Stacy Head

Stacy Aline Singleton Head (born June 30, 1969) is an American lawyer and former president of the New Orleans City Council.

Stacy Head was born in 1969 as the daughter of the former Katherine Hamberlin and Ernest Lynn Singleton.

She grew up in Greensburg, Saint Helena Parish, in southeastern Louisiana.

She has a (younger) brother, Michael Lynn Singleton.

Head is by profession an attorney-at-law; she clerked for Phelps Dunbar LLC from 1991 to 1995 when she finished her juris doctor degree at Louisiana State University's Paul M. Hebert Law Center and began working for Stanley, Flanagan & Reuter LLC.

Her association with politics had begun when, as an undergraduate, she worked for the Louisiana Legislature although at the time she anticipated no notion of ever seeking elective office.

That interest began in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when the New Orleans City Council "unanimously asked Gov. Kathleen Blanco to extend daylight-saving time just for Orleans Parish"—an idea which Head found not only "impractical" but also "tinged with mad futility"; she compared it to King Canute's attempt to hold back the sea.

Stacy Head was elected to the New Orleans City Council in 2006, defeating incumbent Renée Gill Pratt.

Councilmember Head's candidacy benefited from concerns about governmental effectiveness and efficiency in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, developers who had obviated the desires of neighborhood residents, and affinities between incumbent Gill Pratt and then-Congressman William J. Jefferson (D), already under investigation on a variety of felony charges.

Bruce Nolan of the Times-Picayune has described as "intense, caffeinated personal" Head's approach to her work on the Council.

New Orleans writer Nordette Adams (nomme de plume Vérité Parlant) has described Head as a "drama queen" (together with less-flattering designations).

In June 2007 she completed Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government course for Senior Executives in State and Local Government.

In 2008, Councilmember Head began delving into the relationship between fees collected and services rendered by the Sanitation Department, which, along with its director Veronica White, was alleged by WWL-TV New Orleans Channel 4 (CBS) to be on too-friendly terms with the office of mayor Ray Nagin.

The Council generally supported Head's inquiries.

White retaliated by giving thousands of e-mail messages, from the computer accounts of the four white members of the Council, to activist lawyer Tracie Washington, under the proviso of freedom of information but without proper redaction by city attorney Penya Moses-Fields, to remove statements protected by law.

Washington, sympathetic to White, had set about to post the messages on the internet when a federal court, at the request of sources supportive of the Council, enjoined Washington from doing so and subpoenaed (and acquired) White's computers to thwart the possibility that messages on them from the Council might become published.

That e-mail controversy followed on the heels of an earlier e-mail controversy, after WWL-TV New Orleans Channel 4 (CBS) sued the mayor's office in an attempt to gain 6 months of e-mails as a public record.

In the context of the convoluted e-mail controversies Times-Picayune columnist Jarvis DeBerry proposed (perhaps tongue in cheek) that Council members communicate exclusively by means other Than E-mail.

DeBerry's column was met with a letter-to-the-editor rejoinder by Steven J. Lane (a legal counsel in the city attorney's office), who—after analyzing the potential insecurities of communication via snail-mail, fax, telephone, and face-to-face conversation—described DeBerry's recommendation as folly.

DeBerry observed that Lane's assertions his office needed more time to vet the e-mails was met by Civil District Judge Madeleine Landrieu's retort that "We're not going to take thousands of hours"; then DeBerry commented:

Councilmember Head faced a recall petition in late 2008 continuing into 2009, ostensibly for not representing the African American community and then for her support of Republican candidate Anh "Joseph" Cao, in his successful 2008 challenge to incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative William J. Jefferson, considered Gill Pratt's ally or even mentor.

The recall petition officially began on 2008 November 3, when recall leader Malcolm Suber formed, for the purpose, an organization calling itself Citizens for Accountability and Transparency in Government (CATG).

On 2009 May 27 the Times-Picayune reported that the number of e-mails involved in the suit by WWL-TV was 135,144 and that vetting of them could take up to 15 months, despite a cautionary statement that "We're not going to take thousands of hours" by District Judge Madeleine Landrieu.

On 2009 May 29 the Times-Picayune editorialized against a request by Lane that Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell issue a legal opinion on the amount of time available to redact the e-mails and the nature of information which can be withheld.

The editorial insisted that

On 2009 May 13, prior to a stay ordered by the state supreme court, Washington briefly posted on the internet certain of Head's e-mail messages.

The messages, wrote Bruce Eggler in the Times-Picayune, appeared to have been chosen to cause her [Councilmember Head] maximum personal and political embarrassment.

Observing that in the e-mails Head had labeled Clarkson an "ASSS" (sic), James Gill took the occasion to criticize Head's spelling:

When Head began publishing the e-mail messages herself on 2009 May 18, she was promptly interviewed by WDSU-TV.

In the interview Head said that "The person who hates me deep down more than anything has had my e-mails" in referring to Tracie Washington.

As Head's e-mail messages became public, by 2009 June 25 it was apparent that "hostility" (the word used by the Times-Picayune) between Head and Washington involved assessments of Washington's house, messages by Head to her lawyer confidante Nyka Scott alleging that Washington's home had been under-valued by the assessor to lower Washington's taxes.

Head's e-mail also revealed thoughts and potential plans for a retaliatory demonstration in front of Washington's house after a demonstration by Washington's supporters in front of Head's house.

Head had incorrectly indicated Washington's house as being in the assessment territory of assessor Nancy Marshall, but the property is actually in the territory of assessor Henry Heaton.

Both Marshall and Heaton said that Head had never communicated with either of them about the valuation of Washington's property—a request that they said would have been unethical in that the City Council reviews appeals of assessments retroactively but does not interfere with assessments of individuals proactively.

City Council president Arnie Fielkow clarified:

Head denied that alleging an underassessed value for Washington's property had anything to do with their nemesis relationship:

On 2009 December 7 an echo of the e-mail controversies reverberated when New Orleans police chief Warren J. Riley claimed that Head had written a derogatory e-mail about him.

He had apparently trashed the e-mail and was unable to retrieve it when questioned at a press conference.

Two days (on 2009 December 8) after Cao's victory, WDSU-TV carried a statement by Mayor Nagin that Head had made "race-baiting" comments.

The vitriolic quality of the environment had already been evident in allegations on a left-wing web site dubbing Head a "notorious racist and poor people hater" as well as a "partner in evil" with fellow Council member James Carter, an African American.