Top aides openly split with LaToya Cantrell over controversial French Quarter trash deal

Senior members of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration are publicly breaking with Cantrell over her decision to switch French Quarter trash contractors at the end of the month, telling the city council they don’t think her preferred contractor is ready to do the job.

At a July 21 council hearing, Cantrell’s Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Joe Threat and Department of Sanitation Director Matt Torri all said they believed the mayor should let IV Waste’s emergency contract continue through the end of the year rather than have Henry Consulting take over July 31.

Although Cantrell has no meaningful relationship with council members at this point, her top aides have remained at least publicly loyal, even when she’s thrown Montano and others to the proverbial wolves during her myriad second-term scandals. But with only a few months left in office, it seems some of her top aides are becoming more comfortable speaking out.

Torri said when they talked with Troy Henry and other officials from Henry Consulting earlier this month, “It was clear that they had not yet secured facilities, actually purchased equipment, had it in their possession or hired” the personnel or subcontractors required to fulfill the contract.

“Given that we were three weeks away from the proposed start of that contract, all of those were alarming to us and presented great risk,” Torri added.

They told Cantrell as much at a meeting on July 8, and they said everyone in the room, including the mayor, left in agreement that they would reverse Cantrell’s April decision to end IV Waste’s contract on July 31 and instead let the firm continue servicing the area.

They even drafted a document to do formalize the decision and were in the process of ironing out whether IV Waste’s contract would go through the end of the year or a different date — when Cantrell abruptly switched course.

According to Montano, Threat and Torri, the day after their meeting with Cantrell she informed Montano she was moving ahead with ending IV Waste’s contract and declaring another state of emergency with Henry Consulting as the emergency contractor.

She emailed Montano that afternoon that she had taken “a deeper dive into the issues posed regarding the contractor’s ability versus inability to start 7/31 and have gained the confidence needed to stand by the initial decision to terminate the existing emergency contract.”

Both Montano and Torri said they didn’t know what had changed the mayor’s mind. Threat said he knew Cantrell had met directly with Henry after the July 8 meeting with her team.

“I don’t know if it changed her mind, but I think that she talked to him to gain some type of assurances,” he said.

Council Vice President Helena Moreno, who is running for mayor, replied, “So instead of listening in to her operational team, she listened to the contractor who’s going to be paid. I got it.”

The council ended Cantrell’s emergency order on July 10, the day after she made it.

In a statement following the hearing, the administration did not refute the statements by Torri, Montano and Threat, saying “These legal matters will ultimately be resolved by the courts. The City remains committed to working with all parties to provide sanitation services to the French Quarter and [Downtown Development District].”

Council questions new contract’s legitimacy

Meanwhile, council members also questioned whether the emergency contract was actually signed by the mayor, city attorney’s office and Henry on July 9, as it was dated.

Through public records, the council found that members of the administration were emailing each other about the contract as late as 10:48 p.m. on July 9.

The date is important because the contract would need to be signed before the council ended Cantrell’s emergency order at 1:12 p.m. on July 10.

Council President JP Morrell also pointed out that on the copy of the contract provided to the council, there was a space in the middle of the line where the date was written. He said that could be a sign of Wite-Out or other correction fluid being used to alter the date on the document.

“It could possibly be,” City Attorney Donesia Turner said. “It could be that the printer is not printing perfectly.”

Morrell also said he hadn’t seen a signed surety bond, which ensures that if Henry Consulting doesn’t follow through on its end of the deal, the city will be compensated for its losses, up to the bond amount.

Such a bond should have been signed before the emergency contract, he said.

“If the surety bond was not signed at the time when the contract was signed, that is significantly problematic,” he said. “If it was done at the recommendation of counsel, that’s malpractice, and if it was done on its own, that’s malfeasance.”

Morrell requested to see the original contract as well as the surety bond and other additional information by noon on Tuesday.

The saga continues

The back and forth over the $73 million French Quarter trash contract, which also includes the Downtown Development District, started last year when Cantrell’s administration gave the contract to Henry Consulting after a public bidding process.

Amid an ongoing dispute between Henry and a subcontractor, the council refused to sign off on the contract, prompting Henry to sue the council in December. That left the area without a trash provider, creating an emergency situation. Sidney Torres’ IV Waste received a yearlong emergency contract set to end this December.

IV Waste has been popular among French Quarter residents and business. The company is pressure washing blocks of the Quarter daily, though their contract only requires it three times a week.

The new emergency contract with Henry Consulting is over $2 million more than the one with IV Waste. It also doesn’t include pressure washing, so the city would be paying more for fewer services.

Tom Anton, a director, said he’s working on creating TV series filmed in the French Quarter. He said the French Quarter has a reputation among production companies for being “filthy” and “smelly,” but he’s been reassuring them that’s no longer the case since IV Waste came in.

“It’s not that way now,” he said. “I hope we can continue with the cleanliness and how we’ve changed the Quarter to make it so much better.”