Mayor Landrieu responds to Take Em Down NOLA demands on Confederate monuments

Mayor Mitch Landrieu is pushing back on claims made by a group supporting the removal of Confederate monuments that his administration engaged in "phony bid rigging" with opponents of the removal.

Take Em Down NOLA released a statement after Tuesday's (April 4) bid opening criticizing the mayor's office. The group also wants to remove the Andrew Jackson statue from Jackson Square because of his ties to slavery and American Indian relocation.

"White supremacists have forced potential vendors to boycott this round of efforts to remove these monuments to white supremacy," Take Em Down NOLA said in a statement. "That the city received only one bid for an outrageous price speaks to that collusion."

The group is also calling on the mayor to hire a structural engineer to advise city workers on how to remove the monuments without having to hire a firm through a request for proposals. Only one company, Couzan Services LLC, submitted a bid for the work in response to the city's request for proposals. It wants to be paid $600,000; the city only budgeted $170,000.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/04/confederate_monuments_demands.html