New Orleans Mayor Claims She’ll Pay Back $30K Taxpayer Dollars She Used On First-Class Flights, Faces Additional Calls For Investigation As Well As Recall

New Orleans just eclipsed St. Louis as the murder capital of the country. I know you’d think it would have been LA or NYC or DC or Chicago, but for the size and population, the murder rate is higher in some of these slightly smaller Big Blue cities. New Orleans just clocked in at 52 murders per 100,000 residents.

Simultaneous to the unprecedented crime, police are leaving the New Orleans PD in droves. Their force has shrunk below 1,000 officers and they had to hire civilians to try to relieve the workload pressure on the shrinking police force. But they’re quitting, too. Oh, and she just went on GMA to blame the DA for not prosecuting crime while DA Williams claims they’ve prosecuted 89% of murder cases, 76% of manslaughter cases, and almost 70% of robbery cases since April 2021. And on top of that, Cantrell is facing an effort to recall her.

But, New Orlean’s Mayor LaToya Cantrell has her priorities straight. Who cares about skyrocketing crime, a shrinking police force, and recall efforts. You know what she did? She spent $30,000 taxpayer dollars on first class international flights to and from France and Switzerland, which she justified by claiming that it was unsafe for a black woman to fly coach. She said,

“My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury. As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world black women walk in.”

She needed to be safe in a luxury first class flat bed seat on her international flights. Riiiiight. Oh, but her aides were relegated to coach. I’m curious if any of them were black women.

Not only that, she’s been living rent-free in an upscale French Quarter city-owned apartment just 3 miles away from her own $500K home. Because why live in your own half-a-million-dollar home when you could live rent free in a city apartment that rents for almost $3K/month?

But Cantrell predictably claims she’s done nothing wrong. In response to questions about the use of taxpayer money, Cantrell told the media, “All expenses incurred doing business on behalf of the city of New Orleans will not be reimbursed to the city of New Orleans.” But the city council members threatened to dock her pay in the coming year’s budget in order to recover the wasted funds. Additionally, the city’s Metropolitan Crime Commission asked the city council for an investigation into her use of the $2,991/month city appartment.

Ultimately, Cantrell has admitted that she will have to reimburse the city for the taxpayer funds she frivolously spent.

“Based on the policy review of the Chef Administrative Officer, as well as the law department, it is very clear that business was done on behalf of the city of New Orleans, however, I will have to reimburse the city for those business expenses.”

I feel like this woman has more important things to think about than spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on fancy first class international flights and bonus apartments. Also, why is the Mayor of New Orleans traveling to France and Switzerland on city business? Seems like whatever that was could have been a Zoom call, don’t you think?