Patronage of the arts: Nagin and the Municipal Auditorium
by James Gill - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Amateurs. Rank amateurs. Old-style politicians must despair over the crowd in charge of City Hall. After almost eight years in office, the Ray Nagin administration still hasn't learned the basics of the government racket. You call this putting the fix in, Mr. Mayor? The merest novice could do better. Nagin plans to hand a couple of his cronies a contract to take over the Municipal Auditorium before he leaves office a few months hence. It's only natural that a mayor should want to depart with a little flourish in the patronage department, but tradition demands a modicum of subtlety. Surely this storied burg deserves a mayor capable of putting on a decent sham. Nagin insults the citizenry by making no attempt to create an illusion of competition by encouraging, or suckering in, a few other bidders. Lord knows it isn't all that difficult. Write the specs narrowly to give the chosen the inside track, but do it artfully enough to ensure that nobody can prove the fix was in. Nagin couldn't be bothered. Real estate developer Stewart Juneau and band leader Irvin Mayfield had been in cahoots with him -- or "sharing his vision for the future of the auditorium," if you prefer -- for as long as a year before the city issued a request for bids. Nobody would have been foolhardy enough to take them on, even if there had been time to whip up a proposal.