Mayor LaToya Cantrell wants the City Council to approve a contract with the firm of former Entergy New Orleans (ENO) CEO Charles Rice, who in 2018 stepped down after it was discovered the company had used paid actors to appear at city council hearings in support of a proposed new power plant.
According to a draft of the contract, the administration wants to hire the Rice Group LLC to help in ongoing litigation between the city and the Municipal Police Employees Retirement System, which handles the NOPD’s pension.
Specifically, the Rice Group would provide “legal services under the direction of the City Attorney, verbal or written legal opinions, participat[e] in meetings, consultations and conference calls; negotiating, drafting, reviewing and filing legal documents, and other related legal services as requested,” according to the city’s summary of the proposed contract. The full proposed contract can be found at the end of this story.
The draft contract would be for $75,000, though that could increase significantly if the litigation becomes drawn out and new contracts are needed.
The Rice Group appears to be a sort of one-stop-shop consulting and contracting firm for corporations and other large entities. The firm’s website generally describes the company as “provid[ing] strategic consulting, project management, staffing, financial management, and technology services to commercial and government organizations.”
The firm’s site also lists “legal and professional support” as one of its services, along with procurement of personnel protective equipment like masks and providing cleaning services, HVAC personnel and landscaping services. Although the site does not mention litigation specifically, Rice is a lawyer.
However, he also was at the heart of one of the more surreal scandals in recent city history as ENO CEO and architect of the company’s push to build a new power plant in New Orleans back in 2017. Specifically, an investigation found evidence showing Rice explicitly approved using an outside firm to hire actors and other people to attend city council hearings in support of the plant, a practice commonly known as astroturfing.
Rice ultimately stepped down in 2018, and the company was fined $5 million by the council. The incident has continued to effect New Orleans: Current Council President Helena Moreno was one of the most vocal critics of ENO and Rice at the time, and relations between the company and council have been, at best, strained since.
It appears unlikely that the contract will be approved, at least at this point. Sources familiar with the situation told Gambit both City Council Vice President JP Morrell and Moreno have made clear they don’t agree with hiring the former ENO executive’s firm, and the motion to approve it was immediately deferred, a maneuver which is typically used to quietly shelve bills.
