St. Martinville city council moving forward with resolution to ban mayor’s husband from city buildings

ST. MARTINVILLE, La. (KLFY) – A special meeting was called in the City of St. Martinville to consider an injunction against the mayor’s husband, Lawrence Mitchell to prevent him from entering onto any city property or approaching any city official.

Since December of 2018, Mayor Melinda Mitchell’s husband, Lawrence, has allegedly rubbed several city employees the wrong way; including mayor pro tem Craig Prosper who currently has a restraining order on Mr. Mitchell.

Some council members claim Lawrence Mitchell is preventing them from handling day to day operations, leading to the decision to move forward with an injunction to ban him from approaching city employees, entering government buildings, and property; excluding city parks.

District 1 councilman Mike Fuselier, said, “It’s getting to the point where we need to do that for the safety of our employees and to be honest, to get some work done.”

Safety was certainly a top priority for city attorney Allen Durand, as he entered council chambers wearing a bulletproof vest Thursday night.

Durand said he was just being careful. “There’s lots of possibilities. This is a first, unusual situation calls for unusual measures.”

Mayor Melinda Mitchell was not in attendance at the meeting and the only council member to vote against the motion was Juma Johnson, citing a decision made by the council earlier in the week to notify someone who was harassing employees by letter to stay away from city buildings and employees.

“We just adopted a policy on this two nights ago and we agreed that we were going to send out a letter informing them what the plan was so I think that’s where we need to start”, the District 4 councilman said.

Durand plans to file a petition for a temporary restraining order and injunction by noon Friday.

The petition will be assigned to judge, and a hearing should take place within 10 days of filing.