New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is under fire again for a lack of transparency- this time in city contracts. According to New Orleans CityBusiness, Nagin issued an executive order in 2005 that made all executive branch contract review panel meetings confidential and prohibits disclosure of information to third parties.

Two N.O. city council members, Arnie Fielkow and Shelley Midura, are pressing Nagin for more transparency. It is the practice of the city council to have an open forum for committees to consider legislative branch city contracts, which currently total about $9.9 million. Unfortunately, the mayor controls executive branch contracts (the bulk of the contracts) through his closed-door meetings.

Nagin’s defends his lack of transparency to CityBusiness:

Via an e-mailed response, Nagin’s press office answered questions about transparency saying “Requests for bids and proposals are advertised and posted on the city’s website; review committees include an outside evaluator and now also are attended by a representative from the Office of the Inspector General and final contracts are public documents.”

However…

Inspector General Robert Cerasoli said his staff has only been “notified two or three times” of meetings.

Oops.

Janet Howard, president and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, had this to say:

“Talk about transparency,” Howard said. “(The city has) a confidentiality agreement as opposed to an open transparent approach to contracting.”

Another concern of Howard’s is that “professional services” is a “very loose concept.”

“Anything that has a service component, even if you have a piece that’s equipment, gets treated as a professional services contract,” she said. “So (the administration) puts a lot of things into professional services that shouldn’t be there. The downtown trash cans were treated as a professional services contract.”

According to the article, Howard is also concerned about the history of N.O. mayors reaping a windfall of campaign contributions from businesses that have or desire city contracts, creating a “pay to play” atmosphere.

Note to Nagin: Open up your books, and no one gets hurt (by more bad press).

Category: sunshine