After having survived the fallout from his alleged drunk driving incident at the Causeway, after everyone else involved was either fired or resigned, it seems like Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price, Jr. is self-destructing even further. Apparently he is intent on being run out of town on a rail or else being involuntarily escorted to a state or federal penitentiary. Although he claims he never has betrayed the exalted office he holds, it would seem that he is stretching the realms of believability with the latest report released by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor. The report found instances where Hizzoner had accepted free golfing trips to exotic greens like Pebble Beach and free hunting trips paid for by a number of different people who have done business with the city. Price managed to use his city supplied gasoline and other credit cards to pay for all sorts of personal items for which he never reimbursed the city. Hmmm...perhaps he is taking his lead from Mayor Ray Nagin, who appeared before the New Orleans City Council to deflect pressure from the news media and the Council as to what has been going on with the embattled New Orelans Affordable Housing agency (NOAH). NOAH has been soundly criticized for claiming to have rehabbed houses in different New Orleans neighborhoods, but when the work was checked, either no work seemed to have been done or in some cases the house no longer existed. Nagin admitted there were "irregularities" in their record keeping, which disturbed him, but he claimed the news media, WWL-TV and the Times-Picayune in particular, were blowing it way out of proportion. I guess if we were to believe Mayor Nagin, we would also have to take Mayor Price as a man of his word. After all, these are elected officials and they would never allow their office to be bought and sold by vested interests. This is post-Katrina Louisiana and that just doesn't happen anymore, right?
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