Fielkow Awaiting Call Back from Jordan

Section: Business

New Orleans city council president Arnie Fielkow told 99.5FM on Friday morning that he's awaiting a return phone call from Orleans Parish District Attorney, Eddie Jordan.

"I tried to call Eddie two days ago and I'm waiting for the return phone call," Fielkow says.

"Nobody wants to pile on," Fielkow says, adding "I know others are talking to him, we cannot force him to resign so I am focusing on what we can control now."

Fielkow says the "ovewhelming feeling of the city council is that city money shouldn't be used" to pay the $3.7 million owed to dozens of workers who accused Jordan of discrimination after he fired them.

Fielkow, who has sought an opinion by the city attorney on what responsibility, if any, the city faces in paying the judgment, said the position being taken by the council shouldn't be seen as an affront to the workers who won the federal court judgment. "We are empathetic to the plantiffs," he says.

He also said he does not want the criminal justice system, which he says is key to the city's recovery from Hurricane Katrina, to be hurt. Fielkow says "we are as upset as anybody over this turn of events. It's not good for the city."