{New Orleans] City Council creates inspector general

City Council creates inspector general

By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Thursday, November 2, 2006

Eleven years after the idea was endorsed by voters, the New Orleans City Council voted 7-0 Thursday to create an inspector general’s office to seek out waste, fraud, corruption and inefficiency in the government of a city long fabled for easy morals and flexible ethics.

But the approval came only after an acrimonious debate that featured numerous accusations of racism from community activists and that left Councilwoman Shelley Midura, lead author of the measure, in tears, saying the debate’s heavy racial overtones were just what she had wanted to avoid.

Councilman Arnie Fielkow called approval of the ordinance “a great day for New Orleans.”

But Councilwomen Cynthia Hedge-Morrell and Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who for months have been skeptical about the proposal, made a point of not saying a word throughout the debate, though they co-sponsored the final version of the ordinance and voted for it.

No one spoke in favor of waste and corruption during the debate. But Michael Cowan, a Loyola University educator who supported the proposal, summarized much of the opposition when he said people have asked him, “Why didn’t white folks do this when they had power (at City Hall)?”

Neither Cowan nor any other speaker ever really answered the question.
Former District Attorney Harry Connick said the inspector general’s office would encroach on the duties and responsibilities of the DA’s office and warned against creating an “unfettered” office.

In 1995, voters approved a sweeping revision of the City Charter that, among other changes, mandated creation of an Ethics Review Board and authorized an office of inspector general, but neither was ever implemented.

Midura, Fielkow and other new council members began talking about creating the two agencies as soon as they took office in June, and versions of the ordinance creating the inspector general’s office have been circulating for many weeks.

Even so, the ordinance was extensively rewritten Thursday with approval of a six-page amendment incorporating dozens of last-minute changes sought by Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration.

Among other things, the changes eliminated a plan to finance the office by imposing a 0.25 percent fee on all contracts awarded by the city or other local agencies worth $10,000 or more. Thus, a company getting a $1 million contract would have had to pay $2,500 to the inspector general’s office. The idea was borrowed from the inspector general’s office for Miami-Dade County, Fla., whose director testified twice before the council this year.

Instead, the local office will be financed from the city’s general fund.

Kenya Smith, Nagin’s executive assistant for intergovernmental relations, said after the vote that he expects Nagin to sign the revised ordinance. Although Nagin included no money for the inspector general’s office in the 2007 budget he submitted Wednesday to the council, Smith said he expects money for it will be added by the council. The office’s 2007 budget is expected to be about $200,000.

The final version of the ordinance says its purpose is “to establish a full-time program of investigation, internal audit and performance review to provide increased accountability and oversight of entities of city government or entities receiving funds through the city and to assist in improving agency operations and deterring and identifying fraud, abuse and illegal acts.”

The inspector general is to be appointed by the long-dormant Ethics Review Board, which Midura said she expects to be activated shortly. The charter provides that the mayor will appoint six of that board’s seven members from lists of three nominees each submitted by the presidents or chancellors of six local universities. The mayor will appoint the seventh member by himself, with all the appointments subject to approval by the council. Ethics board members may not hold any other government or political office.

The inspector general, to be chosen after a national search, must have at least five years of experience as a federal law enforcement officer, federal or state judge, senior-level auditor, inspector general or lawyer with expertise in investigating fraud, corruption and abuse of power. No one who has been an elected or appointed official in New Orleans or state government in the past two years is eligible.

The amendments approved Thursday reduced the amount of required experience from 10 years to five years and the minimum period outside city government from five years to two years. They also reduced the inspector general’s term from six years to four years.

The ordinance says the inspector general’s office will be “operationally independent” of the council, the Ethics Review Board and the mayor’s office, meaning they cannot prevent the office from “initiating, carrying out or completing any audit, investigation or review.”

However, the inspector general can be removed “for cause” by a two-thirds vote of the Ethics Review Board, and the entire office can be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the council.

The office is promised “access to all records, information, data, reports, plans, projections, matters, contracts, memoranda, correspondence and any other materials” of all city departments, including the council and the mayor’s office. And even though there is a question about the legality of this provision, it is authorized to subpoena witnesses and records and to require sworn testimony.

A five-member committee comprising representatives of the council, the mayor’s office, the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Ethics Review Board and the National Association of Inspectors General will meet once a year to review the office’s work.

In opening Thursday’s debate, Midura said the ordinance “has been more than an issue for me, it has been a cause.” She appealed for a “spirit of reconciliation” and racial cooperation instead of the “racialized whispers, innuendo (and) cynicism” that she said efforts to create the inspector general’s office have inspired.

Noting that New Orleans and Louisiana “have a bit of a tarnished reputation,” Fielkow said that having an ethics board and inspector general’s office will instill confidence in people deciding whether to stay in or return to New Orleans.

Councilwoman Stacy Head said the offices can save millions of dollars that should be used to provide vital services to people who need them most.

But activists such as Albert “Chui” Clark and Dyan French Cole attacked the proposal as an effort by white politicians to target black officials. They also used the occasion to denounce the condition of the city’s public schools and to praise Criminal District Judge Charles Elloie, who was suspended from his job recently by the Louisiana Supreme Court pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged judicial misconduct.

French Cole said Midura’s measure was “designed to destroy our people.”

The council’s only divided vote on the issue came on an amendment by Councilman James Carter to have the council, rather than the five-member advisory committee, do a three-month review of the new office’s “guidelines and procedures.”

Midura said that would compromise the office’s immunity from politics, but Carter said it would help allay the fears of those who think the office would “discriminate against certain people.”

His amendment passed 4-3, with Hedge-Morrell, Willard-Lewis and Oliver Thomas joining Carter and Fielkow and Head joining Midura.

Noting that the 4-3 vote exactly followed racial lines, with the four black members on one side and the three white members on the other, Midura broke into tears, saying the vote was “absolutely heartbreaking to me” because an issue she had hoped “would bring us together” instead had done the opposite and had caused people to accuse her of being a racist, a charge she denied.

As she struggled to compose herself, the council voted 7-0 to approve the ordinance with the long list of amendments sought by the administration.

Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3320.