City Council - Regular Meeting

6 o'clock. We'll call this meeting of the Analia City Council to order. And if you will stand and join Councilman Mount as he leads us in the prayer and the pledge of allegiance. May we pray. Father, thank you for your promise to walk with us through all of life. In moments of doubt, help us to have the confidence you are in control and we can trust you. We pray that all people realize that they can make a difference if they believe. We pray that we as a council can make a difference in these things we pray. Amen. Amen.

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.

Want to welcome everyone to our second meeting for the month. And I remind everyone that we meet on the first and third Tuesdays of each month uh with the workshop starting upstairs around 5:30 and then the regular business session starting here in this these chambers at uh as close to 6:00 as we can get. Sometimes it's a little afterwards with our workshop running over. Tonight we have two beautiful young ladies with us and uh I'm going to come down front and read something about each of them and we're going to take some nice pictures that we I can get one and y'all can have one and your mas and daddies and everybody can have one and I know they'll be proud to have it. So I'm gonna come down and stand right there and then we'll we'll uh get that done. Okay, stand with me. Today we have with us the new Miss Andalusia and Little Miss Andalusia who will present our who will represent our city in the National Peanut Festival in Dothan this fall. Little Miss Andalusia is Lay Mites, who is the daughter of Lee and Rachel Mites. Mas. Am I saying that?

Miles, I'm sorry. I left my glasses up there, so I'm doing the best I can. Uh, Miss Andalusia, that's little Miss Andalusia. Miss Andalusa to meet Tim Tim Trinity Bryant who is the daughter of Toana Grandson and Timothy Rice. Congratulations to these young women and good luck when you go to Dothan. And we're going to take some photographs right down here. Oh, you have Y'all are welcome to stay if you'd like. It's not going to be a long meeting or you're welcome to leave which whichever you want to do. Okay. Okay. The first item of business tonight would be to uh consider

approving minutes of our April 7th meeting. Mr. Mayor, I move for approval of our regular uh minutes my regular meeting for April 7th, 2026 as presented. All right. We have a motion by Mr. Nicks to approve the minutes. Do we have a second? I second the motion. Mayor, we have a second by Mr. Mount. Any further discussion, questions, or comments concerning the minutes of the April 7, 2026 meeting? Hearing none. All in favor of approving the minutes, please indicate by saying I. Raise your raise your right hand say I. I. I. Any oppose the same same sign. And eyes have it. Thank you for that.

We have no unfinished business. Under new business. The next item is a resolution number 2026-07 authorizing an agreement with Watson and Downs for re for a retail development. Mr. administrator, will you come forward and give us the the lowdown on what this resolution is going to do? Mr. Mayor and members of the city council, this resolution will authorize us, the city of Andalusia, to enter into a development agreement with Watson and Downs Investment for Dunham's Sports in Andalusia. Dunhams began in 1937 as Dunham's Bait and Tackle in West Bloomfield, Michigan. Today they operate 259 stores in 25 states. Dunham sells sporting equipment and all kinds of sporting apparel and sporting paraphernalia, baseball, bats, softball equipment, uh canoes, kayaks, golf clubs, every kind of sporting lifestyle thing you can possibly imagine. If you hadn't heard of Dunhams, you've likely heard of Academy Sports or Dicks Sporting Goods, and it's going to be on that level. grills, outdoor entertainment, just really on and on and on. The uh the location will be on the east side on Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway in the old Dirt Cheat building. Uh Watson Downs development is is the lead uh developer in the project. The the entire center will be 62,000 square feet of retail space. Uh as you know in the last meeting we we did the same uh type agreement uh with with a retail company and we used uh the legal means to do this is amendment 725 the constitution of the state of Alabama. Notice was given in the Andelia Star News on April 11th so that the city council can uh

consider this this project. Um it is as I said in the old dirt cheap buildings behind Southern Independent Bank. This is a $5 million retail development with the purchase of the the property plus the renovation of the building. Dunhams expects to hire 35 to 40 employees. Annual sales are expected to be 5 million to $6 million. Uh what we're proposing is a 2% sales tax rebate not to exceed a million half dollars. This is uh similar to other sales tax rebates. the the probably the the the one most comparable to it would have been the Shops of Covington four or five years ago. That was a number of stores. This is a single store uh that has some similarities, but uh the only difference is those were happen to be a 3% rebate for five years and this is a a 2% with a with a dollar amount cap. So that's the only real major difference there. But the impact to that area will be significant. That is a a dark center location now. So it'll be quite a bit of uh retail activity there. It's new to the market. There's nothing like this in our market. There's quite a bit of leakage and what we describe leakage that's money going out of our economy. That's a this is a type of a retail establishment that people go to other cities and towns to shop in. So it's new to the our market and it prevents leakage going out of our economy and retains that in our economy and also brings outside uh business into Andalusia. So, it's a it's a it's a very good project for us and um we need your approval of the resolution for us to move forward.

All right. Uh I uh had the opportunity to with our administrator to visit the store that they have in Ozark, which is uh 40,000 square feet. And I was just blown away by the amount of of of uh inventory that they have of all types of sporting goods, sports clothes, sports shoes, sport hats, sport, you name it, they got it. I think it'll be very popular in Andalusia. And I think it will it will be an addition to our retail draw to our city that will bring people not only from our market but from outside our market and loser to visit that store. So I recommend to you that we that we approve the resolution.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve resolution 2026-07 authorizing an agreement with Watson and Downs for retail development. All right, we have a motion by Mr. Powell. Do we have a second? Mr. Mayor, I second that motion. Second by Mr. Craig. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from council? Hearing none. All in favor of approving the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I. I.

I. Any opposed? Same sign. And I think that is unanimous and I thank you for that. Our next item is resolution number 20268 declaring some city vehicle surplus so that we can these are all of them are uh I think there's six five or six units on here. Let me get the right number. five units uh that uh we need to uh put on the market uh because they're uh going to have to be replaced real soon if we don't. And so best thing to do is get them on the market, get a little money out of them uh and uh and and move on forward. Uh we don't need these vehicles at the time at this time. So, I recommend to you that we declare them surplus so that we can then uh uh get them sold probably on on this on the government lot McGomery. But we'll we'll try to see if we can get what kind of price we can get for them before we sell them. So, we'll need a motion and a second to approve that resolution.

Mr. Mayor, I will make that motion. All right, we have a motion by Mr. Boswell. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Powell. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council hearing? None. All in in favor of adopting the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I. I.

I. Any opposed? And it is approved. Again, thank you for that. Next item uh is a request for uh donation to the Alabama High School Rodeo Association. Uh this is a big event that's been coming to Andalusia for several years uh that takes place out at the at the uh county center out on the truck bypass and uh they bring a large group of people to town. They spend the weekend here and uh and have the high school rodeo association uh yearly rodeo. So it's really a a neat thing in our community for our young folks. They also provide some safety training uh which is uh we think is important for young folks around around animals, large animals. So uh I recommend to you that we donate $5,000 which is what we've donated every year now for I don't know since they've been coming. Uh they've uh 5,000 is that has been their request. I recommend that we uh recognize their uh what they bring to our community and put that $5,000 that would come out of our contingency account. We have have plenty of money to cover that.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the donation of $5,000 to the Alabama High School Rodeo Associ Association state. All right. June. On June, I I didn't say the dates. I don't think it's it'll be at the Covenant Arena uh June 5th through the 7th. Uh all right. Do we have a second? Mr. Mayor, I'll second that motion. All right. Mr. Dicks made a second. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none. All in favor, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. And that is all I have to come before the council for action tonight. to remind everyone that tomorrow uh is it tomorrow, Michelle? When we have the cleanup? Yes.

Tomorrow, uh we're going to have clean clean Andelus day. Uh we invite members of the community to come and help uh really make our city sparkle and look great for the for the spring time of the year and all that's going on. We need our city to match and be as pretty as our young ladies are that's sitting down here on the front row. And so they gather here at 8 uh in the morning and we'll go from there to to start the cleanup and we ask you uh if you can spare some time to come help, we sure would appreciate it. Does the council have anything else to bring before us tonight questions? All right, hearing none, we will stand adjourned.