NOLA Monuments: Crane company says city never hired it to move them

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An area crane operator previously reported to have been hired to move three Confederate monuments in New Orleans now says it has no involvement in the project and "is not providing equipment or manpower" for their removal.

Lawyers for Mayor Mitch Landrieu had previously touted the involvement of ALL Crane, a national firm with a Louisiana branch, and a federal judge had cited the company's expertise as one of the reasons he felt comfortable allowing the removals to continue, denying a bid from preservationists to have him order the statues left in place for their own protection.

With ALL Crane out, it's not clear who would be available to take the company's place, as several other companies with the expertise and equipment have already declined to be involved in the controversial project, according to a consultant supervising the removal.

A lawyer for the preservationists called ALL Crane's assertion that it isn't involved "significant" as it implies that U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier may have made his decision in part based on faulty information.

The list of operators capable of doing the job is fairly short, said Warren Schambeau, the construction consultant the city engaged to supervise the removals. When Schambeau began calling around last month to see who was interested, the list got even shorter, he said.

A lot of "humbug" was already surrounding the Confederate monument issue, and many seemed to have been spooked by such a politically volatile job, Schambeau said. "They didn't want to have anything to do with it."

Of the several companies Schambeau said that he contacted about the job, only ALL Crane agreed to meet him and discuss the logistics required to remove statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard. The talks got into some detail, Schambeau said, and they visited the sites of the statues.

ALL Crane's statement, though, was clearly aimed at distancing the company from the city's removal effort. The statement said that it has "not been retained" and it is "not involved in the project to remove monuments."

The extent of ALL Crane's earlier commitment to the job isn't clear. A spokeswoman for the company declined to discuss its prior dealings with the city or the city's former general contractor on the project, H&O Investments, whose owner eventually pulled out of the job citing death threats.

The city, which did not return a request for comment on ALL Crane or the status of the removal project, has yet to announce a new general contractor or specify who would take over ALL Crane's role as the team in charge of removing the statues from their pedestals.

ALL Crane issued its statement renouncing any involvement after Barbier mentioned the company in his ruling against the preservationists and media outlets, including NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, reported on his decision.
In an effort to discredit the preservationists' claim that moving the statues was likely to harm them, the city had submitted an affidavit by Schambeau, an experienced construction consultant, which said the statues could be safely removed.

In his statement, Schambeau said that a novice crane operator could damage the statues, but H&O Investments, which had yet to pull out of the job, had "retained" ALL Crane, "one of the leading crane and rigging companies in the United States."

In an interview, though, Schambeau said that ALL Crane had not been formally engaged by way of a contract, at least not one that he has seen. The company was positioned to be a subcontractor, he said, and the assumption was that contracts would be drawn up after the litigation was finished, but that has yet to happen.

Schambeau also described himself in the affidavit as having been hired by H&O Investments to oversee the job. In an interview, though, he said that he doesn't know for sure whether it was an H&O representative who first reached out to him. In any case, all of his dealings on the project were with the city. He said that he didn't have a formal contract either and hadn't been paid. The understanding was that he would be hired on as the supervisor after the litigation had been resolved, he said.

Schambeau said he recommended the city simply produce specifications for the monument removal and bid the project out through the normal process. Doing so, he said, would avoid such confusion.

Franklin Hardy Jones III, lead attorney for the preservation groups, said Schambeau's comments in the interview contradict the city's assertions in court, which made it appear that a team of skilled professionals was in place to handle the job. He said that is significant because, in seeking a the injunction against the city, he had argued that the likelihood of damage to the statues brought on by moving them outweighed any harm the city would suffer by keeping them in place.

If there's no expert crane operator committed to the project, that changes the balance of the scales, Jones said.

Jones said it's unlikely that ALL Crane's lack of involvement would be enough to reverse Barbier's decision, which cited a number of other legal reasons why he wouldn't grant an injunction, but it could influence proceedings in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, where one of the original plaintiffs, Pierre McGraw, continues to fight the city.

Civil District Judge Piper Griffin denied McGraw's initial request for a temporary restraining order against the city but has yet to rule on a companion request for a preliminary injunction.

Both sides are set to present oral argument in the matter Friday (Feb. 5). When they do, it's likely that Jones will press the city on whether it has qualified contractors available to carry out the controversial job.

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