N O L A.C O M
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S at u r d ay, J u ly 12, 2025
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Candidates set for N.O. election Municipal vote promises to overhaul leadership BY JAMES FINN Staff writer
The field is set. End-of-day Friday marked the deadline for anyone hoping to run this fall for New Orleans’ slate of local political seats — the Mayor’s Office, City Council, assessor, two court clerkships and sheriff. The upcoming municipal elec-
tion, which starts with an Oct. 11 primary, will overhaul New Orleans’ leadership from top to bottom at a time when voters are weary of outgoing Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s performance and what they view as dysfunction across city services, according to polling and resident interviews. Following a period of deepening rancor between Cantrell and the
current council, the election will also shape a new set of political relationships between the city’s executive and legislative branches. Residents will have wide fields to choose from up and down the municipal ballot. Fourteen people are running for mayor. Six are running for sheriff. Fourteen candidates are seeking the District E council seat; five are running in District A
and four in District C. But in what analysts called one of the bigger surprises of the qualifying period, voters in District B won’t have the choice to elect a new representative after no one filed paperwork to challenge incumbent council member Lesli Harris. Candidates up and down the ballot have been running for weeks or months, often touting similar strains of the same message: They emphasize change, pledging to make the city more functional and
Trump tours Texas flood damage
less beholden to entrenched political forces, regardless of the office they’re seeking. All of that was more or less clear, though, before the three-day qualifying period. “It looks like the race we saw coming into qualifying was pretty much the race we see coming out of it,” said Ron Faucheux, a pollster and analyst. The field in the mayor’s race saw
ä See ELECTION, page 6A
New Orleans plans payouts
Tax revenue bonds would address unpaid judgments BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JACQUELyN MARTIN
First lady Melania Trump, from left, and President Donald Trump greet first responders Friday as they survey flood damage in Kerrville, Texas.
President lauds officials amid criticism about slow flood warnings BY SEAN MURPHY and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
KERRVILLE, Texas — President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded local officials amid mounting criticism that they failed to warn residents fast enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way. “The search for the missing continues. The people that are doing it are unbelievable,” Trump told first responders and other state and local officials gathered at an emergency operations center in an expo hall in Kerrville. “You couldn’t get better people, and they’re doing the job like I don’t think anybody else could, frankly,” Trump said. The president said his administration “is doing everything it can to help Texas” and insisted that “we’ve got some good people” running the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since the July 4 disaster, which has killed at least 129 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been conspicuously silent on his past, repeated promises to do away with FEMA. Instead, he’s focused on the once-in-alifetime nature of what occurred and the human tragedy. He has praised Texas
New Orleans has a plan to pay tens of millions of dollars in cash judgments to residents who have won lawsuits against the city for everything from contract disputes to a deadly police wreck. Under the proposal, developed by the city’s Chief Administrative Office and unanimously approved by the New Orleans City Council on Thursday, the city will issue $90 million in tax revenue bonds and use the proceeds to pay hundreds of judgments, some of which date back decades. The plan comes after frustration has mounted for years among those stiffed by the city and as officials have repeatedly raised concerns about the city’s failure to meet its obligations. In a statement Friday, Cantrell administration officials said that
ä See PAYOUTS, page 6A
Governor appoints new coastal agency chief Landry taps Hare for executive director
BY MIKE SMITH Staff writer
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GERALD HERBERT
Nancy Epperson, right, and Brooklyn Pucek, 6, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday in Kerrville, Texas.
and local officials while de-emphasizing from Camp Mystic, the century-old allthe administration’s government-slash- girls Christian summer camp in Texas ing crusade that’s been popular with Hill Country, where at least 27 people Trump’s core supporters. ä See FLOOD, page 7A Trump specifically mentioned victims
Gov. Jeff Landry announced Friday he has appointed a new head of the state’s coastal protection agency, a key role as Louisiana does battle against its worsening land loss crisis and intensifying hurricanes while facing upcoming money shortages. Michael Hare replaces Glenn Ledet as executive director of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Ledet recently departed to take over as secretary of the state Department of
ä See AGENCY, page 7A
WEATHER HIGH 93 LOW 77 PAGE 8A
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12TH yEAR, NO. 334