Call me extortion, maybe

In this week's Gambit Clancy Dubos provides some interesting details about the "dignified" if not entirely open and democratic process by which the City Council decided to appoint Freddie Charbonnet to the interim District E opening resulting from the sudden departure of Councilman Jon Johnson.

Here's what happened:

After Johnson resigned, Clarkson asked the remaining six council members to compile a list of acceptable candidates. Each council member forwarded three names to Clarkson, who listed them in alphabetical order (after removing duplicate nominations) and sent the list back to her colleagues with a request that each select just two names from that list. When she got the second round of nominees back from her colleagues, she again removed the duplicates and — voila! — the list contained only four names.

We have to take Clarkson's word that this was a fair process, because none of it transpired in public, and none of the nominees was publicly identified, let alone publicly vetted, in advance.

At that point, Clarkson says, she intended to let the public speak for and against the finalists. But then a funny thing happened: Two of the four finalists dropped out. One of them, Rashida Ferdinand, a 9th Ward artist, apparently decided at the last minute to focus on her art. Ronald Carrere, a mortgage consultant for Liberty Bank, left for reasons that remain publicly unexplained. What is known is that he was seen walking into the hallway with At-Large Councilwoman Stacy Head minutes before the start of the special meeting. When he returned a few minutes later, he glumly announced his withdrawal from the competition. Suffice it to say Head convinced him not to remain in contention.

This morning, on WBOK radio, host Gerod Stevens asked his guest, Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, about this incident.  WBOK (as far as I can tell) does not publish transcripts of its shows on its website so I'm relaying this from memory, but Stevens' question suggested that "a certain candidate" who I assume to be Carrere, was threatened with the release of supposedly embarrassing information "about his parents."  Stevens' question to Hedge-Morrell was (again, inexact quote but close), "Shouldn't we consider that extortion?"

Cynthia paused for a moment but then offered, "Maybe"

Update: Sorry, forgot the Gambit link when I originally posted this. Fixed now.