City Council - Regular Meeting

turn your watch off.

I thought hello and welcome to the beautiful Bailey Center auditorium on the grounds of Wallace State College in Hville. Thank you to our gracious host Wallace State College and Dr. Vicky Carlos. The 2025 debate series and question and answer forums continues today with municipal elections, more specifically the Good Hope and Vinemont municipal elections. These events are designed to give the public more unfiltered answers without questions ahead of time, direct comparisons, and meaningful conversation. First, we focus on the candidates running for council place three and mayor of good hope. We begin with place three with Susan Robinson Eller. Mr. Preston Puit was unable to attend due to a work commitment, so we shall proceed with a question and answer forum. But don't worry, I'll have some rebuttals. The Tribune works diligently to reach out to every candidate. But if a candidate declines to respond to emails or calls, there's only so much we can do. The invitation stands. The forum is open. If a candidate does not attend, an empty chair will sit beside those who do. This has been done at all debates in the past and this year. With that being said, we'll get on with it. Now, with the rules for the candidates, no electronic devices permitted. Uh since we will not have a second candidate, today will just be a question and answer. Um so, no back and forth. Uh third opening statement is limited to 60 seconds and may be a prepared statement. Time allotted per question will be up to three minutes. Closing statement is limited to 90 seconds and must be spoken without notes. There will not be any rebuttals uh except from me. Facts only, no accusations without proof. This will allocate additional time to an opponent.

Voters deserve substance over slogans. talking points will not be enough. So, let's begin. Miss Eller, would you like to introduce yourself and tell everybody about your

I would. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Susan Eller and I'm running for reelection to the Good Hope City Council because I believe in continuing to build a stronger, more vibrant Good Hope. I'm a lifelong resident of this community, a graduate of Good Hope High School, attended Wallis State Community College, and today I'm proud to call Good Hope home with my husband Jim and our daughter Sarah. Over the years, I've seen firsthand the growth and opportunities in our city, and I'm excited to see how far we have come. During my time on the council, I've worked to expand our sewer system and upgrade the sewer treatment plant, support our schools, and help attract new business and industry that bring jobs and opportunity to our residents. I'm not just serving on the council. I'm your neighbor and I care deeply about the future of Good Hope. Today, I look forward to answering questions which will hopefully help you see that I'm the best counsel place number three. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for uh for those remarks. And now we'll get started. We'll start with question number one and this deals with infrastructure. What is the single most pressing infrastructure need in good hope right now and how would you work with the council to address it?

Uh we have actually been able to address a lot of our infrastructure needs throughout the years. We've been very blessed with the financial um abilities and at this present time we are currently expanding our uh water treatment plant adding uh new equipment to that so that we can serve more people so that that will allow our community to grow. Uh also in the past five years we've actually added uh sewer service to County Road 222 which has allowed us to take on numerous clients in that area. And as you drive down that road, you'll see Ethos. You'll see W uh Bloom Winery Vans has actually come into the city limits of Good Hope. And we've been able to serve all of those new businesses and Loves and Dales in that area.

Okay. And when when you have to come uh to the city council and everyone presents projects that need to be done, could you tell us how that process works? I'm sorry. when uh when someone brings a project to you or y'all are looking at a project, how does that process work when you're trying to decide what to do and prioritize?

Well, we when people come to us, we look at, for example, we just had a um a subdivision that has been unable to get a road paved. they came they were they were promised this in their um subdivision purchase and unfortunately it has not been able to occur and I don't think the developer is going to be able to do that. So uh we number one look and see if you know what the cost is of this project. We look and see if we have the funds that are available to do this project and we look and see if it's beneficial. Um, so the project that that I'm talking about now is is is one that has helped grow our community. Um, there is a shared sales tax within the Coleman County and we get a lot of our funding from that shared sales tax and by adding citizens into good hope, we get a greater share of that. So we want to make sure that we take care of the people that are there and that we help our community grow. Thank you for that response. And we are going to move to question number two. Growth versus small town character. Good Hope has seen steady growth over the years. How would you ensure that development benefits residents without losing the city's small town identity? um we have to look at is this something that we need and and in my daytime job I do retail development so we all know that sometimes things just show up we don't get to you know if they come in our community they meet the zoning um then they are allowed to come into our community um but if it's something that we get to work with then maybe we can steer them to where we want them to ago. Uh we've done some ordinance in our community when when Good Hope went wet

when u the legalization of u medical marijuana came in with um andarmacies and things like that. We actually created ordinances to address where those build those those um businesses can go. But we also didn't want to have a business on top of a business like we didn't want to have alcohol alcohol alcohol. We wanted to be able to to continue the integrity of our community. So, we put distances in between those so that they wouldn't be just inundating our community. So, we've tried to take uh take that. The the unfort unfortunate part of Good Hope is we don't have a a main street. That's the thing I think we're missing. Um so, we do have some business commercial areas and we like to keep our business in those areas and not intrude into our residential. So, a followup to that, since you don't have a main street, would you like to see more of a uh centralized like small business area

and and we do have that, you know, if you know anything about Good Hope, which a lot of I think everybody here does. Um, you know, Good Hope really actually started out around 8630. you know, Jack's restaurant and and all was probably one of our first things that came to that community and and we have just our community has grown, our needs have grown, and then um I guess about 10 years ago, we added a second exit. And we've we actually um worked with a um engineering company on what how we would like to see that area grow. not just things just pop up, but how we could see not only the frontage, but also what is behind the frontage that can make all of it useful and not just that area.

So, very planned growth. Okay, thank you for that answer. And we'll move on to question three, which is budget priorities. If you had to reallocate funds in the city budget, what area would you prioritize and what would you cut back on? What was the last part of it? Uh, if you had to reallocate funds in the city budget, what area would you prioritize and what would you cut back on?

Um, well, since I am place number three, I am in charge of infrastructure. So, priorit priority for me is our we is our sewer treatment plant, our sewer system. Uh we also um have some agreements with um like Sprout, AT&T for um for um Wi-Fi for our residents because as we all found out during COVID that is a super important aspect for our community. And you would think that with us being where we are at Good Hope that that would be something that was just a a given thing, but where we live at Good Hope, we had internet, but my mother lived 600 feet from us and didn't have internet. So, so that became very important during COVID. Um, and then also, but you know, we have to maintain our streets. That's very important too. So, so we have those things and I think we've been there again our budgets has gone from $400,000 to to over millions of dollars. So, so we've been blessed with the financial ability to address things as they come up and not have to put anything on the back burner right now.

Okay, that's that's good to hear. And with that answer, we will move on to question number four regarding public safety. Do you believe Good Hope currently has adequate police and emergency services coverage? If not, what changes would you propose?

We have over the years that I have um have been there for a while, Good Hope has a um a contract with the Coleman County Sheriff's Office to provide safety for our community. and we actually have one of their offices across the street from our football field. So, we are very blessed with having the the coverage from the from the sheriff and his his deputies in our community. And also, we have got a couple of different fire department stations. There's one across from our sewer treatment plant. There's one on the east side of the interstate. And both of those are very we have a very great um volunteer fire department group. And I think we have addressed those needs really well. We could potentially add a sh um uh police department, but at this time I feel that we've got significant coverage for that.

So if the city continues to grow, you it could possibly open up to a police department. Yes. Okay. All right. We will move on to question number five, which deals with parks and recreation. How important do you feel recreational recreational spaces in city parks are for residents and what improvements or expansions would you support?

Well, that one's very dear to my heart because when I first went into office at Good Hope, we had metal playground equipment that was falling apart. And then one of our projects was to update our pro park playground equipment. And we uh did the park by the sewer treatment plant and we added the plastic playground equipment there. We also added playground equipment at our ball fields which was just I mean you could see people out there playing. It just it it made my heart happy that we had that because when our daughter was young we didn't have that that privilege or that that amenity. And also um and if you've driven through Good Hope lately, you'll notice our new we call it the red park that's right there on uh old 69. And that has been a great addition. I'm I've got people friends that are coming down there playing pickle ball, playing um basketball. There's also a community health um it's kind of like a little mini gym outside there. And then we also are in the progress of putting in trails which will not only allow our citizens to be able to have a place to walk safely, but it will also allow our um schools cross country team to do some trail runs through that area. So um we're looking at expanding by doing a new um a covered um area for people to do like picnic things there. So there's still some plans to do more there. And I think one of the things that I love about our community, and some people may not, but I love the sidewalks in our community. I think sidewalks has made our town a community because where our house is in Good Hope, we have families that are walking by. They're exercising. We have families walking by with their children. They're learning to ride their bicycles. They're pulling them in wagons. And I think the parks and the and the playgrounds and the sidewalks have really um made our community more friendly and more open to people.

And so y'all currently have other projects that are waiting to be fulfilled, but yes, ready to go essentially. Uh, and we want to add, you know, we actually have in our plan for the Red Park is a water feature. Um, that cost a lot of money, so we've had to put that on the back burner, but that is still something that I would love to see come to that park. And so, that would kind of provide a a little summertime ease to to parents and and children because I think that's something that we're missing in our community.

Thank you for that. We will move on to question number six dealing with roads and traffic. I know everybody in Coleman loves roads and traffic. Uh what steps should Good Hope take to improve road safety and manage traffic as the city grows? Well, right now I think one of our major issues is the exit 304 bridge and we have looked at that and we are constantly contacting our representatives, our senators, our federal delegation to try to to encourage them to help us with funding to replace that bridge. If you ever sit on that bridge when the lights red, you shake as people drive over it. So, um I'm not going to tell you how old I am, but that bridge I think has been there as long as I've been alive almost. And um I think it's time that we should upgrade that. Um traffic is a tricky situation. We have some traffic issues at between I want to say 7:45 in the morning to 8:10. We have some traffic issues from about 3:00 to probably about 5:30. But it's hard to address those when they're such short periods of time. And when I think we have traffic, if it takes me 15 minutes to get home from where I'm going normally. And if it takes me 20 minutes, I don't think that's traffic. I think that's a little bit of a nuisance. I think when you call traffic, I think you're looking at adding 30 to 60 minutes to your drive is traffic. And I think that's when you start needing to look at how can we address traffic issues. I think our issue right now is more safety in the bridge at exit 304.

And so that's something that you would continue to push for and contact legislators and make sure that gets and we're actually looking at cost estimates for that bridge. And um you know if if you've been through good hope you know when you go go south over that bridge that's a little bit of a tricky situation because you really only have enough room for two lanes right there. So, so it's it's going to have some have to have some engineering work to to figure out the the appropriate way to to lay that bridge out.

Okay. Thank you for that. We're going to move on to community engagement. How would you keep residents better informed and more engaged in city council decisions? Good Hope has gone to two meetings per month now and I would love to see more people there. I don't think we try to hide when our meetings are, you know, we have random people um that that show up at our our meetings. Um and you know, when people talk about transparency, I think having because we we never meet in private. We actually have monthly we have a um what we call our work session. We have that work session in our main room where we have our council meetings so anybody can come in at any time. Our um our staff does a really good job of kind of keeping our Facebook um pages updated on what's going on. I think something that we could add is probably a sign out in front of our city hall where we maybe something that can be updated um electronically instead of having to have someone manually do that so that that that can be changed quickly and it doesn't have old messages on it so that they know when we meet um uh what times we meet. So, um I think that's part of that. I I think engaging I would love to see people engage our in our community and we've actually I think done a little bit better job. I don't know if if everybody knows but we do a couple events. We have a back tochool bash. We have our Thanksgiving dinner and we actually do a good hope Christmas parade and um at our back to school bash. Our school has has done a great job with their students and a lot of the students now need volunteer hours. So those students come and help us with those events. They also do that um at our Thanksgiving meal. Um if anybody's out there wants to come join us, our Thanksgiving meal is going to be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I think

it's from 11 to 1. We'd love to have you come out. is free. So, um, that has turned into a really great community event. We serve lots of food. And then also our Christmas parade. I think we do a good job with that and I hope to see more people get involved with that. All right. So, just trying to get, you know, uh, just hope just to get the word out to people to please come to the council meetings. If you're concerned about something, come to the meeting. Yes. Yes. And is that uh you mentioned that uh you have the work session open.

Yes, we actually do our work session in the in the room. We have a table at the back of the room where our council meets and we just come in an hour before and sit at that and and people are welcome to come in and listen to us. We really that's where we do a lot of our discussions about projects and kind of dig down deeper into it a little bit. So that way when they come to the council meeting if they kind of understand a little bit more about what's going on in the meeting.

Yes. And and and and if anybody ever needs me, I mean you can find me I mean I'm my house is not that far from the road. You can pull up in my driveway. I'm not afraid to walk out and talk to people and you can find me on Facebook. You can call me at work. You can call me on my cell phone. So I'm really I really try to be where people can reach out to me and and get to me at any time. All right. Thank you for that. And we're going to move on to question number eight dealing with local businesses. What role should the city play in supporting small businesses and how would you help attract new economic opportunities to Good Hope?

That's what I do every day is um we actually work with our small businesses when they need something. um our industries um they always uh my office is in charge of all the industrial parks. So we get asked to do things like why is my gas not on? I'm going to have a gas shortage. I even have worked with industries. I've helped families get into school. I've helped them um buy furniture. I've helped him do that. But recently, in the past like eight years, I've gotten really more into the retail development side of of uh business attraction. And I have made some really great connections uh in this world. And because of our sales tax split, I'm able to locate businesses within Coleman County. The JS at Vinemont was one of my projects. The Jacks at Fairview was one of my projects. So, I've been able to help those small communities get those uh into their town where they didn't have anything like that there. Um I do a reception in Las Vegas at a retail show every May. And this past May I had 180 people at that show. And at that show, they were about 50% were communities from Alabama, but the other 50% were commercial realtors, commercial developers, and actually retailers that are looking at places to go in Alabama. So, I have a lot of contacts in my phone. And um just actually just about a month ago, I was contacted by a commercial realtor out of Birmingham who said he left Vegas show with three contacts that were looking to put places in Coleman. So, so with and right now with there is a small share of the Coleman County sales tax that comes back to every municipality and right now Good Hope is living off of our share of the municipal tax. We have some other revenues, but what we live off of is

that municipal tax share. So, wherever we locate a business in Alabama or in Coleman, we get a little portion of that in Good Hope. And um and then I also have friends who are in the small business uh world and so they have access to helping our businesses with small business development loans, with counseling, with helping create business plans. So I I have a lot of um tools in my in my toolkit to help with businesses either expand uh work through issues they have or to um find a spot to to locate their new business. So if you have a small business that's either let's say just coming to get up wanting to start up um if they came in and they needed a little assistance let's say with running a sewer line or something like that something that larger corporations would get is that something that would be accessible or is that something that y'all would work towards?

Well actually that's one of the things we did with vans. vans wanted sewer. So they but to be um on our sewer system, you have to live in or be in the city limits of Good Hope. So we ran the sewer to two vans and allowed them to come on, but we figured the cost on that. We recruit recouped the cost of running that sewer two vans within three years with our half cent sales tax that we collect in Good Hope. So y'all so y'all are already giving that with

We're doing that with them. But also in retail, there's um there was a law passed about 10 years ago. It's called a 772. uh you can do things with your 772 bill that you couldn't do before then, which is you can actually give public money to a private entity. If but you want to look at what your return is on those investments when they come into your community because if it's not a good return, then it then it's just like anything you want to you you may have to say no. Um, so, uh, we've actually passed our half cent sales tax a few years ago and we put that money into a separate account so that we can use that to recruit businesses to our community. And we also created a, it's small, but we created a facade program in good hope and we will pay you $1,500 per side to help up improve the outside of your buildings. It's it's each side that you can see from the road. So if you have one side, then we do 1500. If you have three sides, we could do up to 6,000.

Wow. So So we So we've got a little program there. So we have with that new 772 law, we can do some things that you couldn't do about 10 years ago. You can do sales tax sharing, um things like that. So there's there's we've got some some great things that we can work with our businesses. So, y'all are helping with beautifification through that program

because we want our community to look good because if it's not attractive, then that's going to turn people off and they're not going to want to stop there because a lot of the people that come through Good Hope are just driving up and down I 65. They're stopping to get gas. They're stopping to um get something to eat. So, we want to make sure that they stop and they like what they see and come back. And you never know, they may stop and say, "This is a great place and I might want to move here." So, we want to make sure and that's one of the projects also that we're working on right now. We got a grant from Congressman Adhold and we're actually putting lighting up on exit 305 to help with make people feel safer when they're coming off of that exit because I think that's one of the issues there that it's dark.

Y Well, thank you for that. And we're going to move on to question number nine, which deals with annexation and expansion. Do you believe Good Hope should seek to expand its city limits through annexation or should the city focus on improving within its current boundaries? And why?

Well, that goes back to the to when I was talking about the um the shared sales tax that we collect from or that we get from Coleman County. So, if we grow, we get more sales tax to use, put back into our community to make it a better community. So, we like to see our community grow. Um, we don't actively seek to annex property, but if someone comes to us and ask us to annex them, we look and see if it's if it's legal first. Is it legal for us to annex them? Because um are they in another community? Are they touching our boundaries? Because there are guidelines that you have to follow when you annex a a piece of property. Um, so we want to make sure all that's that is is good. And um I just lost my train of thought.

So you're ask your question one more time. And so and and so it's so you're making sure that when annexations are done that it's done correctly that it follows the the rules of at least touching. It's not in another community, county or you know uh it has to be in an um where do where do they have to be in order to annex? How do

Okay, in order to annex into a city, you have to either you have to be touching a something and it can be just a corner. It could be corner to corner, but as long as you're touching, then you can request to be annexed into a city. So that you can be annexed by a legislative act, but that's a whole different ball game. And and and we've we're not that's not something that we're looking at doing or or talking about even. So, but the main way to annex is to to Titi. Um, and when we grow, I think that was your other part of your question, growing. So, um, that would be um really subdivisions coming into the community. um making sure that um that we have the services where we can serve the the subdivisions that do come into to Good Hope because there are when you do growth like that, you know, and you're putting in septic tanks, there's only so much septic that you can put on a piece of property. So, you have to make sure if that doesn't occur, can your sewer system get to them? You know, is it feasible to run it to those houses and that kind of thing.

Okay, thank you for that. We'll move on to the final question. Question number 10, future vision. In your view, what should good hope look like 10 years from now? And what policies would you support to move toward that vision? 10 years from now. So, you're asking for a wand wave. So, um, if you had to look 10 years in the future, what would you want to see?

There are some there are some businesses that I would like to see. I'd love to see a grocery store in Good Hope. I think that's something that we are dire in dire need of. You know, we have a great little Dollar General like a lot of different communities, but I would love to see us have a full service grocery store there. Um, I would love to see us, and that's some of the things I want to see is things that we're continuing to do. I'd love to see us continue to support our schools because I think if you have a good school, then you're going to have a good community because people want to be where those good schools are. And um with the alcohol tax, that's allowed us to give back to our community. We give probably 30 $50,000 at least a year to our school systems. We have um we have some direct um donations that we give to them. And another one that we've seen come in is we've actually created a a $15,000 grant program. And the teachers actually apply for these funds. And those funds have been used to do things such as we've helped the band with their uniforms. We've helped the football or we've helped all the athletes with um a weight room. And then um and we've even bought things like one teacher asked us for $82 for art supplies, you know, and I think art is is another very important thing for our students. So, so we want to be able to continue supporting our school and making it better and uh making sure that the infrastructure to get to and from those schools because I think every school has that issue is is getting to the schools and from the schools in the morning and and I think that's something that we need to work on and see if we can make that better in 10 years. We'd have a perfectly flowing system that would allow drop off mothers and dads to drop off their kids at all those schools and and get to work, you know. So, um, so there's a few retail things that I would love to see and I think, um, those retailers are moving south on Cherokee

and the next place they're going to go is Good Hope and I'm very excited about that. Thank you for answering that these questions today during this question and answer forum. We are finished with a Q&A portion and so now it is time for your closing statement. You have 90 seconds.

Okay. So, um, thank you Noah for the opportunity to be here today. I appreciate you doing this and Dr. Carwicks for giving us the the facility to be here today. Um, first thing I just want to say, I live in Good Hope, but Good Hope formed me. Good Hope is where my grandparents lived and raised their family. Good Hope is where my parents lived and raised our family. And Good Hope is where we live and are raising our family. and that has um become the Susan that I am today. Um I think leadership is very important in our community. Um leadership is listening to your citizens, seeing what they need. I think leadership is asking questions. I think questions are very important. Asking the right questions and sometimes asking the hard questions because sometimes people don't want to hear those hard questions. And I think that leadership is ensuring that our community is the best good hope that it can be. I want to continue progressing with some of the things that we've um have have um completed over the not completed but seen occur during my time there. I want to continue supporting our schools, our educators, and our students because I think that's very important because I think there's limited monies that come down from the school boards. And I know that it's it's great for the things that we've got to u give to them to make them their classes a little more fun. And then also want to see that our businesses continue to thrive. And like I said, I'd like to see a few more businesses locate in Good Hope. And I would like that our um our citizens have the good hope that they deserve because they've chose that to be home. And last but not least, uh it's been an honor and a and a pleasure to serve on the Good Hope City Council for several years. And hopefully after listening to to me today, you will also feel like I'm the best candidate for Good Hope City Council place number three. Um, I'm here

to keep working for Good Hope and I want to make good hope the best it can be for our citizens. Thank you so much for those closing remarks. And with that, we are finished with today's debate. Next, we have the debate between the Good Hope mayor oral candidates. That is coming up shortly. Um, I want to thank uh Susan Eller for coming in today and uh answering our questions. I know coming up on stage and having to deal with a reporter is not always the funnest thing to do. It's easier when you're sitting in my office

and but I want to thank you for coming. I want to thank everybody in the crowd who showed up today. I want to thank everybody who's watching at home and just remember to get out and vote. Thank you and we'll be back shortly.