Mayor Issued Ticket 2 Weeks After Crash
by Cindy Chang - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

After apparently consuming at least two alcoholic beverages, Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price rammed his city-owned luxury sport utility vehicle into a toll booth barrier just before midnight on April 22, then proceeded to drive more than three miles south on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway before police officers stopped him.

Price admitted to the Causeway Police that he had had "a couple of drinks," according to a police report. By the time he reached the first crossover, where two officers were waiting for him, he was driving with his headlights off, the report said.

But the officers did not conduct a sobriety test or issue a citation, even though they were concerned enough about Price's condition that they would not let him drive, asking him to call a relative for a ride home.

Causeway Police Chief Felix Loicano began an internal investigation of the incident just last weekend, and Price was ticketed Tuesday, two weeks after the incident, for careless operation of a motor vehicle. He also will be required to pay for replacing the toll booth gate he destroyed.