ABOUT

Mayor Cantrell’s life has been steeped in community service. As a little girl, her grandmother would bring her to neighborhood meetings, and by the age of 13, she was serving as secretary for her local chamber of commerce.

“My soul found its home in New Orleans,” is how Mayor Cantrell describes her arrival in 1990 as a student at Xavier University. After graduation, she and her husband, Jason, bought a home in the Broadmoor neighborhood. There, Cantrell became an active member of her new community and eventually became President of the Broadmoor Improvement Association. In that role she spearheaded Broadmoor's recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, making sure the neighborhood was not left behind.

Since entering public service with her election to the City Council in 2012, Cantrell has prioritized improving people’s lives. As a City Councilmember she secured passage of a citywide ordinance to ban indoor smoking in bars and restaurants in New Orleans. On the council she also focused on housing issues, working to establish a low-barrier homeless shelter and co-authoring legislation to provide more oversight of rental units.

On May 7, 2018, Mayor Cantrell was sworn in as the first female Mayor of New Orleans, just in time to celebrate the city’s tricentennial, or 300th anniversary. She was re-elected on November 13th, 2021!

As Mayor, she negotiated the Fair Share Agreement with the Governor and the Louisiana Legislature to provide additional long term funding to address the infrastructure needs of New Orleans. In fall 2019, New Orleans voters approved three major initiatives put forward by Mayor Cantrell: a $500 million bond sale, a tax on short-term rentals, and establishing a Human Rights Commission to combat discrimination.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Cantrell stuck to science-based guidelines to keep New Orleanians safe while simultaneously leveraging millions of dollars from public and private sources to provide rental and meal assistances to thousands of New Orleans families.

Mayor Cantrell is a dedicated wife to her husband, Jason, proud mother of her daughter, RayAnn, and a parishioner at Blessed Trinity Catholic Church.