"It became clear she was not open..."

Interesting that the strongest public statement from the mayor on moving City Hall to Charity Hospital comes second hand via Jay Dardenne.

There are also open questions about who would be an anchor tenant in the building. According to the 1532 Tulane Partners' proposal, developers had multiple discussions with Mayor LaToya Cantrell's office, and it became clear that she was not open to city becoming a tenant at a revamped Charity.

It never "became clear" from LaToya's own statements, though. All we had to go on in that regard was her suggestion to BGR that she was working out a plan to move to the Municipal Auditorium.  Only that was walked back almost immediately by her CAO. 

But Montano said an interview later in the day that the administration hasn't even begun researching the space it would need to move City Hall. In the past two weeks, the city has requested proposals from consultants to help determine those needs. Its current 10-story City Hall on Perdido Street has 330,000 square feet of office space, and it leases another 118,000 square feet at 1340 Poydras St.

Montano went on to say that Charity was "still on the table" along with a number of options. Dardenne also says he hopes LSU will continue pursuing the City Hall deal.  But only he seems to have gotten a solid bead on her position on it this week.

Anyway it's hard to pin LaToya down on anything.  This trend goes back to her very first day as a mayoral candidate when she took several positions at once on the city's traffic cameras.  We still don't know what her position is on that. We also haven't heard from her on the short term rental question now advancing to City Council.  Recently it seems she is even wavering on her campaign promise to support a $15 minimum wage for city workers.  A lot of people voted for this mayor. Does anybody know what she actually stands for?

Today might be a good time to ask her that yourself, actually.  You may remember that Cantrell has decided to compress the previous administration's series of community budget townhall meetings into just two phone-in sessions.  The first of those happens today.

These live, interactive budget sessions will allow the Mayor to hear directly from constituents.

The schedule is as follows:

Thursday, Oct. 4, 5:30 p.m. -- Districts A, B, and C 
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 5:30 p.m. -- Districts D and E 

To participate, call 866-785-1533 or visit the website vekeo.com/cityofnola/#event-23837 to register. Once registered, you will be notified when the session is about to begin.

The public is invited to take part.

Not sure how many people will actually call in to these, or if the answers they get will make any sense. But it's a good opportunity to at least let them know what kinds of questions you have.