The New Orleans City Council will hold a special meeting next week to decide if it will create a new committee to investigate the deadly Hard Rock Hotel collapse.
City Council Vice President Jason Williams said he does not want to impede any other investigations, including the one being handled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but the Cantrell administration pushed back against the idea.
“In my office, we’ve been looking at what inquiry we can make from the very beginning of the collapse,” Williams said. “We have not received a lot of information. The (preliminary) OSHA report may not be out until April.”
Council members have said little since the collapse on Oct. 12 that killed three people. The remains of two workers remain pinned beneath the rubble.
Williams said the council will meet Wednesday to vote on the idea of investigating the catastrophe, but the Cantrell administration said it does not believe the council should do so.
“Investigation into this incident will be handled by the appropriate law enforcement authorities within the judicial system,” a statement from City Hall read in part. “City legislators have no role in that process.”
Williams shot back, “That’s absolutely incorrect. The charter makes it very, very clear that we shall inquire.”
He said the council investigation would have no time limit.
“Any investigation if you say it’s going to last a week or it’s going to last a month or it’s going to last six months, then you’re dictating a course of something that should be organic,” Williams said.
The idea of the council investigating the collapse comes at the end of a week that saw renewed frustration with the Hard Rock.
On Tuesday, a tarp that covered the remains of one worker blew aside. City Hall issued a statement in response, but only to admonish those who took pictures and posted them to social media.
Only after much public outcry did search-and-rescue teams string up a new tarp on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, protesters marched from the Hard Rock to the steps of City Hall on Friday to demand the building come down.
Multiple sources inside City Hall have told WWL-TV that the city will not tear down the partially collapsed hotel on its own. They said they fear 1031 Canal Development, the project’s owner, might then walk away and leave the city with a bill for demolition and cleanup that could be as much as $25 million.
Plans call for imploding the building in mid-March, but NOFD Superintendent Tim McConnell must still sign off on detailed plans before anything can happen.
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