New Orleans Levee Board Leader Out

You'd think he might have realized people were watching.

NEW ORLEANS - The head of the Orleans Levee Board has quit amid questions about no-bid contracts to his relatives in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

The final days of board president Jim Huey's tenure also had been marred by his collection of nearly $100,000 in back pay several weeks before the storm. Huey had led the board for nine years.

Comments

[splashtc]

one down,next.

[LALady]

of course we all know what back pay is.....you have to back up to get it so your face is not shown....stealing and fraud....he should be charged with malfeasance.

[Rick]

Wow. What a surprise from one of the most crooked citys in the country. Now for the elections!

[satchmo]

New Orleans was corrupt when I lived there up to 1982. This was a way of life, and when the blacks took over it got even worse.

Since the statute of limitations have expired, I can tell this story.

The mayor was Moon Landreau, the father of the current Senator from Louisiana. Moon later became the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Jimmy Carter. Moon later died in an air crash in Mexico.

Joseph Cannizaro was a real estate developer who wanted to build a building near the river end of Canal Street on property that was then owned by the City of New Orleans. David Cressy was Moon Landreau's attorney on the City's payroll. Cannaizaro bought another property and wanted to swap it to the city.

Moon Landreau made the deal happen and this is what Cannizaro gave him. First, Cannizaro bought a farm near Natchez, Mississippi. He then transferred the property to David Cressy to secretly hold for Landreau. Also, when Landreau left office, Cannizaro hired him as a vice president of his real estate firm at a high end salary.

Landreau left office, but, he along with David Cressy, swung political support to a black man named Ernest Morial. Part of the political payoff was for David Cressy to become City Notary under the Morial administration. David received $100,000 per year for this service which consisted of keeping a secretary to organize the paperwork which he was to notarize for the city. David worked about 1 hour per day for this $100,000 annual fee.

I wonder if the current Senator Landreau still has this farm in Natchez?

Corruption is what New Orleans politics was and is.

[Erik]

long duck dong

[TJ]

Satchmo get your facts straight and stop the racist diatribe. Moon Landrieu is alive (but not kicking too high). Haley Boggs is the Louisiana politician who died in a plane crash. Also, you said that corruption got worse under black rule in New Orleans, but everyone you sited in your example is white.