Mayor LaToya Cantrell's new strategy: As problems mount, just keep quiet

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Mayor LaToya Cantrell is under federal investigation. Her transit agency faces a brewing scandal. A key plank of her homeless strategy has fallen apart, federal watchdogs say her green infrastructure projects are in shambles and a powerful Republican governor is targeting her political power at every turn.

In her first six years in office, the mayor was an outspoken advocate for her administration and her policies, never seeming to shy from a political fight. But Cantrell has had a much different response to the major issues plaguing her and her city in recent months: an uncharacteristic silence.

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Her weekly public briefings, a hallmark of her second term, ended without explanation in December.

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And when it comes to New Orleans’ daily crises, she and her City Hall spokespeople often simply avoid unpleasant subjects, keeping silent on how the city is responding to serious issues, such as the mass resignations on the Regional Transit Authority board, for example.

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She has not addressed the grim conditions at the city's low-barrier homeless shelter, a cornerstone of her plan to deal with homelessness.

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Instead, the task of speaking for the administration falls to deputies, or — more often than not — nobody.

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