N.O. Politics: Norma Rae act wears thin in sanitation meeting
by Frank Donze - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Defiantly holding her crudely drawn placard aloft, City Councilwoman Stacy Head this week conjured memories of Norma Rae, the lead character in the 1979 film that won Sally Field an Oscar for her portrayal of a minimum-wage, Southern millworker who brings a union to her factory against long odds.

Instead of workers' rights, Head's cause was fiscal responsibility. And in place of the simple "UNION" sign that Norma Rae brandished, Head arrived at Tuesday's Sanitation Committee meeting with a hard-to-decipher poster comparing the price tags for municipal garbage collection in Jefferson and Orleans parishes.

Unlike the cheers that greeted the spunky textile worker in her moment of triumph, however, there was no glorious ending for Head, who mostly got blank stares and a stern rebuke from a council colleague.

"Now, what is this?" a perplexed Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis asked as Head rose from her chair and raised a poster scrawled with figures to spell out her argument: Mayor Ray Nagin's administration spends more than twice as much annually as our neighboring parish on sanitation service.

"It's just a prop, to show the ludicrousy of our system," Head said brusquely.

When Willard-Lewis asked her to take a seat, Head replied curtly, "No."

Willard-Lewis, who chairs the committee, persisted: "Why don't you sit down Miss Head! Miss Head, you're out of order. Sit down with your prop!"

Undeterred, Head hoisted her poster higher.