City Council - Regular Meeting

Let's call the meeting to order. We're running a little late tonight. Sorry for that. Ask uh uh you to stand and join Councilman Craig as he leads us in the prayer and the pledge of allegiance. Let's pray. God, thank you for the opportunity to serve. Give us wisdom, patience, and good judgment as we do the work before us. Help us act in a way that's fair, thoughtful, and the best interest of the community. Attention. Salute. Pledge.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, welcome everyone that's with us tonight. remind everyone that we meet on the first and third Tuesdays of each month with the workshop starting around 5:30 upstairs in the workshop room and then the official meeting down here uh in the auditorium uh as close to 6:00 as we can get it. We're a little late tonight. Apologize for that. Uh before you c members of the council, we have the uh minutes of our meeting held July the SC excuse me January the 6 uh of 2026 to be approved, corrected or amended if need be.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the minutes of the January the 6, 2026 meeting as presented. All right. We have a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Do we have a second? Yes, M. May. I second that motion. All right, have a second. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council concerning the minutes hearing? None. All in favor of approval of the minutes of the January 6 meeting, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I.

I. Any oppose? The same sign. And it is approved. We have no unfinished business. Uh the first first item of business tonight is to appoint uh an appointment for the Andalusia City School System Board, Board of Education. And uh I will entertain any uh nominations at this time for that for that uh that that person the the nominee has to be a uh live in the council district in which uh they're being appointed to serve from and this is in this situation it's in district one. So the nominee be required to live in district one.

Mr. Mayor, it is an honor for me to nominate uh Dra Trader Belton to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Sammy Glover, who has given great service to the End School Board for a number of years. Okay, let me I think we need to modify that that nomination just a little bit. His his uh his appointment or his term has ended. Is that correct? Yes, sir. It's unexpired.

It's un So, it's the unexpired portion of the term. Okay. That's correct. Okay. All right. You heard the nomination. Do we have any other nominations? Hearing none. All in favor of the nomination, Miss Shelton, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I. I. I.

Any opposed? And that is unanimous. And thank you for that. Congratulations, Michelle Dedra. He's here. Belton. Okay, thank you so much. Uh, next item is to author uh, authorizing an agreement with Bluebird Coffee of Andalusia LLC. And I'm going to ask our city clerk administrator if he will to uh, describe to us what that agreement provides. Mayor Council taken ownership in growing the company Bluebird Coffee Company. It's located downtown as you know. It's also Bluebird Copy's a member of our capital improvement cooperative district and they have again achieved a great deal of success lately and outgrown their space their their space to uh produce most especially cheesecakes. They have done a number of uh contracts lately with uh outside businesses or the distribution and sale of their cheesecakes. Uh they need additional space to produce those cheesecakes. We have a commercial kitchen. You may be aware if you're not, we have a commercial kitchen at the carriage house at Springtale and it's rarely used as you know it's also Springdale is available for rental to the public. Um but this contract calls for contemplates the use of the Springdale kitchen by by Bluebird Coffee Company. This is intended to be a temporary arrangement until more permanent solution can be found for them to meet their cheesecake demand. Uh it is a two-year contract that can be renewed. We fully anticipate it to not take that long for them to find additional space. It can be uh either party can get out of the contract anytime with a 30-day written notice. Uh again, it's expected that it'll be

temporary. Uh the owners of Bluebird Coffee know that uh Springdale is a a venue that the public uses often and and from time to time they won't be allowed to go and have a their their their production or use of the of the facility will could be interrupted from time to time because it' be used by the by the public for some special event or something. But their hours are typically be in the morning when it's not rented. So I I think it'll be an arrangement that we can easily accommodate. and and the rental agreement is $700 a month for that that space. And this is authorized under Alabama constitutional amendment 725. Is that correct? Actually, no, sir. We do not have to use 725. Don't have to use 725 here.

It's just a straight standard lease between us and Okay. All right. Okay. Any questions from the members of the council? All those in uh in favor of authorizing the agreement with Bluebird Coffee of Andalusia LLC, uh please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I. Mr. Mayor, we need a motion. Motion. Yeah, I'm going too fast here, aren't I? I'm running behind. I need a motion. If you agree to execute the agreement, Mr. Mr. Mayor, I move that we give you the authority to approve the agreement between Bluebird Coffee and the city of Andalusia as written. All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Mr. Mayor, I second that motion.

All right, any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council. Hearing none, all in favor of approving uh the agreement, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I. I. I.

Any opposed? Same sign. and it is approved. Uh we have with us tonight uh two speakers. The first is associated with the company uh Cincy's Gatso USA. Uh Mr. Mark Divich is here with us tonight and he is coming to talk to us about the photo uh enforcement of speeding and uh speeders automobile speeding in in Andalusia city limits and also possibly uh red light uh folks who are violating the red lights and so forth stop signs and things of that nature. uh and he's going to come he he made a presentation to us up upstairs in great amount of detail and he's going going to make an additional amount of information available that will go out over the public system here that's available at this meeting. So uh Mark you could come forward if you would and if if you would kind of speak out towards the folks who are see because we just heard absolutely

pretty much the same thing. We want the folks out front to hear it.

No. Thank you, mayor. My name is Mark Devich. I'm with Census Gatso. I'm an account manager. I'm not a salesperson. So, I'm going to talk to you frankly about how photo enforcement works. I've been in public safety for 19 years, 13 of those in photo enforcement through the state of Alabama through legis legislation. The city of Andalusia, if adopted, can either do red light enforcement or speed enforcement. I know that there's they're considering probably both, but I think speed may be the first thing that you all would do. Once that legislation is adopted, then the city would adopt an ordinance that would cover how the program would work. Essentially, through photo enforcement, let's talk about speeding. Speed enforcement is going can be either a fixed site, which for lack of a better definition is a camera on a pole, or it could be a mobile unit, which is a camera on a trailer that you can move to approved spots. We would work with the chief to identify those spots based on crash data, speeding data. If it were red light, we would do pretty much the same thing. We could enforce both speed and red light at the same location from that fixed system. And then we would work with the PD on crash stats. And then we would most likely also, and I didn't mention this during my presentation, most likely do a red light study to show the amount of violations you would have within a 24-h hour period. It would actually be a hard count determining how many people actually ran ran that red light and how photo enforcement can help that. As a thirdparty vendor, we set up all the equipment. There is zero cost to the city. It is truly funded by violator proceeds, people that pay their violations. It was brought up in the council. Typically, the payment rate initially, you know, we'd like to see around that nationally 60 to 65% payment rate. And they would get a first notice in the mail. If they failed to pay that, they would get a second notice. And if they failed to pay that, collections would be available to the city. we would assist with those collection efforts, but that would be a third party. Even the collection agency, that would be

zero uh sum to the city. Essentially, the how the program works, once a violation is captured, it's ingested into our system. It's registered only. So, there are no face shots. It's just going to be the rear image of the vehicle and video associated with it up to 10 seconds. We run the license plate through a company called Endlets. It's a federally approved thirdparty vendor, secure. We go through annual audits. I have to get fingerprinted. I actually have to pass a sieges test to make sure that I can actually access the system, run the the plate, get the registered owner information, pass it to the police department to review. They are the ultimate arbiter of the program. They are either going to review or deny. Once they approve it, it actually passes in our system and we actually mail it out to the violator. All of those services, the equipment, the mailing, the processing, the signage, everything required to set up this program, all that cost is born from us. And another thing I'd like to bring up, gentlemen, during the the the study session, it's all about transparency. You need to get out into the public early and often, advise them what's coming. We would work with you on that. FAQs, and then also, there's a 30-day warning period before it even goes into enforcement. So, a violator is going to get a postcard in the mail letting them know that they ran a red light at such and such time on such and such date. And if this was live, then it would have resulted in a fine based on and it would list the the the city's ordinance. So, up until it goes to live enforcement, it's all about transparency where the systems are, how they do enforcement, what the penalties are, so everybody knows, and then putting that information on social media. You could do videos on YouTube. I know this is going out on YouTube. You could do it on your your website. So there's definite avenues where you can make sure this is known.

Mayor, is there anything additional? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you all.

I'd like to add that uh u for the information to the public. This is not something that the city has decided on yet. We're still uh we're still uh working with it to make sure it's something that we want to do. It will not cost the city any money to do this. We're not we're not wanting to get in the business of writing a lot of tickets. What we're wanting to do is to get in the business of people slowing down in neighborhoods where they're speeding around particularly around school zones uh and around neighborhoods where children are playing. And we have a terrible problem in our city. And it's not just Andalusia, but we're we were the only ones that are responsible for Andalusia. But there are these these programs are being used around Alabama and around the country and uh in Europe particularly heavily used in Europe. Uh the the the point of all of this is try to get some control over people's speed and uh and avoid accidents or the potentiality for accidents. Uh driving the speed limit across the city. You could drive across the city of Analia under under the speed limit in 15 minutes max any time of the day or night. So there's no you're not going to make up any time uh to amount to anything by speeding through the city. And that's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to we're not trying to collect money. We're not trying We we will because that's part of it. But what we're trying to do is to stop the speeding and the other reckless driving that we we are uh that's occurring in our community. So, thank you for coming tonight and sharing that information with us. That's all of the business that I have for us tonight. I do have a a lady who has asked to speak, uh Miss Shirley Flowers. Miss Flowers, would you

like to come forward down front and address the council, please, ma'am? First, I want to thank the mayor and the city council for giving me this opportunity to speak in regards to the vote taken on December the 2nd, 2025 regarding the sale of alcohol on Sundays, Sunday afternoon in the city of Andalusia. My husband and I were at the meeting to raise our voice in opposition to the vote. We were disappointed that the opportunity to address the motion was not brought to the floor for discussion even though it was on the agenda. Mostly the meeting discussed was about the reasonzoning of land and the perceived lack of notification. After the 5:30 meeting, we even stayed for the six o'clock meeting hoping that the floor would be open for discussion before the vote was taken and it was not. When we left, we felt like the motion was pushed through without the opportunity for opposing comment. After discussing this with others in the community, we found that they were not even aware that the matter was being considered for a vote. Some even stated that the meeting prior to December the 2nd was rescheduled and where and when was not printed. I don't know that to be a fact. I'm just reporting what was said. Um I went back to check on the wording for the uh for the ordinance and it simply said Sunday sales. This could have been anything. Sell of tires, sale of lemonade, food, trucks, balloons, etc., etc. I also went back and looked on how other ordinance resolutions committee appointments were worded in the past. Everyone was specific about what was being presented. My question would be why wasn't this one? With this in mind, we would like to voice for ourselves and others why we're opposed to the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Just the general sale of alcohol is offensive to many of us here in Andalusia, but is it tolerated for the convenience of others? But our opinions of alcohol is is that there

isn't one good thing that has ever come out of drink uh out of drinking alcohol. There are countless millions of homes and lives that have been destroyed because of this one vice. How many women and children have suffered at the hands of a drunk husband or father? How many women and children have been molested, raped, and even killed due to drunkenness? Our shelters and rehab centers are overflowing with victims of alcohol. And here's some facts about it. Alabama has one of the highest pre-cap per capita rates of alcohol related liver disease in the southeast. Rural counties suffer disproportionately when the state or local officials expand alcohol sales, creating dependency on sin taxes while straining the law enforcement and health care systems. Studies show every dollar earned from alcohol sales cost taxpayers at least two to three dollars in healthcare, policing, and lost productivity. public health crisis. Excessive alcohol use and is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing an estimated of 178,000 Americans annually. We saw that on the video tonight, and everybody was a gasp at the accident that we saw. Youth exposure, early alcohol consumption is strongly linked with long-term uh addiction in Alabama. Nearly 20% of high school students report drinking within the past 30 days. Traffic safety. Uh, alcohol impaired driving remains the leading cause of traffic fatalities, responsible for 30% of all major vehicles death. That is one person every 35 minutes. Family harm. Alcohol is a contributing factor in domestic abuse, divorce, child neglect, and financial ruining. I have all these where I got my information cited in this, and I'll report that later. According to statistics in Alabama for Covington County, excessive drinking in 2018, uh the percent of the total population 18 years of age and up, of that

population in Covington County, 3,59 or 12% of our population in 2018 were considered excessive drinkers. Our country of use views this consumption of alcohol as a freedom of choice. makes me wonder how many of the families that have lost loved ones feel about that freedom. Now, locally, I've also heard um and I hope it isn't true that one council member has stated that this isn't a religious decision because his religion may be different from someone else's. Frankly, I couldn't agree more, but every Christian denomination in Coington County based on the based their belief on the Holy Bible and its standards. All of our civic organizations base their meetings and services in our community on the scripture principles of serv serving others that are less fortunate than they are. So for a moment let's look at what the inspired holy scripture says about doing our own thing on Sundays the day we set aside for worship and rest. 2 Timothy 3:61 16-1 17 all scriptures is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction and for training and righteousness. Genesis 2 2 and 3 says and on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all of his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy. Exodus 31:15 and Leviticus 23:3. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Ezekiel 20:12, I gave them my Sabbath as a sign between me and them, that they may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. Deuteronomy 5:12, observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Isaiah 56:2, "Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaneing it." Exodus 31:13, "You are to speak to the people of Israel, saying, Above all, you shall keep my

Sabbath, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations." Ezekiel 20:20, "And keep my Sabbath holy, that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God." Proverbs 10:22, "The blessing of the Lord makes rich, he has no sorrow with it." Isaiah 58:13 and beyond. If you keep your feet from the breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day. If you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord. and I will cause you to rise in triumph on the height of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. I understand that some might think that these are all Old Testament scriptures. So here is what Jesus said in one of the new in the New Testament book Matthew 6:33. But seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Here is the fear fear as citizens from this count uh that from this council decision the next step might be to bring the lottery then gambling casinos. Some believe that this is the reason why the reasonzoning of the property on December the 2nd 2025 meeting was made and then the sale of marijuana on every corner until our resources are depleted storefronts are are abandoned. All that we can talk about is what it was like in the good old days before the vote was taken to start selling alcohol on the Lord's day. I also understand that the express motive behind the vote was for tax money. But I want to warn you that God can bring a blessing to this city for doing the right thing or he can drive investors away, drive new business away, bring tragedy that will bring down the uh bring about the downfall of our community. With all this information in

mind, national, state, coveted county, and biblically, I'm asking you to rescend your vote on the sale of alcohol on Sunday in our wonderful city of Andalusia. So, I'm going to respectfully, and I mean I'm really trying, I am being really respectful here to ask Mr. Nicks, do you still with all this information, do you still stand behind your yes vote? Miss Flowers, this is a public meeting in the sense that the public can attend the meeting. Uh it's not a time for questioning and discussion with council members.

You can do that at a at a meeting in my office or a meeting with each council member, but we don't we don't engage in that at the council meeting. It's not part of the business of the council.

Okay. Well, let me just acknowledge Mr. Pile's vote on no uh on this matter and that we believe that at this time you represented our city. Well, now let me end with a positive note. I have been negative, but I want to end with a positive note. Since the multiple concerns that have been expressed about the lack of community from our city council to the general public, I have noticed that there's been more Facebook posts. That's my only social media outlet and uh of upcoming discussions about the agenda of the meeting. and I want to thank you for publishing all of the information that you have published. I respectfully submit this. My name is Shirley Flowers. I have all of my um information documented and all of my things and I would like to ask if I can uh insert this into the meeting uh into the minutes.

I'm I don't know. You were you asked permission to speak to the council and you've done that, right? That's not part of the record of the council. Okay. Thank you very much. I do appreciate your time. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Anything from the council members? Anything further the business has attended to?