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.

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.

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

[5] In 2008, Councilmember Head began delving into the relationship between fees collected and services rendered by the Sanitation Department,[6] 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.

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.

[11] 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: 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.

[13] 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.

[30] 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.

On 2009 March 9, a week after the petition garnered the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Suber claimed to have collected over half the requisite signatures, despite protests from African American constituents who defended Head on WDSU-TV New Orleans Channel 6 (NBC).

[32] James Gill, Times-Picayune essayist, lampooned the situation with a column titled "Of all the accusations against Stacy Head, only one sticks—she's white" Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine (Suber is black; Cao is Vietnamese American).

[39] But simultaneously, in another proceeding, Nagin had been defending his own e-mails from disclosure, whereupon Times-Picayune columnist Stephanie Grace accused him of "inconsistency" and noted a similar behavior with respect to New Orleans Katrina-recovery czar Ed Blakely; Grace wrote: On 2009 May 22, James Gill posited a network of individuals tied to former congressman Jefferson (whom Mayor Nagin had endorsed for reelection) as out to get Head's head.

Renée Gill Pratt, the columnist said, was at the "Celebration of Service" staged for Jefferson two weeks prior to the start of his 2009 June 2 trial on 16 felony counts.