Is New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell finally getting the message that local taxpayers don’t want to pay for extravagant travel expenses and the mayor’s apparent love of travel while the city is plagued by a public safety crisis? City residents want a mayor who will address their needs, not jetting across the globe.

Mayor Cantrell had plans to travel to Argentina this week for a climate conference in Buenos Aires, but now, at week’s end, it is reported that she will instead participate virtually in a panel discussion. The announcement is a bit surprising. Just Saturday, her spokesperson Gregory Joseph said Cantrell would travel to Argentina for the C40 World Mayors Summit conference to attend in person. This would have been her second overseas trip in two weeks and her fourth since June.

This is New Orleans we are talking about. It’s not a big city. The population is less than 400,000 people and it’s charm is that it isn’t a big city. It has an intimate feel, especially for such a tourist magnet. So, why would the mayor feel entitled to do so much overseas travel away from the city in its time of need for decisive leadership? This conference being about “climate.’ To make matters look even more hypocritical on her part, it is a “hybrid virtual and in-person event.”

The conference is billed as a hybrid virtual and in-person event focused on sustainable development, climate resiliency and other topics. In panels scheduled for Thursday and Friday, the mayor is set to discuss green infrastructure and solar projects in New Orleans.

Cantrell previously attended the C40 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2019.

Democrats love to lecture everyone about the evils of fossil fuels and traveling by plane yet they are the first to jump on a plane and fly to some conference to gather. Cantrell flew to Amsterdam earlier this month for another conference.

Cantrell travels a lot. She found herself in hot water with the New Orleans City Council for flying first class when it is city policy to fly in the cheapest seats possible. Her staff and security team flew coach while she flew first class. She has to reimburse the city for the difference in ticket prices, about $30,000, after trips that include France and Switzerland last summer.

The mayor has drawn criticism for her frequent travel and for frequently flying business and first class at taxpayer expense. According to an analysis compiled by Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño, Cantrell has taken 10 trips this year in which she charged the city for first- or business-class seats in violation of a city policy that requires employees to reimburse for upgrades.

Cantrell agreed to reimburse the city after Montaño and City Attorney Donesia Turner recently affirmed that the policy applies to the mayor. Cantrell has not provided a time frame for doing so.

A recall petition has been filed against Mayor Cantrell due to a growing list of scandals. At the time this latest trip was announced, I wondered if she would fly coach or first class and add the ticket to her reimbursement list. But now that she isn’t traveling to Argentina, she will be doing what she should have agreed to do all along – participate virtually. Think of how she will shrink her carbon footprint!

Mayor Cantrell isn’t the only mayor facing criticism over traveling to Argentina for a climate summit. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, flew to the summit and is under fire for that decision.

Khan began his three-day visit to Argentina Wednesday to speak at the C40 summit with almost 100 other mayors after taking a 7,000-mile overnight flight from London to Buenos Aires, Evening Standard reported.

The move earned sharp pushback from critics on social media who accused Khan of hypocrisy for the 14,000-mile round trip flight’s carbon emissions.

Sadiq Khan and his lackeys have flown a 14,000 miles round trip to Buenos Aries to lecture us on climate change,” British politician Martin Daubney tweeted. “Which, by his own words, makes him ‘an accomplice to our destruction’ Why couldn’t Khan just do it by Zoom & set an example?”

“Sadiq Khan and his team have racked up enough air miles to circumnavigate the world 14 times,” the Twitter account for GLA Conservatives, a London conservative group, tweeted.

Sadiq Khan and his lackeys have flown a 14,000 miles round trip to Buenos Aries to lecture us on climate change

Which, by his own words, makes him “an accomplice to our destruction”

Why couldn’t Khan just do it by Zoom & set an example? 🤔🛩 https://t.co/m8fM1JJdGr

— Martin Daubney 🇬🇧 (@MartinDaubney) October 19, 2022

✈️ Sadiq Khan and his team have racked up enough air miles to circumnavigate the world 14 times.#HasHeHeardOfZoom? pic.twitter.com/TXYPuqfqq6

— GLA Conservatives (@GLAConservative) October 20, 2022

Khan claims that “some of the diplomacy and negotiations you have got to do face-to-face.” Khan is chair of the C40.

London City Hall told Evening Standard the flight and accommodation costs are being paid for by the climate summit and that Khan will be traveling with a “skeleton staff” until they return on Saturday.

“We simply cannot be accomplices to our own destruction,” Khan tweeted this week. “We cannot be destroyers of our world. No to more fossil fuel investment. No to more fossil fuel subsidies. No to more fossil fuel exploration.”

No more fossil fuels is for the little people, not the important chair of a climate conference. He’s not even paying his travel expenses. Socialist sure do live well off other people’s money.