Nagin still flirting with run for Governor

4 months after the election. Okay not really but you see the impression made by this headline.

Report: Nagin considered gubernatorial run last year

06:18 PM CST on Friday, February 8, 2008

Lee Zurik / Eyewitness News Reporter

While New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin publicly danced around questions about his political future, he spent a considerable amount of money polling and researching a possible gubernatorial run, according to documents obtained by Eyewitness News.

Campaign records for all of 2007 (PDF), which were filed with Louisiana's ethics board, show Nagin paid Dr. Silas Lee, a political consultant, almost $60,000 last year.

“That's a lot of money to spend on polling,” said Dr. Ed Renwick, Eyewitness News political analyst. “I need a client like that. That's not too common.”

This Lee Zurik report is remarkably honest given the numerous times several of the facts mentioned have been glossed over or ignored by local media at seemingly relevant moments.

Overall, the campaign disclosure report shows Nagin raised more than $210,000 in 2007 from 128 different donors. Among that group, companies that have or presently are tied to the city's lucrative sanitation contracts.

SDT, through two limited liability corporations, gave a total of $10,000, Richard’s Disposal sent $2,500 and Amid Metro Partnership, who's member, Jimmie Woods, is President of Metro Disposal, which shares the sanitation contract, gave $2,500.

The above information might have been interesting to note when the T-P went after Cynthia Willard-Lewis for basically the same thing while she was in the midst of an election.

But Nagin did not keep all of the money he received last year. He returned $2,500 to Montgomery Watson Harza, which this year, received a contract reportedly worth $6 million to coordinate recovery work. Nagin also returned money to Omni Pinnacle, the city's primary contractor after Hurricane Katrina.

This relationship might have been fun to delve into as well when the T-P reported the granting of this MWH contract or the next week when Gambit publisher Clancy Dubos told us all what a "smart move" it was.

And in keeping with Eyewitness News’ full disclosure policy, it should be noted that Greg Rigamer, who conducts data analysis work for WWL-TV, which includes analysis of election returns, gave $2,500 to the Nagin campaign fund last year.

This issue has been covered previously at Moldy City.... where I see there is much more on this entire report today.