrow this down. I might have, might need Hawai.
Two eightyars is getting to the bag. These mayors is getting to the bag, man. Okay. All right. Well, we learned something new today just by exploring. Shout out to the mayor of Nolans that’s getting that additional $36,000 benefit running up. .