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There were 3 main issues for discussion at the Florence city council meeting held on Tuesday, April 1st. And no this is not an April fool’s joke. Well, maybe just one. Look for it at the end.
Anyway, the first thing to get my attention was the last-minute addition of 2 agenda items pertaining to the tax abatements for Eugene Sak and his remodeling of the old Downtowner Motor Inn into a “ReVerb” hotel. At the last meeting he presented a rather complicated plan to somehow renew the amount of tax abatement he would get for the next 20 years if the hotel is built. This assessment may be wrong but honestly, I think that even the council did not know what was going on. Sak said he had petitioned the state of Alabama to get some kind of additional tax break from a new program toward the cost of construction. Sak stated he needed an answer by March 31st. As usual, Michele Eubanks was the one to catch the “inconsistency” and question why this was being put on the April 1st agenda at the last minute. One of Sak’s lawyers came to the podium and said that a few days would not count. Now anyway. City attorney Billy Musgrove tried to do some lawyerly clarification, but the explanation seemed lacking. Confused yet? That may be how it was planned. Anyway, Ms. Eubanks was the only no vote and Kaytrina Simmons abstained on immediate consideration. This tabled the item. If an agenda item comes before the council again by Sak, it takes it well past the “supposed” deadline. But look for another bite at the apple. After all, the snake did not give up the first time he tried to tempt Eve.
The second issue was brought up by David Carson in the citizen’s remarks section concerning the consent agenda items. For those unfamiliar with the city of Florence agenda, there are two sections of items. One is called consent where request from department heads and other payments such as reimbursement for trips by the mayor are listed. These require no discussion and are voted on together with a yea or nay vote. Then there are the regular agenda items. These are supposed to be either for non-budgeted items which involve a significant amount of taxpayer money or for zoning and other regulatory changes. But there have been times when a department head would request an agenda item which involved millions of taxpayer dollars, and it is placed on the consent agenda. It has never really been clear to me if this is by mistake or on purpose. This was the case with the $9+ million-dollar remodel of Veteran’s Park into a Tennis and Pickleball complex. These are usually caught by a councilperson or by an attentive citizen to the business of the city of Florence. Such as David Carson. He has been responsible for several multi-million-dollar items being moved from the consent agenda without discussion to the regular agenda with LOTS of discussion. Every now and then he finds one that slips under the radar. He did in this meeting. Item (k) on the consent agenda read as follows: Resolution to file a settlement of the liability claim filed against the city for property damage sustained at 2200 Berry Ave, Florence, Al, for an amount not to exceed $160,000, sponsored by Bill Musgrove. When it was time for remarks on agenda items David asked if a city dump truck ran into a house. Why the large amount? And why did some details of the liability claim not at least be presented somewhere in a resolution or even discussed in the meeting? With this Billy Musgrove just said it was attorney/ client privilege rules that apply but a follow up question from me would have been is not the defendant in this case to some extent be the taxpayer in the city of Florence? Mr. Carson’s question was never addressed by the city council.
Then we come to the malodorous part of the meeting. There has been a raw sewage leak in the 1100 block of Wood Ave at 7 points for several days now. I was first made aware of it on Facebook postings but smelled the odor myself firsthand when I went to Peck Hardware. Let me just put it this way, it was not the smell of jasmine in the air. There was an article in the Times Daily from Bernie Delinski in Saturday’s edition which I think captured the situation very well. The sewer pipe in that part of North Florence is at least 50 years old and made of clay. The city says the leak is not from the pipe but from a conduit that is linking the pipe to the 5 businesses in the block. The business owners, or at least those interviewed in the article, feel the city should take care of replacing the conduit or the feeder line. At the work session Tad Cole, department head of solid waste and recycle, says it cannot be fixed by the city without a special resolution. And that was how it was left at the meeting. There has been much discussion on social media concerning the city of Florence not updating the city sewer and drainage pipes. These past few days many jabs taken concerning this situation have been aimed at the city and particularly District 1 councilperson, Kaytrina P. Simmons. Some of them have seemed over the top. But some have been funny. One that was posted on April 1st seemed to be an April Fool's Day joke that said: “Kaytrina Simmons is running for her “TURD” term on the Florence City council.” I thought it was clever although kind of gross but evidently Kaytrina Simmons was not amused. She said she had been personally attacked when the time came in the meeting for remarks from the council were. Anyway, it seems the crap is in the streets even if it has not hit the fan yet. And it still stinks.
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