A Baton Rouge company that was hired by the City of New Orleans to remove several Confederate monuments is backing out of the job, after its employees received death threats and other area businesses threatened to cancel existing contracts with the firm.
In a letter to the City of New Orleans dated Tuesday, Baton Rouge attorney Roy Maughan Jr. says his client, H&O Investments, is “unable to perform the tasks originally assigned in association with the removal of the monuments for the City of New Orleans.”
The letter says the offices of H&O, which is owned by David Mahler, has received numerous telephone complaints, including death threats directed to Mahler and his staff. Mahler’s wife has also received threatening calls at the couple’s residence, the letter adds.
“These telephone calls, unkindly name-calling and public outrage expressed in various social media, as well as other area businesses threatening to cancel existing contracts with H&O, have precipitated H&O’s cessation of work,” Maughan says in his letter.
It is unclear what the scope of H&O’s contract entails. New Orleans city officials have refused to disclose details.
H&O’s decision to pull out of the job comes as a group of preservation organizations opposing the monuments’ removal goes to federal court to try to stop the city from taking them down. A hearing is set for 10 a.m. in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.
The monuments—which include statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a monument honoring the Battle of Liberty Place—cannot be removed until a federal judge decides the lawsuit. Until then, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration has begun preliminary measures for their removal, including contracting with H&O.
The New Orleans City Council voted in mid-December to remove the monuments after months of controversy and public debate.
See the letter from Maughan to the City of New Orleans.
—Stephanie Riegel
