Commissioner Lionel G. Ott Records

Collection

Identifier: CA-AB-Ott

Staff Only

Commissioner of Finance Lionel Ott, seated in the middle of the group. From the Mayor Morrison Photograph Collection.

Scope and Contents

Corresspondence and subject files from the office of Lionel Ott, Commissioner of Finance.

Dates

Creation: 1946-1964

Creator

Ott, Lionel (Person)
New Orleans (La.) City Council (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Available to registered researchers by appointment. Request by box and folder number.

Requesting Materials

Materials Request Guidelines

Conditions Governing Use

Reproduction or use of materials is prohibited without the permission of the City Archives & Special Collections. Please review the Archives' Permission to Publish note.

Biographical / Historical

The Commission Council was the precourser to the current City Council and the Mayor/ Council system of government set up in the 1954 Home Rule Charter. Rather than council members elected to represent specific districts, Commissioners were elected at large and then assigned specific departments (Public Finance, Public Safety, Public Utilities, and Public Property). The Commmission Council was in place from 1912-1954. Lionel G. Ott served two terms on the New Orleans Commission Council as Commissioner of Finance. Before his tenure on the Council, Ott served in the Louisiana State Senate in 1940. He ran unsiccessfully for the position of Lieutenant Governor in 1952.

Lionel Gordon Ott was born in Washington Parish, LA in 1894. He moved to New Orleans in 1918 to pursue accounting, eventually establishing his own accounting firm of Ott, Parlos, and Verlander. Ott passed away in 1987 and is interred at Metairie Cemetery.