ST. MARTINVILLE — A little more than a week ago, St. Martinville District 2 Councilman Craig Prosper was talking with Mayor Melinda Mitchell when she informed him that she had — again — removed one of his agenda items from the meeting scheduled for Dec. 3.

Prosper, who said Mitchell has removed several of his items from agendas in her first five months in office, was angered.

“I admit I raised my voice,” Prosper said Wednesday afternoon.

Shortly afterward, Prosper received a phone call from St. Martinville Chief of Police Ricky Martin. Martin told Prosper that Mitchell’s husband, Lawrence, called him asking for Prosper’s cell number.

While Martin was talking to Prosper, Lawrence Mitchell arrived at Martin’s home.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Martin asked Prosper. Prosper agreed.

According to Martin, what happened next was an expletive-laced tirade in which Lawrence Mitchell cursed and threatened Prosper, with the police chief watching, saying “I will ******* kill you!”

“I can’t believe he did that right in front of me,” Martin said.

Since the incident, Lawrence Mitchell has been issued a summons for misdemeanor simple assault, which is still under investigation, according to Martin. Prosper has filed a request for a peace bond against Lawrence Mitchell which would require the mayor’s husband to stay at least 500 feet away from Prosper. That request will be heard Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

The incident is the latest example of how tensions have risen in St. Martinville’s city hall since Melinda Mitchell took office on July 1.

‘A new start’

In her third try to become mayor of St. Martinville, Melinda Mitchell won easily with 54 percent of the vote. Other than two previous attempts to take the mayor’s seat in 2010 and 2014, however, she had no real political experience.

She ousted incumbent Thomas Nelson, who held the office for 12 years and previously served for decades in St. Martin Parish government, both on the police jury and, when the parish adopted a home rule charter, on the parish council.

In her first meeting, Mitchell asked the council to change its auditing firm, and the council agreed. Two meetings later, however, when Mitchell attempted to change the city legal counsel, she hit a stumbling block. She asked the council to remove long-time attorney Allan Durand in favor of Thailund Porter-Green, a New Iberia attorney who serves as an assistant district attorney with the 16th Judicial District Court in St. Martinville.

She also recommended the council elect freshman District 4 Councilman Juma Johnson to the mayor pro-tem seat.

The council denied both moves.

“First, she thought she could appoint him to the seat, which we told her no, the council elects the pro-tem,” Prosper said. “Second, she picks a councilman with less than six days experience to the leadership role.”

Mitchell also tried in October to have one of her campaign supporters, Janine Coleman, hired as a “part-time consultant” at $165,000 per year.

The council also blocked that move.

Disappearing agenda items

Mitchell also took a keen interest in items being placed on the city council agenda. According to District 1 Councilman Mike Fuselier, the mayor removed several items he had placed on the agenda, including the hiring of a chief administrative officer candidate the city’s auditor recommended and a resolution to sign a contract with Poche and Associates for engineering services related to the city’s electric service contract with CLECO.

Mitchell said that her interpretation of the city’s charter allows her to do that.

“The charter is silent on who presides over the agenda,” Mitchell said. “So I go back to the Lawrason Act, which gives me final say on it.”

The problem, according to Fuselier, is that is not the way it works. In Louisiana, the Lawrason Act is a template for governments without their own charters to follow in governing. St. Martinville, however, has its own charter.

“Our charter is set up as a weak mayor/strong council form of government,” Fuselier said. “The Lawrason Act is the opposite. It’s basic civics.”

Prosper said he has had at least seven items pulled from the agenda, including a request for proposals for the city’s electric contract and advertising the CAO vacancy.

“When the ad for the request for proposals went out, she tried to have it pulled,” Prosper said. “Since the engineering firm placed it, the newspaper wouldn’t pull it, so it ran. If it hadn’t, we would have had to start all over.”

The agenda battle drove the council to pass an ordinance last week that stated councilmen, the mayor and members of the public can add items to the council agenda if they follow the proper procedure.

Mitchell contends the ordinance does not apply.

“I’m not even sure if it is valid,” Mitchell said. “It was put on the agenda to discuss, not to adopt. I’m not sure it was done legally.”

The fight over control of the agenda has now landed on Attorney General Jeff Landry’s desk. According to Prosper, the AG’s office notified him Thursday an opinion in the council’s favor is being drafted.

Delayed notification

Another issue councilmen raise is the lack of information coming from the mayor’s office. In early November, the city’s public works superintendent resigned effective Nov. 23. In addition to overseeing the city’s infrastructure, he also was the licensed tech for the city’s water and wastewater plants.

Federal and state laws require the city to have a licensed operator for the plants in order to maintain its license. Fuselier said he did not learn the superintendent was leaving until November 20.

“I went to Lorrie (Poirrier, the council clerk) and said, ‘We need to call a special meeting to fix this,’ ” he said.

The council pulled together a meeting on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and accepted three bids from private vendors because there was no time to advertise for and hire a new employee. Fuselier said Mitchell wanted the bid from Cenla Environmental, a company based at Fort Polk.

 “We had a local firm in the bidding, but she wanted this company,” Fuselier said. “So we went along with it.”

There were not really any options for the councilmen. If the city did not have a contract in place before the superintendent left, it would have incurred a violation.

The following week, on Nov. 29, the city’s water plant sounded an alarm. According to federal regulations, a technician has one hour to respond or else the city is cited with a violation.

The alarm system automatically calls technicians to notify them of the problem. None of the Cenla techs in the calling roster responded, forcing the city to issue a boil order the next day.

Mitchell said the city is currently advertising for a new superintendent, but the process may take weeks.

Seeking an administrator

One of the most important positions in any municipal government is the person who handles the finances. In St. Martinville, that is the Chief Administrative Officer.

Under Nelson’s administration, Donna Lasseigne served in that role, but she has since moved on to another job. That left a void.

The city turned to its newly hired auditing firm, Kolder Slaven and Company, to vet candidates for the position.

“We were tasked with going through the candidates and making recommendations,” said senior partner Burton Kolder. “We had four or five solid candidates, but most of them wanted close to six figures, around 80 to 90 thousand dollars, and the city could not pay that.”

One qualified candidate, however, was willing to consider less. Additionally, Kolder said Mitchell wanted another resume, from St. Martinville Safety and Zoning Director Shedrick Berard, to be considered.

“I looked at his experience and his degree in education, but it was not a good fit,” Kolder said. “He did not meet the qualifications for the job.”

Fuselier said the candidate was scheduled to meet with Mitchell, but the meeting was postponed. A second interview also was pushed back. In the meantime, Fuselier added an agenda item to confirm the qualified candidate as the new CAO. Mitchell removed it.

According to Mitchell, the candidate withdrew of her own volition.

“She probably saw all the fighting going on and decided not to take the job,” she said.

With only one candidate remaining, Kolder said he recommended re-advertising for the job, but Mitchell refused. When the council approved Berard’s hiring for the position, it was made clear it was a probationary hire with the auditor to make a final call as to whether or not Berard could stay in the position after the city’s audit is finished in the spring.

“I am hoping for the best, but I do not think he can do it,” Kolder said.

‘Come together’

Mitchell says she is aware she has a lot to learn.

“I read and I call people a lot,” she said. “I am new to this, but I am learning. We need to come together and stop the fighting and move forward.”

In the interim, though, the people who have served longest on her council say she is not talking to them.

“I called her nine times,” Prosper said. “After about the fifth time, I learned she had changed her number and not even informed us.”

When he finally did reach the mayor’s assistant, he was told he could have an appointment to speak with her — in two weeks.

“I just said ‘Never mind,’” Prosper said. “We were trying to move on the electricity contract, but if it takes 12 days to talk to her, we would never get it done.”

For Mitchell’s part, she said she has an open-door policy.

“I really want to work with them, not fight over items on the agenda,” Mitchell said. “But they have to respect me. They have to respect my position as mayor.”

She did not say she had to reciprocate.