1012 Corridor

Embattled Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price, now under state and federal criminal investigation, admits he made some mistakes, like talking his way out of a possible DWI arrest and accepting expensive gifts from the Police Department's Christmas toy fund.

But he blames the media for most of his problems.

Price made the comments in an exclusive interview with 10/12, which the mayor described as the first he's given on the growing scandals that threaten to topple his administration.

In a well-publicized incident in April, Price crashed his city-owned SUV into a tollbooth on the Causeway. When Causeway police arrived to investigate, the officers didn't ask Price - who admitted he'd been drinking - to take any sobriety tests. They just let him go.

"Eighteen times I was on the front page, because I didn't get a breathalyzer test and I didn't get a DWI," Price says, adding he now wishes he had gotten the DWI. "I'd have been on the front page one day, and it would have been forgotten."

In July, The Times-Picayune reported another drinking and driving incident involving the mayor, this one in 2006. In that incident, Mandeville police officers suspected Price was driving drunk but didn't arrest him, opting instead to give the mayor a ride to City Hall. A couple of hours later, he was spotted behind the wheel again - this time at a gas station. The attendant who called the police said the mayor looked too drunk to drive. When police arrived, though, Price had left.

Price blames unrelenting press coverage for making much ado about, essentially, nothing.

"I've been in the paper 61 times - 61 times," Price says, repeating the number for emphasis. "I am a target for the press. The Times-Picayune wants to nail me, and they are doing a pretty good job."

Price says he recently completed a 12-week outpatient alcohol abuse program. He says he hasn't had a drink in five months, but denies he had a serious drinking problem. "I'm not an alcoholic," Price says. "I've just been a very poor social drinker."

In August, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor slammed Price and his administration in an audit report that became the impetus for the ongoing criminal investigations. The report detailed a litany of potentially unethical and illegal activities involving the mayor and top city officials. It also accuses Price of accepting thousands of dollars worth of gifts from a city-operated children's toy fund and thousands more dollars worth of free trips from businessmen with close ties to the city.

Price refused to discuss the free trips the legislative auditor says he took with Rick Meyer, owner of the city's contract engineering firm and the recipient of approximately $7 million in fees from the city over the last 10 years. However, the mayor did say that the four or five all-expense-paid trips he took to Pebble Beach, Calif. to play golf with St. Tammany Parish real estate developer Don McMath were perfectly legal.

Says Price: "There is no violation for Don McMath to take me on a trip – none."

According to Price's interpretation of state ethics laws, it would be illegal for McMath to pay for a trip for a city employee such as a building inspector because that inspector is in a position to regulate McMath's work as a building contractor.

"A building inspector is a public employee," Price says. "I'm a public servant. They are two different things. I'm an elected official."

The legislative auditor's report also revealed that the mayor received expensive gifts from the Police Department's Christmas toy fund, which took in more than $200,000 in donations between 2002 and 2007. Price says he didn't know the gifts, which included a crossbow, a leaf blower, a gun cabinet, and at least $1,300 in Wal-Mart gift cards, came from what city officials referred to as the Toys-for-Tots program. When he signed the checks used to buy the gifts, Price says, he was not aware what the money was going to be used for.

"Nobody stole a nickel," Price says. "The Toys-for-Tots program is a great program. We service over 600 kids a year. We give away hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gifts to these children."

According to the audit report, from 2002 until 2007 the city spent only $16,500, less than 8 percent of the fund's donations, on Christmas toys. Meanwhile during that same period, city officials spent more than $70,000 on "celebrations, holiday parties, and crawfish boils for city employees," including nearly $4,000 for booze.

Price has since reimbursed the fund $2,300 for his Christmas gifts, although the auditor's report says that amount does not represent the full value of the gifts.

Price says the press has literally made a federal case out of a few mistakes, something that has been hardest on his family. "Mostly my family is aggrieved by it - my daughters, my son," says Price, who has five grown children. "They want me to come out swinging."

"For 27 years, I've had nothing but solid press," Price says, "and for six and a half, seven months, I've had nothing but poor press."

Still, he says, the bad press hasn't done much to erode the public's confidence in the four-term mayor. Says Price: "The vast majority of my constituency supports me."

Meanwhile, both the state attorney general's and the FBI's criminal investigations continue.