Iron Mountain has hundreds of city archive boxes | Business news

Document storage company Iron Mountain is holding onto hundreds of files it is storing for the city of New Orleans amid an ongoing financial dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration, a City Hall spokeswoman confirmed.

The dispute first arose in an unrelated federal case involving a New Orleans police officer. Court records show that the city and NOPD — both defendants — failed to produce documents needed for the lawsuit because “Iron Mountain is currently involved in a financial dispute with the city and is requesting a subpoena for the release of any records stored on behalf of the city.”

Court records do not make clear the specific nature of the dispute or whether the company is withholding the files because the city has not paid the bill, although that is the implication.

Cantrell spokesman Gregory Joseph could not provide many details other than to say that “we are currently in the process of resolving our contract with Iron Mountain, believing there may be hundreds of boxes containing the city’s records.”

He added: “We cannot give a time when these issues will be resolved.”

Iron Mountain is a publicly traded company with local offices in Harahan, Boston. Stores paper files and digital documents for clients around the world.

The company and its lawyers did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Although Joseph confirmed the dispute and cited “contractual issues,” it’s unclear how many records are in the “hundreds of boxes” because the city was unable to obtain a contract with Iron Mountain for document storage services or a purchase order. “How far back and how many city departments can be affected.

Councilman Joe Giarusso, who chairs the City Council’s budget committee, was unaware of the dispute. But he said the situation is troubling on several levels and raises red flags about how the city and one of its suppliers is doing business.

“The important thing is for the city to have access to its own documents and if we are going to pay for a service, we need to know what the service is and what the terms of service are,” he said. “On the contrary, if we’re getting service and we don’t pay our bills, we have to pay our bills.”

Disappointment in silence

The dispute between the city and Iron Mountain came to a head in a federal civil lawsuit filed in 2022 by local couple Derek Brown and Julie Barecki-Brown against the city, former police chief Shawn Ferguson and NOPD officer Derek Burmaster. The suit alleges Burmaster violated Brown’s civil rights when his 18-week-old rescue dog was shot in response to a noise at their home.

There are old records from Burmaster’s staff file that Brown’s attorney, William Most, was trying to find in the case as he prepared for trial. Although the city objected to turning over some of the files on the grounds that they were irrelevant, it agreed to release a 2012 NOPD Office of Public Integrity report on the findings of an investigation into the killing of another deadly dog ​​at Burmaster’s hands.

Records show the officer was cleared of any wrongdoing in that incident.

According to court documents, the city subpoenaed Iron Mountain for the PIB report in early October.

“I agree to file Burmaster’s 2012 complaint because it pertains to the use of force against an animal, even if the charges remain pending,” Assistant City Attorney Jonathan Adams wrote in an email to Multiple last October. “As you know, I called that from Iron Mountain.

But the company ignored calls and follow-ups, Assistant City Attorney Jonathan Adams said.

At a hearing in late November in U.S. Magistrate Karen Roby’s court, Jim Rockmore, another assistant city attorney on the case, said the city still had not obtained the records from the company. Robbie has set a date for Jan. 4 to compel Iron Mountain to hand over the documents.

The hearing was extended after the city announced that the two sides were working to resolve the dispute.

Missing contract?

Iron Mountain is a 60-year-old company with more than 24,000 employees worldwide, traded on the New York Stock Exchange and valued at more than $1.1 billion. The city’s Internet contracts database shows the company has contracted with the Sanitation Department to provide paper shredding services as part of a free recycling program for more than a decade.

But there is no record of contracts for NOPD or any other department to store old paper files. Iron Mountain Area Manager Robert Lehman spoke to reporters in early December and the company declined to provide information about the scope of service to the city. He also said that he did not know about the dispute with the city or the subpoena at the time. After being sent a copy of court records, he referred requests for comment to a corporate email address, which did not respond to multiple emails.

The company’s in-house attorneys, Kellen Mathew and Kathleen Cronin, did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Joseph could not say why the city’s procurement office could not obtain a contract with the company, but said contracts and purchase orders included in the city’s BuySpeed ​​and AFIN databases were lost in a 2019 cyber attack.

In the year In December 2019, the city was hit by a cyber attack that temporarily shut down local government, exposed weaknesses in the city’s IT systems, and cost millions of dollars. Apparently, some critical formations – contracts with suppliers, paid for with public funds – are permanently missing.

Girrusso said the situation at Iron Mountain is troubling and raises questions about other bills the city isn’t paying.

“It’s hard to say for sure how bad the problem is, but we hear rumors about it all the time,” he said. “Vendors are reluctant to come forward because they want to do business with the city and don’t want to be hurt by saying something publicly.”