From the belly of the beast:
STATEMENT FROM MAYOR C. RAY NAGIN
"Today's veto override had little to no effect. In fact, it brought us
back to December 1. It did not improve the financial conditions of the
city.
"We still intend to implement the cuts I announced last week. The Mayor
still holds the checkbook and signs all contracts and CEAs. No third
party will receive any funds unless they are approved by the Mayor.
"There also is a new reality today as a result of the Council's proposed
deeper cuts. These cuts will definitely have a severely negative impact
on residents throughout the city. I believe all citizens deserve
adequate services based upon available resources. It is unfair to
sacrifice the basic services of most citizens while providing enhanced
or extra services to one segment of the city.
"Also, with these deep cuts and the inability to finalize the budget
until sometime in January, we will not be able to encumber service
contracts on January 1, which could further impact our ability to
provide needed services.
"Finally, the City Council's cuts to the budgets for fleet purchases and
fuel have the potential to negatively impact public safety. With those
cuts, we would be unable to replace vehicles in the police department
and other public safety agencies. There also would be insufficient fuel
to supply public safety vehicles for the year."
C. Ray Nagin
Mayor
The Mayor has decided to take an extremely defiant stance. It's one thing to communicate your intention to be flexible with executive spending in order to navigate the larger economic climate, but he's not doing that.
Instead, the Mayor is doing three things:
1. Asserting his authority.
I think he's a little bit over the top in his tone, as stated above.
2. Fortifying a communications posture
By claiming that Council's budget seeks to impose "deep cuts" on services, the Mayor is attempting to make his budget, the one that imposes a citywide 2.5% budget cut and deprives the public defender and district attorney, the budget of social justice. Council gave him a millimeter of room to make this argument because they've advocated for the restoration of full French Quarter sanitation services. This allows him to make some sort of populist appeal about rich people getting lemon scent sprayed upon them. The problem here is that I'm not sure that Council made any kind of recommendation that the Mayor fully execute the SDT contract at the expense of anything else. I think it is pretty clear that the Mayor's budget makes painful cuts across the board to every section of this city, whereas the Council budget attempts to eliminate those cuts. Plus it's not like people give the Mayor the benefit of the doubt on anything, so I'm not sure what the intention here is.
If I were on the Mayor's communications team, this whole thing would be couched as something that needed to be done because of the financial crisis. He might be able to get away with a reasoned argument centered on that theme. But the Mayor seems to have given up on presenting reasoned arguments a long time ago.
3. Doubling down on corruption and waste
In the last section of this release, the Mayor clings to his posture that New Orleans needs a bloated city car fleet for "public safety." This argument seems especially ridiculous in the same press release in which he refuses money to the DA and the office of the public defender. If he's attempting to claim that the car fleet cuts would touch the NOPD, I believe he's mistaken. The Inspector General audit on which these cuts were based did not examine the NOPD. The office of the Mayor alone has 73 take home cars (it might actually be 74). Each City Councilor has their own take home car. Veronica White has her own take home car. So does Brenda Hatfield. So does Ed Blakely. And Ceeon Quiett. And a lot of them are big huge SUVs. These people can afford their own cars and our auto industry could use some business.
It is blatant waste. Just fix it.
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