St. Martinville – City Councilman Craig Prosper walked out on an executive session of the City Council Monday night saying he didn’t want to have anything to do with decision making involving, apparently, the police department.

“We’ve got some liability issues,” Prosper said. “When they’re going to get sued for one or two million dollars, I don’t want any part of that.”

Prosper left City Hall without elaborating, but the issue before the council at the time of his exit apparently concerned the police department as Chief of Police Paul Smith was behind closed doors with the mayor and council.

The council spent about an hour and a half in the closed meeting dealing with, according to the agenda, two separate personnel items.

When they emerged, minus Prosper, the council members announced that Chief Smith had agreed to provide the council with additional information by the Nov. 22 meeting.

They also voted to discipline Raphiel Hebert, a dispatcher at the city barn, by suspending him for five days without pay. They agreed not to force Hebert to take five consecutive days off, leaving it to the discretion of Superintendent Nolan “Boo” Champagne to schedule the suspension piecemeal.

The nature of the complaint against Hebert was not revealed.

Executive sessions are meetings excluding the public for discussion of sensitive matters like lawsuits, collective bargaining and personnel issues. Action resulting from the discussion must be taken in open session.