Background

In our report on the October 24th, 2001 Audubon Commission Meeting we recorded that a new contract between the Audubon Commission and the Audubon Institute had been approved by the Commission at that meeting. The new contract's chief features were the extension of the Institute's contract from 5 to 10 years, an increase in the discretionary spending that the Institute can undertake without specific Commission approval and the installation of Institute CEO Ron Forman as CEO of the Commission. (For more details see Runaway Train).

At the time our chief concern with the new arrangements was the appointment of the Institute CEO to be the CEO of the Commission, noting that this was a clear conflict of interest and probably illegal and fearing that this would remove any restraints on the ANI that the current Commission is able to exert (not much, granted).

That part of the new contract was subsequently withdrawn and at the January 16th, 2002 Commission Meeting it was announced that Mr Forman would not be the CEO of the Commission but would have authority to execute documents on its behalf.

However, in addition to concerns about the contract duration and other new details we noticed that the existing contract with a 5-year duration and lower discretionary spending limit was not due to expire for nearly two years, and wondered why a new contract would be offered to the Institute when the old one still had some time to run.

We saw this as a move by the Commission and the incumbent mayor to protect the ANI from the vagaries of an upcoming new mayoral administration. At the time, we reported the following:

Lastly, it was interesting to hear one or two Commission members back the new 10 or 15 year contract by remarking that this put the unelected Institute beyond the "interference" of the elected mayor and other elected officials of this city.

Breaking News...

WWL TV reported on July 31st that the Nagin Administration is investigating ALL city contracts and will deem voidable any that are found to have been conceived in violation of the city Home Rule Charter.

Apparently, city attorney Charles Rice sent letters to all department heads, city commission chairmen, and board of directors of public benefit corporations, suggesting there are problems.

In that report (Nagin Administration to Investigate City Contracts) it was noted that one contract under investigation was that of Kristina Ford at the New Orleans Building Corporation who was granted a new and substantially more rewarding contract by the Morial administration just four months before Morial left office. Of specific concern with the new contract is the way in which the termination arrangements were changed to make it harder for her contract to be terminated by the City.

These termination arrangements were changed such that only Ford can terminate the contract rather than either side being able to. With regard to this change, Janet Howard of the Bureau of Governmental research was quoted as saying:

"There doesn't appear to be any justification for an outgoing mayor to guarantee one of his contractors employment for a fixed term during the tenure of a new mayor... It basically extends the mayor's patronage into the next administration."

How do such contractual maneuvers differ from the Audubon Commission's granting of a new contract to the ANI for a period exceeding the term of a new mayor two years before their old contract was even due to expire, and openly aimed at preventing "interference" by the new administration?

We understand that as the "chairman of a city commission", Willard Dumas of the Audubon Commission must have received a letter from the city attorney on this subject. How will he respond?

Will the Nagin Administration cancel this new contract and revert to the former unexpired contract?

Will the Nagin Administration, which seems to understand that corruption, patronage and trading of special favors in New Orleans go well beyond the taxi-driving profession, conclude that they in fact go all the way uptown to Audubon Park?