ST. MARTINVILLE — A St. Martinville City Council meeting devolved into what one council member called “a circus” Monday night, as discussion turned toward the city’s next contract for waste removal services. 

After moving through the humdrum of approving bill payments and past meeting minutes, things grew heated as District 2 Councilman Craig Prosper made a motion to approve moving into contract negotiations with Republic Services.

The city has undergone several rounds of looking at and discussing proposals from three companies — Republic Services, Waste Management and Pelican Waste and Debris. Still, there seemed to be confusion over which company offered St. Martinville the lowest bid for the most adequate services. 

St. Martinville Mayor Thomas Nelson claimed the proposal from Pelican was the lowest, a claim disputed by Prosper, City Attorney Allan Durand and representatives from Republic, who all said Republic’s bid was lowest. At one point, as the mayor attempted to cut off speakers, including Prosper, Prosper raised his voice to the mayor, saying, “I’m done with this.” 

“I don’t play politics, you play politics,” Prosper said, accusing the mayor of selecting a higher-cost proposal to financially favor, for personal or political reasons, Tommy Thibodeaux, of Pelican Waste and Debris, who attended the meeting. 

“If we do business like that, you’re going to bankrupt the city,” Prosper said. 

Thibodeaux, who addressed the council shortly after, accused Prosper of not supporting his proposal for Thibodeaux’s own refusal to support Prosper in a previous election. 

District 1 Councilman Mike Fuselier, who just returned from an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand to visit his daughter, had asked for an extension on the city’s current waste removal contract, which is with Republic, to further sort out the matter.

“I asked, before I left, to get an extension. I said, if we don’t get more time to look at these proposals, and I come back and have three days to look before we all vote on this, this is just going to turn into a circus. And that’s what this is, a circus,” Fuselier said. 

Republic Services Municipal Manager Beth Guidry expressed reluctance to put off a decision to move forward with contract negotiations  any longer.

“We’re just afraid that we’ll come back and do this again. We’ve already gone through proposals twice, and we’ve changed everything to match what you’ve asked for,” she said. 

In the end, in a dramatic moment, Prosper pushedcouncil members to vote on his motion to move forward with Republic — who he and the city attorney said undercut competitors by $12,000 — on contract negotiations. In a tense vote, District 4 Councilwoman Debra Landry and District 3 Councilman Dennis Paul Williams voted against the motion, but Prosper, Fuselier and District 5 Councilman Edmond Joseph approved the motion with a razor thin majority.

The city will move forward with negotiating a contract with Republic.