NEW ORLEANS — The showdown over Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s use of the city’s Pontalba apartment is set.
As promised, Cantrell has vetoed the council’s ordinance to put the historic apartment up for lease. That prompted Council President J.P. Morrell to place a veto override on the agenda for Thursday’s regular council meeting.
The council last week voted 4-2 to end the use of the apartment by Cantrell – and future mayors – following the mayor’s frequent use of the space, including overnight stays, even after the council tried to rein in her use.
With five votes needed to override a mayoral veto, the spotlight now shifts to District C Council Member Freddie King III, who was absent during last week’s vote. Assuming council members Eugene Green and Oliver Thomas continue to support the mayor’s use, King would represent the deciding vote.
A spokesman for King said Tuesday he hadn’t yet determined how he would vote.
In a compromise vote in April, the council amended a mayoral ban to merely prohibit overnight stays. Cantrell had urged the council to vote against the measure, saying she “worried that the council would move to take away authority of the mayor of the city of New Orleans that has been in existence for over 93 years.”
But when Cantrell was seen coming and going from the apartment at all hours over Essence Festival weekend, the council took up the matter again, this time voting to put the apartment up for rent like the rest of the units in the historic building.
A recent report by the New Orleans Inspector General echoed the council’s position, stating that the apartment could generate $36,000 in annual rent on the open market.
In her veto letter, Cantrell repeats many of her previous arguments for maintaining the mayoral perk.
“This unit, reserved for unrestricted access and to be used at the discretion of the Office of the Mayor, enables the City of New Orleans to host a range of domestic and international events and foreign dignitaries,” she wrote.
In the letter, Cantrell went on to note that the Louisiana governor and lieutenant governor maintain apartments in the Lower Pontalba apartments, the historic twin structure that sits across Jackson Square from the Upper Pontalba, where the mayoral suite is located.
“The City Council’s attempted removal of this access clearly demonstrates the shortsighted and personal nature of this ordinance,” Cantrell wrote.
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