Entergy says third–party contractor paid actors to attend, speak at council meetings
14th May 2018 · 0 Comments
City Council said it would probe allegations
After voting in March to approve the construction of a new, gas-powered plant for Entergy in eastern New Orleans, the City Council said Tuesday it will investigate allegations that the utility company paid actors to show up at Council Chambers and voice their support for the $210 million project.
City Council President Jason Williams, one of six council members who voted in favor of the [new plant which will be constructed on the site of a plant Entergy closed several years ago, told Nola.com/The Times Picayune that the allegations made against the corporation have cast a shadow over the project and “compromised” the two-year approval process.
“The harmful effect of this nefarious practice is unfortunate, unappreciated and repulsive to (the) true democratic deliberative process,” said Williams, who heads the City Council committee that oversees the regulation of Entergy New Orleans.
Council Vice President Helena Morena, a former state legislator who was sworn in as a council member on May 7, said the council “would be seeking some answers in a very short period of time.”
Asked whether the accusations made against Entergy could potentially lead to a new vote on the proposed power plant, Moreno told Nola.com, “I think it’s safe to say that different actions are being explored. I will just leave it at that.”
Rumors had been circulating since early spring about Entergy paying people to voice support for the proposed power plant, but a recent article by The Lens included interviews with three people who say they were hired by a group called Crowds on Demand to attend council meetings and speak out in favor of the power plant in mostly Black eastern New Orleans.
The interviewees told The Lens that they were paid $60 every time they showed up at council meetings about the power plant and $200 if they spoke at the meetings in support of the plant.
The Lens reported that the participants were asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement that prevented them from talking about the arrangement.
Nola.com/The Times-Picayune reported that Entergy New Orleans said May 6 that it had not paid or authorized anyone else to pay people to attend or speak at council meetings about the proposed power plant and that it was conducting its own investigation into who did.
“We will take swift and appropriate action if warranted,” Entergy said in a statement.
While Entergy New Orleans denied hiring actors to support its efforts to build the power plant, it did indicate that it had hired a consultant, longtime public relations specialist and political strategist Bill Roussell, to make its case when Entergy was petitioning the City Council to approve the plant last year.
“We did reach out to community people and ask them to come out in support,” Roussell told Nola.com/The Times-Picayune, adding that he has performed those kinds of services for Entergy and other companies for years. “But we certainly didn’t go out and have actors paid. That’s not how we operate. Never have.”
Monique Harden of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, one of several groups that sued the New Orleans City Council this year in an attempt to block the proposed power plant, has argued that the crowd of paid actors who filled council meeting rooms prevented residents who wanted to speak out on the issue from doing so.
Harden said her group welcomes the City Council probe of the allegations made against Entergy.
Entergy officials said last Thursday that the company did not pay anyone to attend or speak out at City Council but said it found out recently that a third-party contractor and unauthorized subcontractor did.
Entergy said its investigation examined whether anyone at Entergy made such payments, authorized such payments, or had prior knowledge those payments would be made.
The company said late last week that no one at Entergy knew about the payments.
More than 30 public meetings and council meetings were held about the proposed power plant.
Entergy New Orleans contracted with The Hawthorn Group, a national public affairs firm, to assist with organizing local grassroots support for NOPS at two public meetings relating to NOPS on October 16 and February 21.
Entergy alleges that Hawthorn retained a subcontractor, Crowds on Demand.
Entergy said the subcontractor did pay individuals that it recruited to appear, and sometimes speak, at those two meetings.
Hawthorn has admitted that its use of Crowds on Demand was done without Entergy’s knowledge or approval and in violation of its contract with Entergy, according to the power company.
FOX 8 News reported Thursday that Crowds on Demand and The Hawthorn Group have acknowledged their roles in this matter.
Entergy has severed its relationship with the firms.
Entergy began its investigation after a lawsuit was filed on April 19 that included credible and specific allegations that people had been paid to attend or speak at public meetings.
This article originally published in the May 14, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
