NEW ORLEANS — Wednesday was a busy day for the Governor-Elect, Jeff Landry. Landry named two top officials to his team and held transition committee meetings.
Landry hand-picked the committees, and one is solely focused on New Orleans.
The bipartisan committee is made up of 27 individuals, and 16 live in the city. The majority are business and tourism officials.
Wednesday was the first of three scheduled meetings. The next is scheduled for later this month, and the last one will take place in December ahead of Landry's inauguration on Jan. 8.
The group does not include anyone from the Cantrell Administration or City Council.
New Orleans City Councilmember Helena Moreno sent a letter to the committee and governor-elect with her recommendations on Tuesday.
“We know based upon the statistics, that the city has some major problems," Landry said at a press conference on Wednesday, “Look I like to go visit with someone, like the mayor or any of those city council members, when I have a solution to the problems as we see it. I don’t know anyone, including them, that believes that the City of New Orleans is being run like an absolute professional football team.”
New Orleans is the only city with its own transition committee.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city deserves the 'laser focus'.
“Bringing people together, to focus on the City of New Orleans, being solutions driven, and wanting to meet with the administration. Again, I think it’s the right approach and a step in the right direction," Cantrell said.
Some of the members of the committee have been Cantrell's most vocal opponents, including those that supported and funded the mayoral recall campaign.
“I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. We’re trying to get to a unified approach, and in order to do that, you have to have all schools of thoughts at the table," Cantrell said.
Former New Orleans East State Representative, Austin Badon, said he was an early supporter of Landry, and he's now serving on the New Orleans transition committee.
“So, we’re doing a lot of good things. So, we talked about some things like that as far as economic development as far as infrastructure improvements, but the main thing was about crime and how we can have a beautiful, clean and safe city," Badon said.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto is on the committee, but Orleans Parish law enforcement is not represented.
The only Orleans Parish elected official on the committee is Senator Royce Duplessis. Duplessis said in a statement that he and Landry "strongly diverge on many issues."
“However, that election is over and true leadership requires us to work with people whom we disagree with in order to improve the lives of our constituents," Duplessis said.
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