The other day I saw this sign on the Napoleon Ave neutral ground advertising an upcoming production of the New Orleans Ballet. For a second, though, I thought Dracula (who we have already established lives at Charity Hospital) was running for office.
I am pretty sure the Charity Dracula Castle is in Alonzo Knox's house district. In which case, I'm not sure this wouldn't be an improvement.
Anyway, there's something about people in the local political scene who just keep coming back from the dead. Take Charles Rice for example.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell wants the City Council to approve a contract with the firm of former Entergy New Orleans (ENO) CEO Charles Rice, who in 2018 stepped down after it was discovered the company had used paid actors to appear at city council hearings in support of a proposed new power plant.
According to a draft of the contract, the administration wants to hire the Rice Group LLC to help in ongoing litigation between the city and the Municipal Police Employees Retirement System, which handles the NOPD’s pension.
Of course, Rice didn't actually step all the way down from Entergy after the "actors" scandal. Remember, the paid actors gambit basically worked. The plant the actors were hired to advocate for got built. The fact that the ploy got exposed resulted in a moment of bad press and nominal fine but that's all well worth it. And Rice was happy to take the fall anyway. No big loss to him. He just got kicked down from CEO to legal consultant. Also his wife continued to work for and with the company. (She also continues to serve on public boards.) Like Dracula, people operating at this level of privilege basically go on forever. They really aren't allowed to fail the way most of us mere mortals might be. I mean the Rices were doing kickbacks to their brothers-in-law over public contracts way back before a lot of you kids were even born. These are ancient powers we are dealing with here.
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