KENNER, La. — Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn heads into his reelection campaign under heavy fire for his handling of Hurricane Ida hazard pay and for a reported FBI investigation into the awarding of a contract for garbage collection in Kenner.
So, Zahn called a news conference Thursday and alleged that his longtime campaign consultant and a top political ally were engaged in what he called “election rigging” and “fraud.”
Zahn has been secretly recording his meetings with his political adviser, Greg Buisson, and Jefferson Parish Councilman Dominick Impastato for months. He began Thursday’s news conference by saying he had turned those recordings over to the FBI.
Buisson and Impastato say they were holding a political strategy session to help a flailing Zahn find a way to avoid a tough race after a Times-Picayune report that he was under federal investigation.
Zahn grew even more embattled with questions about one of his top deputies, Chad Pitfield, making more than $80,000 in hazard pay in just over three months during and after Hurricane Ida.
Zahn played snippets of a Nov. 8 meeting with Buisson and Impastato, where they urged Zahn to convince his friend, Kenner City Councilman Mike Sigur, to run for a council-at-large seat instead of running for police chief against former interim Jefferson Parish Councilman Keith Conley.
Zahn described one clip as “Councilman Impastato attempting to persuade me into conspiring with him and Greg Buisson to help rig the chief of police election and the councilman-at-large election.”
He then played the short recording of Impastato talking about how Zahn could convince Sigur to run against Tom Willmott for an at-large seat on the Kenner City Council rather than for police chief: “I promise you, Ben, as sure as I know how to spell my last name, you look him in the face and say, ‘Mike, I can never be with you for chief. At-large, it’s a done deal.' I promise you, he bails.”
Zahn played other clips in which Buisson acknowledges that he would have to “tear up my (existing) contract” with Willmott and “work behind the scenes” to support Sigur if they were to succeed in getting Sigur to run for council-at-large.
Buisson was also recorded saying he tears up his contracts with candidates “all the time” to work for their opponents. In an interview with WWL-TV, Buisson said it’s always been his policy to represent the candidate he worked for first if two of his clients or former clients go head-to-head. He said dropping Willmott for Sigur would be in keeping with that policy because he represented Sigur in the past, before Willmott ever hired him.
Zahn played a clip he described as “Greg Buisson outlining the consequences if I choose not to cooperate with their demands.”
As silhouettes of Buisson and Zahn appeared on a screen, Kenner’s director of compliance and audit, Adam Campo, played a clip of Buisson telling Zahn: “If you tell me right now, you’re supporting Mike Sigur, then we’re going to have Glaser, Mike Glaser in the race.”
Buisson said the comment was being taken out of context. He said he wasn’t threatening to bring in Glaser, the current Kenner police chief, to challenge Zahn; he said Glaser was already determined to run against Zahn to punish the mayor for various disputes, including the Zahn administration proposing cuts to the police budget.
Buisson said he was trying to explain to Zahn that if he wanted to avoid having a tough race against Glaser, he needed to stop supporting Sigur for chief of police against Glaser’s preferred candidate, Conley.
WWL-TV asked the Zahn administration for the full, unedited recording. It's 2 hours and 44 minutes long, and the part Zahn played at the news conference loses the context of what comes immediately after Buisson says, “If you tell me right now, you’re supporting Mike Sigur, then we’re going to have Glaser, Mike Glaser in the race.”
That's when Zahn asks: “Y’all are going to have Mike Glaser in the race? Or are we going to have to deal with Mike Glaser in the race?”
And Buisson clarifies: “No, we’re going to have to deal with Mike Glaser in the race.”
“It doesn’t meet any standard of election rigging in any way shape or form if you say to someone, ‘You shouldn’t run for this seat because you’re going to get beat,’” Buisson said. “Giving them advice is not election rigging.”
But Zahn said it went too far and the people of Kenner should know that backroom deals are determining who runs for what elected offices.
"’Hey, you're going to run for this. I'm going to run for that.’ That's fine,” Zahn said in an interview with WWL-TV. “But the ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’? ‘If you do this to Sigur, your friend, and get him into a Willmott race and tear up a contract, then Glaser doesn't run’? That's a little bit beyond horse-trading.”
Last month, Zahn recorded an angry exchange with Buisson at a Metairie restaurant. In it, Zahn accuses Buisson of spreading “lies” about him, his wife and his daughter. Buisson said he was just making Zahn aware of allegations being made against him and his family. Zahn accused Buisson of repeating the allegations instead of knocking them down.
Two days later, Buisson announced he was stepping down as Zahn’s political consultant. Buisson confirmed that he is now working on a new deal to represent Glaser in the race against Zahn.