Defeated New Orleans City Council Members Jared Brossett, Cyndi Nguyen, and Kristen Palmer requested the City Planning Commission skip standard procedures to allow them to rename Robert E Lee Blvd in Council Member Joseph Giarrusso’s district before their term expires in January, proving that even rejection by the voters won’t stop the ideological assault on history to which the woke Left is committed.

Giarrusso was silent during the December 1^st City Council Meeting when the Council voted to suspend the rules and did not say anything during the Dec 14^th Planning Commission Meetings. He did not inform his constituents who have businesses or live on Robert E Lee Blvd. nor did he reach out to the five neighborhood associations in Lakeview to give them notice of the Planning Commission meeting either. Comments were absent from those impacted by the Planning Commission’s decision but were numerous from people outside Lakeview, the area impacted.

Related: Brossett, Palmer Run End-Around On Giarrusso In Street Renaming Scheme (thehayride.com)

The four-hour meeting had numerous other items before ending with the Street Renaming issue. At 3 hours and 6 minutes the committee discussed Suspension of Rules. At 3 hours and 17 minutes the rules are suspended. At 3 hours and 22 minutes the committee decided to not read all the public comments and only read the first minute of any public comment.  The video can be watched on Youtube.

Staff recommended only using the name Toussaint and to change the name of West Robert E Lee at a later time. The Italian Community wanted the Planning Commission to consider Honorary Street Names or to rename the street after Mayor Victor Schiro who lived on Robert E Lee in Lakeview. The Commission declined to hear that option.

At the end of the meeting Commissioners Catherine Witry, Robert Steeg, Kathleen Lunn, Kyle Wedberg, Jonathan Stewart, Dianne Alexander, Kelly Brown, and Missy Quigley voted to suspend the rules, not have a staff report, not contact those who live or have a business on the street, and to support renaming Robert E Lee Blvd.

The Commission also voted to extend St. Claude Avenue. There is no Saint Claude in the Catholic Church, rather Claude Treme who married a free woman of color who owned slaves. The Treme Plantation dates back to 1810. Claude not only married a freed slave who owned slaves, but also killed an enslaved man that he believed was going to rob him. The city has no plans to rename either St. Calude Ave or the Treme for their association with slavery.

Immediately after the War of the Rebellion ended, Robert E Lee advocated for ending the division in the country. In the 1830s, he was the engineer in charge of the Mississippi River Valley developing commerce between St. Louis and New Orleans. He was the first Union officer to land in Louisiana after Texas and Louisiana voted to secede.