Colorful candidate makes mayoral bid in New Orleans

There are umpteen candidates running for mayor of New Orleans this year, none of whom has a lock on name recognition in the city.
Incumbent Mayor Mitch Landrieu is completing his second term and is prohibited by law from seeking a third. Landrieu followed Ray Nagin who served two terms as mayor and is now serving a term in prison for crimes committed while in office. Nagin followed Marc Morial, who served two terms and went to the voters and asked them to remove the two-term prohibition. Voters declined giving him another opportunity. Unlike Nagin, Morial went to greener pastures.
So here we go again. Already one candidate is on the verge of either flaming out or increasing his name recognition. Frank Scurlock has been a perennial candidate in New Orleans politics without making much of a dent in the polls.
His campaign paraphernalia includes containers of Cajun spices with a pledge, “shake the crime out of New Orleans,” in addition to purple brooms and commode plungers that he passes out at campaign rallies. He pledges to “Uberize” the New Orleans Police Dept. — a promise to speed up police response times.
He appears at rallies in a purple top hat and suit decrying the city’s loss of spirit as a “fun” destination.
But it is unlikely that a stunt that he was accused of in West Hollywood, CA in February was committed with publicity in mind. An Uber driver accused him of dropping his pants and behaving inappropriately in her cab. She said that she heard suspicious sounds, stopped the vehicle and opened the back door, allegedly catching the miscreant with his pants down. He ran away. She called police. He was arrested after she identified him from a photo lineup that came from his hotel’s security camera.
Not surprisingly, Scurlock denies the allegations. The time lapse between the February incident and the charges having been recently filed was caused by California jurisdictional issues, officials there have told The New Orleans Advocate. He is charged with lewd conduct. It is a misdemeanor but it would require registration with Louisiana’s sex offender registry.
Unfortunately, now I know more than I wanted about Scurlock and only recognize the names of two of the umpteen other candidates.