Controversy
In 2008, White became newsworthy in the New Orleans area because of a feud between her and New Orleans City Councilwoman Stacy Head, most directly over garbage-collection fees and services. The feud morphed into a controversy over confidentiality of e-mail messages when White sought, via attorney Tracie Washington, to divulge the contents of e-mails in the internet accounts of four members of the City Council—an effort which resulted in seizure of White's computers by the FBI. Nagin criticized "deviation from procedure" on White's part but otherwise defended her. When Washington's brief (prior to a court injunction) internet display of e-mails from councilwomen Stacy Head and Shelley Stephenson Midura indicated that Head and Midura might have personal reasons for wanting to shield their City Council e-mail accounts from disclosure, the Times-Picayune editorialized in support of Washington. Nagin supported the efforts of City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields, siding with White, to get the Council's e-mails revealed, which move was denied by Civil District Judge Lloyd Medley, whose decision was overturned on appeal. In a separate suit District Judge Madeleine Landrieu instructed Nagin to deliver to City Council attorneys the e-mail traffic sought by WWL-TV, WDSU-TV, the Times-Picayune and other news organizations so that the City Council attorneys could remove sensitive information which is not definable as a public record. As the courts considered the appeals, WDSU reported it had obtained "tens of thousands" of the emails in question and published many of them on air and online. Another station—WGNO—announced it had received a handful of those files. Finally, Fox affiliate WVUE said it, too, had obtained some of the documents. The various e-mail controversies and the related lawsuits became quite convoluted, even within the political context of Louisiana.
After being notified of intent to release her from city employment by incoming mayor Mitch Landrieu, with 4 days left in her tenure with Nagin's administration, White resurfaced in the news by way of allegations from the city's inspector general Ed Quatrevaux regarding thousands of dollars of travel expenses claimed by White.
Read more about this topic: Veronica White
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)