The creation of the New Orleans City Ethics Review Board and Inspector General’s Office could be the death knell for the corruption that has plagued the city for decades. However, office officials and the Rev. Kevin Wildes, university president and recently re-elected chairman of the board, say getting to the root of key investigations could be harder than expected.
Confidentiality for preliminary investigations has been an area for contention between the city attorney, Penya Moses-Fields, and the Inspector General’s Office. In a public discourse, the city attorney has asked the IGO to “provide a direct communication to my office when you initiate an investigation.”
Cerasoli steadfastly refused, saying in an e-mail “we will not do so.”
The office’s home rule charter states that preliminary investigations performed by the IGO are to be confidential for the office to perform its duties effectively.
When asked if the city attorney is protecting anyone, Cerasoli said, “That is an interesting question that begs an answer but I’m not going to answer that … I think it’s just that the city attorney is appointed by the mayor and thinks that the city attorney works for the mayor and not the city.”
The goal of the city ethics review board is to enact policies to improve the level of efficiency in city government. Besides having statewide subpoena power, the board’s primary role is policy oriented. The role of the inspector general is to actually perform investigations into allegations of corruption in city government, audit and review programs for financial disparities and to inspect building projects for financial pitfalls and potential malfeasance on the part of contractors. Getting the powers necessary to perform this task has sometimes been difficult.
The new ethics review board met for the first time in January 2007. That June, the board hired Robert Cerasoli to be the city’s new inspector general. Cerasoli is the nationally recognized father of the Association of Inspectors General and co-authored Principles and Standards for Offices of Inspectors General, the book that was used as a basis in the creation of the inspector general office in New Orleans.
“Anytime there is inefficiency it opens up incredible opportunity for corruption,” Wildes said.
Inefficiencies include a city car program that lets 180 city employees take home vehicles. Also, there is no orientation program for city employees to learn what unacceptable actions are.
“We’ve got to clean up the (city’s) organizational chart. Let’s get it done,” Wildes said.
When asked how forthcoming the executive branch of the government has been with their efforts, both Cerasoli and Wildes responded, “slow.”
“When I go in and ask for information, it’s given to me grudgingly,” Cerasoli said. “We’re using what I like to call the iron fist with the velvet glove (approach).”
Hearkening back to his days in the ring, Wildes described the office’s efforts as a “slugfest.”
Cerasoli said he has hope for the future, but with some apprehension. “It takes two to tango. I do see hope in the fact that there will be a change in administration in the next year and a half … I hope by the end of my first term to see some change. If not, then there is no reason for me to stick around.”
Although the Ethics Review Board’s existence was written into the city’s revised Home Rule Charter in 1996 during Mayor Marc Morial’s tenure, it never came to fruition. The members of the board were chosen by the mayor, but never met. It has since come to light that many of the former mayor’s associates in city hall were involved in a $1 million kickback scheme revolving around a $65 million contract with a Milwaukee-based company to improve city government buildings’ energy efficiency.
Robert Cerasoli said that “when governments are inefficient and ineffective, they sow the seeds of corruption. People get frustrated in dealing with the government, and so they look for ways to buy their way around inefficiency and ineffectiveness.”
Jean-Paul Arguello can be reached at [email protected].
