The New Orleans City Council on Thursday overrode Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s bid to halt a $5 million deal between the city and LSU that moves city government closer to full ownership of a lucrative trust fund.
The unanimous vote means a council plan to give LSU $5 million in exchange for the university forfeiting its stake in the Wisner Trust Fund will move forward. The proceeds from the trust, which controls 40,000 acres of oil-rich land in Port Fourchon, had been divvied up between LSU, the city, the heirs of philanthropist Edward Wisner and others.
The council moved last month to pull $5 million from capital bond funds to seal the deal, but Cantrell vetoed the measure in late August when the council sent it to her desk for her signature…