New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is appealing recent court rulings that give the city exclusive rights to the millions generated each year from donated oilfield land, to the astonishment of City Council members who on Tuesday criticized her for acting against taxpayers’ interest.
At a budget committee hearing, Councilmembers Joe Giarrusso, JP Morrell and Oliver Thomas said they were baffled as to why the mayor would be fighting to continue a century-old arrangement that gives the city only 35% of the revenue from about 38,000 acres of land around Port Fourchon donated to the city by the late philanthropist Edward Wisner. The land generates roughly $9 million each year.
Cantrell, a defendant in the council’s three-year-old lawsuit, is siding with dozens of Wisner’s heirs who contend they hold continuing interests in the land, despite a 2014 appellate court ruling that the previous revenue sharing agreement had expired.
The council claims the city is the sole beneficiary since the appellate ruling. Civil District Court Judge Kern Reese ruled in the council’s favor in a series of orders in May…