The price of an uptick

Warren Riley is still smarting over missing out on an opportunity to lead the city's public safety operations pull down another six figure salary plus benefits.

Former New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Warren Riley filed a federal lawsuit Friday that accuses Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the city of breach of contract for reneging on an agreement to hire him as public safety czar.

In the lawsuit, Riley claims more than $700,000 in damages as a result of quitting a lucrative job in the federal government and preparing to move from Georgia to work for the city where he served a tumultuous four years as police chief beginning a month after Hurricane Katrina.

The suit names Cantrell both individually and as mayor, claiming Riley has been unable to find a job with the same salary and benefits as the $170,000-per-year post he left at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In that job, Riley helped coordinate federal disaster response and recovery efforts.

Go ahead and read the rest of that article for the full re-cap. But the short version is, LaToya was all set to announce Riley's hiring until a last minute "uptick in the community" in her words, persuaded her to back out.  The community was particularly upticked that the new mayor wanted to hire the man who ignored/covered up the Danziger bridge murders buy New Orleans Police officers under his charge in the days after Katrina.  The shooters themselves have eluded justice due to an already bizarre set of circumstances. That their boss would be rewarded now in this fashion only further highlighted the glaring lack of accountability for that crime.  Of course, in LaToya's estimation, the real problem here was the upticked community was still too caught up in their feelings to move forward, or something.

Well now it looks like it's Riley who's having trouble getting over it.  Would it help if we sent him a Christmas card?  Maybe a councilmember can make him a video. 

New Orleans may be one of the few towns in America that keeps a piano in the City Council chamber — in this most musical of the nation’s towns, that’s how often City Council members invite performances during meetings.

But during the Thursday (Dec. 20) meeting, council members were treated to a whole new genre of music: The Constituent Christmas Carol, created singlehandedly by District E resident Frank Richard with his “District E 12 Days of Christmas.” The song counts down the accomplishments District E Councilwoman Cyndi Nguyen has achieved since taking office in May.

Congratulations to Cyndi Nguyen on winning this year's #Hostilidays.  This one is a real banger. 



Well, okay.. it's still better than another Benny Grunch re-run. Nguyen's explanation for it is especially gratifying. 

Nguyen has worked for the past seven months to raise the district’s profile, which includes New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward — two areas where residents often feel like they get the least attention. So Nguyen wanted to continue that work when she came up with the idea for the video after Thanksgiving because it was too expensive to mail Christmas cards to everyone in her district.

What is meant by "worked to raise the district's profile," by the way, is  Cyndi explored the idea of re-branding it "The E" along with "The L9" for the lower ninth ward just to give you a sense of the high-wattage we're dealing with in the Nguyen creative department.  As for the Christmas cards being too expensive, I'm a little surprised she didn't ask Entergy to sponsor them.  I'd hate to think we aren't exploring every option to make things right with Riley.