City Council - Regular Meeting

So we'll call this July 21st, 2026 meeting of the Andalusia City Council to order. If you will stand and join Councilman Mount as he leads us in the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.

May we pray. As we come before you tonight, we come with thankful hearts. Thankful for our city, state, and nation. Thankful for the soldiers who gave so much to make us free. We pray that you will show us the way forward. We ask that you give us the strength to do thy will in these things we ask. Amen. Attention, salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance.

Okay, be seated. We have a room full of special friends tonight, special guests, and I'm going to ask Ms. Michelle Gerlach, if she will, to introduce the first two, and then we'll talk about the second group after that.

Good evening. Tonight we are honored to have with us Miss Covington County and Little Miss Covington County, who will be representing our area in the Miss National Peanut Festival in October. Little Miss Covington County is Annie Cole Dunn. who lives over on the other end of the county and is a student at Mulkey Elementary School in Geneva. And Miss Covington County is our own Sarah Catherine Reese, who is a graduate of Andalusia High School and was an outstanding athlete, I might add. And she currently is a student at LBW Community College and plans to pursue a degree in secondary English at Mayor Troy University. We thank you for being with us today and we wish you good luck in October.

It is now an honor for me to read a resolution that we have prepared to honor our 10 and under baseball all-stars from Andalusia for this year. Resolution, whereas Andalusia's 10 and under baseball all-stars did win the 2026 Cal Ripken State Tournament in Thomasville, and whereas the team members include Tillman Alverson, Jackson Barrow, Hutch Carroll, Redding Jackson, Matt Kelly, Jed Poole, Logan Price, Owen Shelnut, Clarkson Smith, Bo Taylor, Gunnar Thorne, and John Collier-Wright. And whereas the team was coached by Coach Drew Smith, William Appleson, and Cole Carroll, And whereas the All-Stars defeated Westside Mobile, Monrovia, and Thomasville before beating Sims 13-2 in the championship game. And whereas the All-Stars did advance and compete in the Cal Ripken regions in Monroe, Louisiana. And whereas they represented Andalusia with a class learning valuable lessons, life's lessons from experience of working together to be a successful team. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Mayor Earl Johnson, on behalf of the City Council of Andalusia, Alabama, and all of its citizens do hereby recognize Andalusia's 2026 10 and under baseball all-stars, and extend to them our congratulations for their success and for representing our community so well. Adopted and approved this 21st day of July 2026. Congratulations. And now I'm going to ask Coach if he will come up and call their names out and then hand me the resolution to each one, and I will take a photograph at that time.

Nishallah. Hey, Tillman Alverson. Don't worry.

Let me get on that shadow.

Jackson Barrow. Hutch Carroll. Redding Jackson. Matt Kelly. Jed Poole. Logan Price. Clark Smith. Gunner Thorne.

All right. Now I'm going to ask the two coaches if they will. Is the third coach here? All the coaches to come forward. Come on now. Come on down, coach. Come on.

We're waiting on you.

It's all good.

Let's go over here and take a shot.

and then enjoy it.

Everybody stand up straight and tall. We're going on three, one, two, three. Again, one, two, three.

All right, and one more time on three, one, two, three.

Congratulations.

All right. Good seeing you.

Yeah.

a bunch of kids. When I was 10 years old, I didn't have much. No. We didn't play ball. Played with 10 kids. Kicking them down the road. OK. We will come to order. First item of business tonight is to consider approval of the minutes of our meeting held July the 7th, 2026.

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as presented of the July the 7th, 2026 meeting.

All right, we have a motion by Mr. Mount to approve the minutes. Do we have a second? I'll second that motion. Second by Mr. Craig. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none, all in favor of approval of the minutes of July 7 meeting as presented, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? And the minutes are approved. Thank you for that. No unfinished business. Under new business, This is a second reading of the ordinance number 2026-03 declaring a parcel of land in our industrial park surplus and transferring it to the Andalusia Industrial Development Board. And that's what this ordinance does. Following that, the industrial board will work with connect a sausage and transferring the property in some form to the industrial, from the Industrial Development Board, the IDB, to connect a sausage.

Do we have a motion to approve the ordinance? Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve ordinance 2026-03, surplusing the property to be transferred by the IDB to connect a sausage.

All right. We have a motion to approve the ordinance. Do we have a second?

Mr. Mayor, I second that.

Second by Mr. Boswell. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Mr. Mayor, may I make some comments?

Sure. I'm supporting this for the following reasons. I believe that this is the key to getting a retail operation done. done in our town, which, if the projections carry through, would mean to the state of Alabama, to Covington County, and to the city of Andalusia about $1.2 million a year of increased sales tax revenue. That is significant in my mind because it grows the retail base and we don't have to look at raising taxes. If we don't grow retail, we're quickly going to reach a point where we either have to decide which services we cut, which could be police, And right now, we also are having to consider adding another fire station. That may not happen, but it probably will as growth continues. We're going to have to have funds to support that. So those are the reasons that I'm voting in favor of this.

All right. Any other? All in favor of adopting the ordinance, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, the same sign? No. All right, one negative. And the ordinance is adopted. Thank you for that. We have a request from the police department for the purchase of some radar units to be handheld units called stalker LADAR units. And these are units that can be used in different vehicles of the police department by different officers. But it will enable us to have more control over stopping vehicles, particularly on our bypass at high rates of speed. The chief has located the... two of these that are available for $4,629.50 for both units. That's the price for both of them, not one. And also will include training where the company that makes these radars will come to Andalusia and train two or three of our police officers how to operate the units and how to maintain them and make sure that they're accurate. And then and no charge related to that. And then our officers that are then trained can train other officers in the department how to use this equipment. So I think it's a valuable asset for our police department to make our streets and sidewalks and highways a safer place for our citizens and for the people passing through our community. That money would come from our capital account, of which we certainly have that amount $4,629.50. I recommend that we approve that purchase.

Mr. Mayor, I will make that motion.

All right. We have a motion by Mr. Boswell to approve the purchase of money coming from the capital account. Do we have a second? I second the motion. Second by Mr. Mount. Any further discussion, questions, or comments concerning this? All in favor of the purchase of money coming from the capital account, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. And the ayes have it. Next is resolution number 2026-21, which is asking for a payment from our 2022 series A bond for the work that is basically the final work on our first phase of our park, our heritage park. We have redesigned that to some degree and reduced the price by a couple of $300,000 by doing that. The amount of money that we need now, tonight, for you to approve will be $77,500. Again, that money is in the bank. It was part of our series 2022 bond and is available to carry out this work. You've had a photograph, or not a photograph, a drawing of how it looked. I think it looked really nice when completed. And so we're getting close to the end of our first phase of that park, so I recommend to you that you approve that Resolution 2026-21.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve Resolution 2026-21, allocating funds from the 2022 bond issue to complete the Heritage Park entrance.

Okay, you heard the motion by Mr. Powell. Do we have a second? Mr. Mayor, I'll second that. Second by Mr. Boswell. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none, then all in favor of the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand, saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the same sign. And that is carried. Thank you for that. And finally, resolution number 2026-20, abatement of two nuisance properties, one at 105 Perry Street, And one at 403 Woodruff Street, you have photographs in your packet there that shows the need of some cleanup there on those properties, cutting grass and weeds and making that a nicer looking place. We worked with the owners of that to try to get it done. Hadn't got it done, so this is our only resolve is to declare it a nuisance, and we do it. We have a motion to adopt that resolution.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to adopt resolution number 2026-20, abatement of nuisance properties.

Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Craig. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Powell. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none, all in favor of approving the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. And it carries. Is there anything else from any member of the council? All right, hearing nothing, we will stand adjourned.