Could the city of New Orleans be purposefully throwing taxpayer dollars at four Confederate-related monuments in the city, only to claim later on that this is exactly why they should be removed?

It sure seems that way.

Months ago, when the PGT Beauregard monument in New Orleans City Park was vandalized by radical #BlackLivesMatter protesters with spray paint, it was obvious who would come out to remove the spray paint.

The Monumental Task Committee Inc. (MTC) in New Orleans is a 25 year-old non-profit dedicated to the upkeep of all historical monuments in the city and they do it for absolutely no charge to the city.

Whenever vandalism, or anything else happens, to any historical monuments in the city, they are the ones that come out and clean the monuments. And the city knows this. In fact, the city has known that MTC does this for decades now.

So when MTC volunteers went out to pressure wash the “Black Lives Matter” vandalism off the PGT Beauregard monument, they were surprised to find out that the city had suddenly forgotten that they do this work for free. 

According to sources close to the Hayride, a man who is known in the city as the “Grey Ghost” came out to actually paint over the spray paint. First off, this is not the correct way to remove vandalism to begin with.

On top of that, the city allegedly paid the man $900 to do the clean-up work.

But, why? Why would the city pay this man to wrongly clean up the vandalism when they know that the MTC takes care of these issues for free?

It could possibly be because while Mayor Mitch Landrieu has asked to remove PGT Beauregard, Lee Circle, the Jefferson Davis monument and Liberty monument, he invoked the city’s ‘Nuisance Code.’

If the city could potentially show a paper-trail, where it seemed as though New Orleans taxpayers were paying tons a year to keep up these monuments, they could further be deemed a ‘nuisance’ under the ‘Nuisance Code.’

Sources close to the Hayride say that the city’s Department of Property Management is the agency that would have sent the “Grey Ghost” out to clean up the vandalism.

Meanwhile, the MTC said they have never been paid by the city or ever charged the city for doing any of the maintenance on historical monuments.