New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said the city council will receive the records it has requested in time for Thursday’s meeting and he called the furor surrounding the issue overblown.

Associated Press

FILE PHOTO

At New Orleans Day at the State Legislature, Nagin and other city leaders were in the spirit of cooperation as the city lobbied for recovery needs.

City council members had threatened the use of subpoena power to force the city administration to turn over records regarding the city’s 311 phone contract and details about the status of crime cameras, a large percentage of which aren’t working, according to a police spokesman.

Tuesday, Nagin said the council would get what it needs and he said the two sides are merely having a disagreement.

“This is a very intelligent group of individuals,” said Nagin of the council. “I respect them. We’re going to disagree at times. Things are going to be blown out of proportion at times. Unfortunately, this is one of them.”

That opinion was not shared by council member Stacy Head, who overheard the statement.

“I’m a little disappointed,” she said. “The questions that we asked are very simple. We’d like the contracts. We’d like the amount of money spent in 2007. We’d like the amount budgeted for 2008.”

The council argues that the city isn’t getting its money’s worth out of the 311 system and that half of the crime cameras aren’t functioning.

Nagin says the news isn’t that bad.

“I sat with Anthony Jones, the IT person and the CAO and I said, ‘look, whatever they need, provide the documentation because the story is not that bad.”