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City Council to appoint interim clerk N.O. officials to meet Monday, set special election
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
After a week of legal maneuvers saw one clerk, then another, take the reins at Criminal District Court, the New Orleans City Council plans to appoint an interim clerk of its own, ahead of a special election it will also call to fill a combined clerk’s seat. With support from Mayor Hel-
ena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams, the council on Friday called a Monday special meeting to appoint an unnamed interim clerk to a combined position created under a bill signed into law last week. That law eliminated Clerkelect Calvin Duncan’s job days before he was set to take office. The council will also call a special Nov. 3 election for a permanent clerk, according to a council
resolution. The move comes after Civil District Court Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon added the criminal clerk’s responsibilities to her plate this week, following Duncan’s quick exit from the office after an appeals court upheld the new law Monday. “The office of Orleans clerk of court has yet to be filled and therefore is vacant,” a council resolu-
the governing authority of the parish shall appoint a person having the qualifications of the office to assume the duties of the office.” It’s unclear if the council will appoint Duncan, Napoleon, or someone else to hold the job temporarily until the election. Napoleon Duncan In a Friday statement, Duncan, who won the criminal clerk seat tion reads. Per state law, the resolution from with 68% of the vote, said that Council President JP Morrell said, he will “keep fighting in court to “if there is no chief deputy clerk of resume the office I was already court to assume the duties of clerk ä See CLERK, page 6A of court when a vacancy occurs,
Redistricting hearing heated
Music museum inks lease for River District site BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Crowds gather outside the hearing room chanting during a Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting at the State Capitol on Friday.
GOP lawmakers poised to ax one or both majority-Black congressional districts 2026 LEGISLATURE
BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
Over the course of more than eight hours Friday, dozens of Louisiana residents demanded the state Legislature shut down a push to eliminate congressional districts held by African Americans. The marathon hearing, which veered between solemn and fiery, showed the historic consequences of a redistricting battle inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
WEATHER HIGH 80 LOW 72
ther one or both of Louisiana’s majorityBlack congressional districts, which are represented by two Democrats. Louisiana has six U.S. House seats. “This is not democracy. It is the delibThe high court substantially weakened erate dilution of Black political power,” the Voting Rights Act, telling lawmak- said Keturah Butler-Reed, of the NAACP ers who draw voting maps they can’t Youth and College Division. “The country take race into account when determin- is watching.” Butler-Reed was just one of dozens of ing district lines. That opened the door to eliminate majority-Black congressional people, most of them Black, who traveled districts across the South. ä See HEARING, page 6A Now, GOP lawmakers are poised to ax ei-
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Organizers of the Louisiana Music & Heritage Experience, a museum intended to tell the story of the state’s musical genres, have finalized a lease with the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to locate the long-planned attraction in the heart of the River District in New Orleans. Under the terms of the deal, finalized earlier this week, the museum’s nonprofit board has agreed to lease more than two acres from the Convention Center at the corner of Convention Center Boulevard and Henderson Street for nearly $35,000 a month. The deal also gives the museum an option to purchase the parcel for $8 million within three years of opening. “We have been trying to secure this property for three years so finally having it feels like a real accomplishment,” said Chris Beary, who is leading the project. Beary said the lease is significant because it makes the music museum more “real” in the eyes of donors as well as city and state officials who will have to sign off on the financing package for the nearly $172 million project. The deal may also help signal that the River District, a mixed-use neighborhood planned for 47 acres of riverfront controlled by the Convention Center, is moving forward after years of delays and a restructuring in January of the agreement between the Convention Center and the development group originally overseeing the project.
ä See MUSEUM, page 6A
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