Issue had been contentious at Utility Committee meeting 2 weeks earlier
As is often the case, what had been a heated dispute among New Orleans City Council members was resolved with hardly any discussion at the council's meeting last week. Members of the Utility Committee got into a sharply worded dispute two weeks ago as they discussed plans to issue a "request for qualifications, " or RFQ, for legal and technical consultants to assist the council in regulating the city's electric and gas utilities, primarily Entergy New Orleans.
The council last issued such an RFQ two years ago, eliciting responses almost solely from the same team of advisers who have been working with the council for many years, and who collectively are paid several million dollars a year.
Such solicitations normally are reissued every five years, but because of a dispute among committee members, the 2009 request covered only two years.
Authorizing the latest RFQ was expected to be a routine matter when the Utility Committee met Aug. 22, but instead Chairwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell got into a sharp dispute with members Susan Guidry and Stacy Head about whether the committee should meet on a more regular basis, whether members get adequate advance notice when it does meet and whether the members had been given enough time to review the proposed RFQ and suggest revisions.
In the end, Guidry and Head refused to vote to endorse the document before sending it to the full council.
By the time the issue came up at the council's meeting last week, however, the dispute had been worked out, at least as it involved the language of the RFQ.
Council Chief of Staff Evelyn Pugh explained that several changes suggested by Guidry, Head and Kristin Gisleson Palmer had been incorporated into the document. Although Pugh said she thought some of the additions were not necessary, she said they were "not objectionable." Some of them reflected changes sought by the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a citizen watchdog group.
The revised RFQ was then approved unanimously and without debate.
Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.