St. Martinville mayor sponsoring city-wide town hall to discuss ‘concerns’

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, July 15, 2020

ST. MARTINVILLE — Mayor Melinda Mitchell will be sponsoring a city-wide town hall meeting Thursday evening to discuss “community concerns,” including an increase in water and sewer rates to keep the city utilities solvent and unifying the community, while simultaneously pushing to revoke the city’s charter and bring St. Martinville back under the Lawrason Act.

Unlike other town hall meetings, which have been called and sponsored under the City of St. Martinville banner, Mitchell is sponsoring Thursday’s event.

One of the issues she said she intends to bring up is a letter included with constituents’ utility bills notifying them of a coming increase in utility rates. On her Facebook page, Mitchell claimed to not know about the proposed changes, saying she learned about it when District 5 Councilman Edmond Joseph texted her a copy of the bill enclosure.

“I’m not sure who approved this, but there is no signature on this,” Mitchell wrote about a note enclosed “I’m awaiting a response from our legal attorney in reference to ‘who approved this.’ Was there a public hearing about this? Did we get with our electrical engineer about cost adjustments, etc?”

The increases, which are intended to affect water and sewer rates, not electric usage charges, are coming at the recommendation of the city’s auditing firm, Kolder Slavin and Associates. The request for a recommendation from the auditor on rate increases to eliminate deficits in the two utility funds was discussed during public hearing on the 2020-2021 budget on June 29.

Mitchell was not in attendance at the meeting, having been out of the office since June 12. Joseph, however, voted in favor of getting a recommendation on rate increases from the auditor at the council’s July 20 meeting.

Mitchell continued in her Facebook post to use the notice to constituents as evidence that the city needed to revoke its special charter and instead use the generic Lawrason Act government model.

“These are the things that goes on w/o my consent,” she wrote. “I’m asking the constituents to please inbox me if you would like to change the charter and stop the nonsense. People are living in trying times and things need to be done in decent and in order. Please know whenever my signature is NOT on a document, I had no say so in the matter. Let the truth be known and stop blaming the mayor for the majority councils actions. ITS TIME TO CHOP THE CHARTER!!! I’m waiting on your inbox to be a part of it. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!”

Mitchell has previously tried to get the issue of revoking the charter through the council, but could not get the votes needed for it to move forward. If St. Martinville were to turn in its charter, it would be the first government in the state to ever move from a chartered government to a Lawrason Act government.

Mitchell said she also wished to discuss community policing during the town hall, although she did not elaborate on a plan for that discussion.

The town hall, which Mitchell said will be held with social distance standards and mask requirements in place, is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Adam Carlson Park Pavilion in St. Martinville.