07/17/2023
All six of mayor’s
police chief choices
have one thing in common
By Rudy Matthew Vorkapic
The Levee Multiplicity writer
In an exclusive, The Levee has unearthed the names of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s six finalists from a supposed national search for a new police chief, despite her best efforts to conceal them from the public, media, and her lovers.
Always afraid of scrutiny, the mayor is seeking to permanently replace now-retired-lackey and police Superintendent Shawn Ferguson, whom the mayor chose on her own in 2019. The two went on to oversee the unsafe shrinkage of the number of NOPD officers first initiated by former Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Ferguson and Cantrell’s work together did curtail on a record pace as many basic services as possible, such as responding to emergency calls.
Just before Christmas, Cantrell appointed Michelle Woodfork – not her reported first choice, nor someone who had even captained a police district in town – as interim police superintendent.
Woodfork’s uncle, Warren Woodfork, was the first black superintendent of the NOPD from 1985 to 1991, the year Michelle Woodfork joined the NOPD. Her father, Richard, was an NOPD officer from 1968 to 1974.
To her credit, Michelle Woodfork has initiated some basic policing previously abandoned by Ferguson and Cantrell, though the slight decrease in crime numbers recently appear to be more impacted by the City Council’s work to bring in civilians and private companies to handle lessor police needs, freeing up a depleted force of officers for more important matters. The council took the action despite Cantrell’s inaction on the idea.
The council’s action despite the mayor has led to police response times moving from never to about three hours to about an hour and a half. While that’s still a horrible number anywhere in a supposedly civilized country, in a Cantrell administration that is touted as “great progress.”
Cantrell went on to oppose a national search for a permanent superintendent, declaring her adamancy and breath-holding that Woodfork get the job.
This week, the agency conducting the search announced it had narrowed its recommendations to six finalists, soon to be whittled to three, before the mayor makes a recommendation-to-hire to the council, which recently took final approval away from Cantrell.
Cantrell was reported to have been seeking the on-its-face honorable road of seeking to name a Black woman to the position and chose Woodfork after others passed.
The mayor this week was clear that Woodfork was one of the six finalists, but refused to name the others, afraid local media attention might frighten and scare away any finalists who, of course, would have to deal with local media as part of the job.
Now, The Levee has learned, all six of the mayor’s choices are inexplicably named Michelle Woodfork.
The “mayor’s list” was found inside designer clothing strewn about Jackson Square near the city-owned Pontalba apartment where the mayor is suspected of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a member of her existing security detail.
The list, which is titled “Recommendations,” is numbered 1 through 6 with pictures of six women who all look to be Woodfork.
A whistleblower source in the mayor’s lady maid service, whose 24-hour-a-day duties include helping her mistress with make-up, designer clothing, breakfast in her city-owned bedroom, drawing her baths, drawing her shades, and various other “royal” duties, acknowledged its existence.
The whistleblower told The Levee the mayor’s plan is simply to keep nominating another Woodfork every time the city council rejects one, thereby getting her way with her choice of Wookfork until the mayor is forced to leave office in 2 ½ years because of term limits.
It is the fact of what most would normally call Cantrell’s short, remaining – but also agonizingly forever – time as mayor that would prevent any best candidates from even seeking the job, as they might believe they would be relieved of duty as the mayor leaves.
A mayoral spokesperson said, “Yeah, probably.”
