WHAT'S THAT TITLE AGAIN? While former Nagin aide Greg Meffert held the title of "chief technology officer" at City Hall, his name also has been preceded by a variety of other courtesy titles in a slew of publications.
The one constant? The word "mayor."
For example, Previstar, a Virginia-based emergency management software company that provided software to the city after Katrina, last week identified Meffert as both "vice mayor" and "deputy mayor" -- positions that legally don't exist -- in a news release announcing that he had been named to its executive advisory board.
Furthermore, the company states, Meffert "was elevated to the No. 2 position in the mayor's office" within a year of being hired.
Large media outlets have likewise adorned Meffert with honorifics. An Associated Press article from a year ago calls him "one of two deputy mayors," and a December 2005 Washington Post story calls him "deputy mayor."
Then there's a Q-and-A session with Meffert that was posted on searchCIO.com, an online tech magazine, less than a month after Katrina. In it, Meffert says that he was named "acting mayor" for a total of nine days while his boss, Nagin, was out of town, during the month after the storm.
(The crisis du jour on his first stint as mayor, according to Meffert, was that "corpses (were) clogging up the sewer and water drains.")
Whether Nagin ever bestowed such titles or duties on Meffert unofficially is unclear. But as for the city's official response, Nagin spokeswoman Ceeon Quiett said the City Charter and city laws "do not provide for the title of deputy mayor or vice mayor. Therefore, this administration has not created such a position."
She likewise noted that the charter calls for one of the council's two at-large members to serve as acting mayor in the event the real mayor is absent for an extended period of time. The charter does not specify how long a mayor must be gone before a fill-in is named.
In appointing Meffert to its board, Previstar officials said he "knows first-hand how essential disaster planning is to a municipality confronted by, and recovering from, a devastating crisis." Meffert returned the compliment, saying Previstar had saved the city "literally tens of millions of dollars."
Company officials said Meffert will not receive a salary for his service.
Related: Here, as always.. and here. And also here.
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