The good news is also the bad news in New Orleans.
Unlike the usual American politician promising to bring us together simply as a political trope our mayor Latoya Cantrell seems to be doing just that.
People of all persuasions in New Orleans are coming to a meeting of the minds over the recall effort.
You can link the enthusiasm for the petitions to many causes but the Travelgate element is one of the more high profile issues along with crime and general city dysfunction.
This is also not the first time we’ve had a public official who caused a lot of consternation over the issue of excessive travel.
Bobby Jindal, our former Governor if you remember, left the state on a regular basis in his futile quest for the GOP presidential nomination.
In fact Jindal left the state so often that you might have thought that he didn’t technically qualify as a resident of the state to be eligible to run for office.
The tourism commission missed a good bet when they failed to count each time Jindal returned from his endless trips out of state as a tourist visit. This would have ratcheted up our tourist statics quite a bit.
Jindal now is somewhere perhaps auditioning for a remake of the Invisible Man in the role that Claude Rains made famous.
But we have Ms. Cantrell with her traveling show, her upgraded flights and explanations of her gallivanting across the globe on our behalf.
Cuba, to study economic development, Ghana where she discovered that they grow coconuts and she opined that maybe the Krewe of Zulu could get their coconuts from Ghana. Which would pump ,I don’t know? $3411 into our economy. Or not even enough to upgrade her flight to France.
And to be clear here, We’re talking about France. Not Belgium or Luxembourg.
She says that she needed to upgrade to keep herself safe. She of course like all of us is entitled to a safe space. Hers just happens to be in Monaco.
My safe space is Bogalusa. Some people have all the luck.
She has anxiety. Perhaps a support animal is in order. How about a cuckoo bird.
Just a thought.
She did warn us. I guess? In one of her creative phrasings she says of the people of New Orleans, she will meet the people where they are.
We just didn’t realize that the people of Hollygrove, Oak Park, Broadmoor or New Orleans East were hanging out in St. Moritz.
It is true that if she really needs to get out of New Orleans it only costs $1.25 to take the bus to Jefferson but I don’t think they have upgrades or any beverage service on the bus.
Plus , France, to pick a spot at random, is a much more desirable tourist destination than Veterans Blvd. If you don’t count the cultural value of the extraordinary public sculpture on neutral grounds on Vets Hwy.
Nothing says Metairie like a metallic pyramid of toucans.
But all is not lost. The solution is right in front of us. She constantly leaves us for other countries.
We just need her not to come back.
We need to establish something called a reverse ransom.
Say Ray Nagin is in China as a climate expert, Mitch Landrieu is in Colorado during a big rainstorm or Mayor Cantrell is in Switzerland reminding them that, yes, we do have music in New Orleans.
We put people on neutral grounds with cans. We raise enough in 24 hours.
We pay them to keep her or any future mayor we could do without.
Reverse Ransom, an idea whose time has come. Again.
