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St. Martinville mayor ended meeting over disorderly councilman

Posted at 6:36 PM, Oct 16, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-16 19:53:07-04

St. Martinville Mayor Melinda Mitchell ended Monday night’s city council meeting abruptly because she says Councilman Craig Prosper was out of order.

“After hitting the gavel twice, I think one time was one time too many. But, I hit it twice and there was still no control, so that’s when I decided to adjourn the meeting,” said Mitchell.

Propser disagrees and says he was only questioning the mayor’s desire to hire a consultant to help run the city more efficiently.

“To hire a consultant, her best friend consultant, at $165,000 dollars for one year as part-time, not even as full time, to come in part-time to come in and make suggestions on how the city needs to be run, is just unheard of. It’s almost like having a baseball team and you being the coach for the baseball team, and they hire you, and three weeks later you go to the owner and say I need to get someone here for $165,000 dollars to now coach the team,” said Prosper.

Mitchell says Prosper failed to show her proper respect as the mayor during the meeting.

“He did say that he thought instead having this professional lady come in with her proposal, he felt that this was the mayor’s, and I did agree it is the mayor’s job, but you know I’ve only been here three months and I thought it was nice that someone came to offer their expertise for a short period of time,” said Mitchell.

Prosper argues the mayor is going back on her campaign promises.

“It’s so ironic, it’s exactly what the mayor runs on. The mayor runs on being able to run the city efficiently, being able to manage people, being able to balance a budget, being able to do things for the community, and it’s the same things that the consultant wants to tell the mayor to be able to do.”