LaToya Cantrell recall petition campaign lifts off as 'first-class' mayor's $30K flight bill is latest uproar

A campaign to recall New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is in its early stages, but appears to be gaining momentum as residents are feeling increasingly fed up with rising crime and the mayor's jet-setting lifestyle. 

At petition signings city-wide, referred to as "parties" across social media and on nolatoya.org, citizens are pushing back after feeling forced into supporting Mayor Cantrell’s expensive international travel on taxpayer dollars and enduring her alleged gross negligence in managing violent crime.

The New Orleans Police Department lost over 150 officers in 2021 under Cantrell's watch, despite a surge in murders and carjackings. According to the Metropolitan Crime Commission weekly bulletin, as of Sept. 11 carjackings in the Crescent City this year stood at 217, an increase of over 200% since 2019.

NOPD Chief Shaun Ferguson gave Fox News Digital a terse "no comment" when pressed for his opinion on recall efforts against Mayor Cantrell Thursday.

The two New Orleanians who filed the recall petition united through social media. They refer to themselves as an "odd couple:" Eileen Carter is Cantrell’s former social media manager, and Belden "Noonie Man" Batiste ran for New Orleans mayor in 2021, garnering just over 5% of the vote. Both are registered Democrats. They cite "failure to put New Orleans first and execute the responsibilities of the position" as reason for recall on their August 26 request.

DEMOCRAT MAYOR UNDER FIRE FOR RACKING UP $30K IN FIRST CLASS TRAVEL FOR 'SAFETY' PURPOSES

A current Edgewater poll puts support for Cantrell's recall over 55%. 53,700 signatures are required citywide by February 22, 2023 to initiate a recall election. 

If the petition does not meet requirements, residents must wait 18 months in order to file another recall under Louisiana election law.

Once the petition is submitted and certified, Governor Jon Bel Edwards must proclaim a recall election. In this election, voters can ultimately decide if Mayor Cantrell vacates office. 

"If we keep up this pace, we will meet the goal in five months instead of the six months allotted," said Vice Chair Eileen Carter. "The sooner residents sign, the sooner we [can] petition the governor."

Carter and Batiste did not want to reveal the latest number of signatures received on the recall petition because of fear of sabotage by Cantrell supporters. Since the recall petition was officially filed, many fake petitions and one impostor website set up to confuse citizens have made the rounds. The last published number listed on the website was at over 3,100 signatures.

After the recall effort began, Cantrell’s team dismissed the petition as a Republican-backed attempt to "undermine and discredit the first Black woman Mayor of New Orleans" and lashed out at Fox News. Maggie Carroll, the director of Cantrell's PAC "Action New Orleans" and former campaign manager, has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

However, for many residents, Cantrell's appearance in court August 18 in support of teenage carjacker at his sentencing hearing as his two female victims looked on was the impetus for a recall.

The 14-year-old teen had been found guilty of five counts of carjacking in the span of two days. He was a graduate of Cantrell's Pathways youth internship program for teenagers arrested, detained, or charged at least twice in the previous 18 months. According to a June statement from the mayor's office on the program, "mindful meditation, life skills and how to make better choices" are part of the curriculum. More than 80 juveniles who have passed through the criminal justice system have graduated from the program; Cantrell's office claims 90 percent of these graduates "have stayed out of trouble!"

Juvenile Judge Ranord Darensburg handed down sentencing of three years’ probation and no jail time to the carjacker after Mayor LaToya Cantrell's courtroom visit. Fox News Digital found this same judge was endorsed by Cantrell, according to his campaign's Instagram account in November 2020.

"Tucker Carlson Tonight" shed light on Cantrell's controversial courtroom appearance and New Orleans' problems with carjacking, including the brutal death of grandmother Linda Frickey, 73. She was killed at the hands of four teenage carjackers who were accused of dragging her four blocks until her arm was severed, and she bled to death.

"New Orleans is now the most violent city in the world, only behind other countries that are in war," Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue of the Bayou Mama Bears said in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital. "The recall petition was filed just days after New Orleans Mayor Cantrell sat beside a serial carjacker… The multiple victims of the carjacker sat on the opposite side of the courtroom in disbelief. America looked on in shock at New Orleans, yet again."

Mayor Cantrell’s politically costly sister city trips to the European cities of Ascona, Switzerland, and Juan Antibes-les-Pins on the French Riviera this past summer have also pushed some New Orleanians to support a recall. Her travels have cost the City of New Orleans close to $45,000, including first-class international airfare with lie-flat seating.

City of New Orleans official travel policy requires all employees to personally pay any difference in cost for work-related airfare upgrades, stating "employees are required to purchase the lowest airfare available… employees who choose an upgrade from coach, economy, or business class flights are solely responsible for the difference in cost."

Despite this, Cantrell has not paid the near $30,000 bill from her first-class international flight upgrades over the summer. 

In a press conference last week, Mayor Cantrell stated that "my travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury…. I need to be safe as I do business on behalf of the city of New Orleans." Her security detail traveled in coach class on flights to both Milan Malpensa and Charles de Gaulle airports this summer. 

Cantrell has defended her sister city trips, arguing that they yield a positive return of investment. "When I go, I'm reinvesting in the people who get marketed, and no apologies surrounding that at all," she said at a town hall.

Fox News Digital contacted the Tourism Board of New Orleans regarding the mayor’s summer travels yielding more tourism revenue for the city in 2022. The board did not have much insight.

Senior Vice President of Communications Kelly Schulz said, "We are not yet back at pre-pandemic levels" of tourism, but could not give any concrete revenue numbers or tourism numbers for summer 2022.

NEW ORLEANS COULD BECOME MURDER CAPITAL OF US UNDER MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL

Per public record requests with the Department of International Affairs for the City of New Orleans, correspondence for both the trips to Switzerland and the French Riviera date back as early as 2020, but Cantrell's flights were not booked until three days before her tours with the agency Going Places.

Cantrell spent $11,027.08 on her sister city trip to Ascona, Switzerland to coincide with the city's annual jazz festival in June. 

Her Swiss itinerary included a tentative one o'clock in the morning "jam session" and suggested the mayor is "free to return at any time" to the Hotel Eden Roc, with room rates ranging from $304 to $1,351 in mid-June. For her diplomatic work on behalf of New Orleans, three hours of afternoon rest appear to be required ahead of a photo call and "short brassband parade" of just 10 minutes' duration.

Mayor Cantrell returned to New Orleans with enough time to host a lavish welcome "pink party" at Essence Fest in a custom handmade beaded jumpsuit. Essence Fest hosted many celebrities and elected officials from the Biden administration, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Vice President Kamala Harris, with the latter interviewed by actress Keke Palmer in front of a banner which misspelled Louisiana. Cantrell's official Instagram page shows a video of the mayor dancing the night away while ensuring to credit her fashion designer, hair stylist and makeup artist for their work.

Belden Batiste, chairman of NoLaToya, ripped Mayor Cantrell's track record of attending and hosting parties amid escalating crime in New Orleans in an interview with Fox News Digital.

"When you see crime on the rise, when you see people getting carjacked, guns being put to the head, and you see a mayor going all around the country partying and twerking and not working, there's something wrong with that," he said.

NEW ORLEANS HOMICIDE RATE REACHES 14-YEAR HIGH FOLLOWING FATAL SHOOTING NEAR HOTEL

She then jetted back to Europe once more. Mayor Cantrell’s following trip to France after Essence Fest was even more expensive than Switzerland: $19,654.37 were spent in only five days’ time in the French Riviera for Cantrell’s sister city trip to Juan Antibes-les-Pins in July. No official business was scheduled on-the-record before 10 am. 

Cocktails were scheduled with lunch shortly after arriving, and before meeting any local officials or Cantrell making statements on behalf of New Orleans. In original correspondence, purported diplomatic visits with the royal family of Monaco and the mayor of Paris were proposed but ultimately did not come to fruition.

The mayor and her team completed their French tour in Paris at the Pullman Hotel which overlooks the Eiffel Tower. She defended this booking, stating in a press conference, "The hotel rooms are booked by travel agents, and I can’t tell you why, I would say because that, that’s what was available." Cantrell paid $776.78 for one night at the Pullman Hotel.

Mayor Cantrell's communications director Gregory Joseph has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

The continued efforts of the recall petition campaign against Mayor Cantrell can be followed at https://www.nolatoya.org.