Pedicab campaign has New Orleans City Council office phones ringing

At issue: distributing permits based on merit, or a lottery

The exact reason for a sudden barrage of phone calls to City Council offices last week apparently was a mystery to some of the callers as well as the recipients.

View full sizeTimes-Picayune archiveOutside City Hall, Monotor Marcel Pete looks to park his pedicab next to one brought by Sal Palmisano prior to a city council committee meeting in July.

The subject of the calls was a decision by the Mitch Landrieu administration to use a lottery rather than a merit-based system in deciding who will get the first batch of city permits to operate for-hire pedicabs in the French Quarter and elsewhere in the city.

Many of the would-be operators who first proposed the idea of legalizing pedicabs last year strongly oppose the lottery, saying it would mean the time and money they have put into organizing their fledgling businesses could be for naught.

Fearful that a council committee last week was going to endorse the lottery idea, someone began orchestrating opposition calls, apparently by "robocalling" local voters with a recorded message and the chance to be automatically connected to a council member's office if the voter also supported a merit-based selection system.

The office of Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, chairwoman of the committee, said it got about 30 to 40 calls, although some of the callers seemed a bit confused about just what they were advocating.

A council staffer said Sal Palmisano, one of the would-be pedicab operators, had organized the calls, using a local Republican Party voter list, but Palmisano denied it. He said another person, whom he refused to name, told him he wanted to organize the phone campaign, and that Palmisano's only involvement was telling the other person he had no objection to the scheme.

In the end, Palmer decided to push for a merit system herself, though the phone campaign appears to have had little if anything to do with her decision. The council is expected to discuss the issue Thursday, but as of Friday Palmer's staff was still working on the language of the motion she will propose.

Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3312. Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.