New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s execution of Henry Consulting’s proposed emergency contract was unauthorized and contrary to state law. The City Council lawfully terminated the mayor’s emergency proclamation before Henry Consulting’s proposed emergency contract ever became effective. Thus, that proposed contract is invalid and unenforceable, and the City’s contract with IV Waste must be reinstated.

“The mayor cannot manufacture an ‘emergency.’ I have filed an amicus brief on this matter due to the public’s interest in not having public officials abuse their authority under the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is blatantly abusing her emergency powers in order to circumvent the public procurement laws," said Attorney General Liz Murrill. 

Moreover, sanitation services in the French Quarter and Downtown Development District are not merely a matter of routine city services—those services are essential to public health, tourism, and the economic well-being of one of Louisiana’s most iconic and economically vital areas. Disruptions or mismanagement of sanitation services in those areas threaten not only the health and welfare of local residents and visitors, but also the stability of the broader business community that depends on a clean, safe, and welcoming French Quarter.

The Attorney General respectfully submitted an amicus brief in support of the longtime taxpayers and citizens of New Orleans (plaintiffs) and requests that the injunction sought by them be granted.

Law and Argument:

I. The IV Waste contract should be reinstated because there was and is no emergency under La. R.S. 29:727, rendering Mayor Cantrell’s proposed emergency contract with Henry Consulting invalid.

a. Mayor Cantrell cannot manufacture an emergency and then invoke that fabricated crisis to bypass procurement laws and ignore state law.

b. Even if an emergency had existed, the City Council properly terminated it.

II. Solely in the alternative, the French Quarter Management District is statutorily authorized to procure emergency sanitation services.

Read the amicus brief here.