City Council - Regular Meeting

It's a little past six o'clock, so we will call this September 15th, 2026 meeting of Andalusia City Council to order. If you will stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and the prayer.

Attention.

Salute. Pledge. would bow your head with me. Gracious Heavenly Father, we come to you with grateful hearts tonight. We ask that you give us wisdom as we try to do the right thing for our community and our citizens. We ask that you put wisdom in our minds and love in our heart. These things we ask in Christ's name. Amen.

Amen.

Okay, I'd like to welcome everyone. Rarely we have a vacancy At our meetings, but tonight we have two two of our council members were unable to be here for one reason or another But we do have a quorum to do business. So we will move forward with our Business session tonight want to welcome everyone here and remind everyone that we meet on the first and third Tuesdays of each month with the workshop starting at 530 upstairs in the workshop room and and the actual meeting starting here at 6 or as close to 6 as we can get it for the actual business session of the council. Our first item of business tonight is to consider approval of the minutes of our meeting held September 1, 2026. Do we have a motion to approve those minutes?

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as presented on September 1, 20, 26, meeting.

All right, we have a motion to approve the minutes by Mr. Mount. Do we have a second?

Mr. Mayor, I second that.

Second by Mr. Boswell. Is there any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council concerning those minutes? Hearing none, all in favor of approval of the minutes, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed by the same sign? And the minutes are approved. Thank you for that. Next item of business is resolution 21, 2026-25, a resolution abating property at 605 East Three Notch Street. I'm going to ask the council to approve that we go into an open session. And to do that, I think we've got to call the roll, yes or no. This is an open public session. So Mr. Clerk, would you call the roll?

Mayor Johnson?

Yes.

Mr. Nix?

Yes.

Mr. Mount?

Yes.

Mr. Boswell?

Yes. Okay, the meeting is now an open meeting, but I'm going to call on our legal counsel to come forward and walk us through this process of resolution number 2026-25.

which our ordinance requires me to record. I'm going to deal with both of these properties. They have the same owner, although she owns it jointly with, one of them is jointly owned with another person. But these were recorded at the probate office, putting it on record as public record in the property records there. It was also sent by certified mail to all the people having interests in the property. It was received by everybody. The property owners did not sign for their certified mail, and it was returned to me. However, we also ran a notice that was the same wording as this lease pendants in the newspaper once a week for four weeks, actually. So that satisfies the requirements that should be notified.

Let me make sure I understand that. The registered mail that you sent was not...

It was sent back. She did not sign for it. The owner that you sent it to.

But then you published it for four weeks.

Which is actually more than what our ordinance requires. The newspaper did it that way.

So the requirement of giving notice to the owner has been satisfied by the publication of that notice in the local paper, is that correct?

That's correct.

All right, thank you.

Okay, and I'm going to call on Richard Moore to come and we'll deal with the properties First, with the 605 East Three Notch Street, I'm going to ask him to describe the condition of that, and then we'll move on to the 612 South Three Notch Street. And since they're a common owner, it seems more efficient to me to deal with them both here. All right. Richard? Okay. Richard, can you tell us about the 605 East Three Notch Street?

605 East Three Notch Street has... major damage on the east side of the building. The roof is collapsed in, into a part of a room right there or into the room. The wall, exterior walls are gone on those two sides of that room. The floor is collapsed through where all the rain and different weather intrusions happened. So, The condition of this house has just opened up to where the weather is just continually tearing it apart from the roof all the way through. So it started off with limbs going through the roof and it just continued. It's had no effects or no repairs to try to affect any change in that.

And would it even be possible to repair it?

The repairs would be a complete demo. In my opinion, you have to tear out so much to even repair. So I would not consider a repair viable on this house. In my opinion, it would be a demolition.

Is it a danger?

With it being open to the weather and the elements, kids or people with, you know, just trying to get in and do something harm, it is open and causing an attractive nuisance all the way through.

That one is very similar in the same way as the one on East Three Notch

It has limbs that you can see through the roof on South Three Notch going towards the hospital. It's on the front and the back of the house. It has an addition that's collapsed on the roof and the flooring also. So it's very similar in the states.

Similar and not be possible to repair it?

Same thing. It's, it's too far gone. There's way too much that you'd have to do and in my opinion it would not be a candidate for trying to repair. It'd be just too massive of an undertaking. It's, you don't want to walk in that place. It's like the other one. It'll collapse on you and people can get into it and it is an attractive nuisance for People coming in or animals coming in, either one.

Anybody have a question for Richard? Thank you, Richard. You're welcome. Is there anyone here representing the owners of these properties that's just been described? Is anyone here to speak for them on their behalf? Let the record show that no one has identified themselves as representing the owners of the property. Okay, council, you have heard the description and the explanation of our city attorney. So ordinance number 2026-05 is the property on East Three Knot Street, is that correct?

It's 2026-25 resolution. I think you skipped one on the agenda.

Yeah.

But that's the 605 East 3 Notch.

All right.

That's the one right down here.

It's one on East 3 Notch Street looking to the north. I understand north side of the street. Yeah. All right. Do we have a motion to adopt the resolutions?

Mayor, I'll make a motion that we approve resolution number 2026-25, the property on 605 East 3 Knot Street.

All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Mr. Mayor, I'll second that. All right. Any further discussion, question, or comments concerning resolution 2625? Hearing none, all in favor of approval of the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed by the same sign? And that resolution is adopted. Now the next resolution is resolution 2026-26 concerning the property that was described at 612 South 3 Notch Street. Do we have a motion to approve that resolution?

Mr. Mayor, I move for approval of resolution number 2026-26 with regard to the property at 612 South Cotton Street as has been explained by our attorney.

All right. I have a motion by Mr. Nix. Do we have a second?

I second that.

Second by Mr. Boswell. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none, all in favor of approval of the resolution 2026-26, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the same sign, and that is approved, and I thank you of that. I skipped ordinance number, inadvertently skipped ordinance number 2026-05, amending the garbage trash collection and landfill fees. We had a request from one of our council members for us to pass that over to the next meeting because of his failure, his inability to attend tonight. So if there's a favor to him, we're going to pass that over to our next council meeting. But this will count as the second reading of this ordinance, even though we won't take it up until the next meeting. Okay, the also skipped the 2025 audit report, financial report, approval of that, acceptance and approval of that. Do we have a motion? to approve the 2025 audit financial report that was presented to the council at our last council meeting by our auditors.

Mr. Mayor, I make that motion.

All right, we have a motion to approve the audit. Do we have a second?

I second that motion, Mr. Mayor.

Seconded by Mr. Nix. Any further discussion, questions, or comments concerning the audit from the council? Hearing none, all in favor of approval and acceptance of the 2025 audit financial report, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? No. And that is approved, and I thank you for that. The next item is appointment of Board of Adjustments Committee Member Meeting Committee Appointment. And I'm going to recommend that we appoint Cole Sightler, who is Director of our Public Works Department. knows all about everything that's going on all around the city by nature of his position with the city and would make, I think, a very valuable member of that committee. So I recommend that we appoint Cole Sightler to that committee.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve Cole Sightler for the Board of Adjustments.

All right, Board of Adjustments. All right. Do we have a second? I second that motion. Seconded by Mr. Nix. Any further discussion, questions, comments? Hearing none, all in favor of the appointment of Cole Sightler to the Board of Zoning Adjustments, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, no. And that is approved. Next item is Resolution Number 2026-07, excuse me, 2026-27 It's the East Three Knot Street Rehabilitation Project. We went out for bids for that project. This will be for work on East Three Knot Street, beginning there at the intersection of Third Avenue and coming towards the square. And it will be done by the city. Previous work has previously been almost, it's not quite completed yet. It's from that location back out towards the bypass on East Three Knot Street and then down Stanley Avenue. That work was done by the state of Alabama. That's a state highway, so they completed that work. We had nothing to do with that. That was a state project. They still lack a little bit, a few little spots being finished with that, and I think next week or the week after they're going to be here to do that. the completion. But this will be work that will be done along East 3 9th Street from 3rd Avenue and Stanley Street all the way to Court Square. The money for this project was contained in the bond issue that we did a couple years ago and it's been there waiting for this project to come forward. We went out for bids on this a couple, three weeks ago. within the time requirements by the law, but we only had one response to the requirements, excuse me, for the bond. I'll get it right in a minute. We only had one bid that came in after the request for bids, and that was from the Freenauts Group, and the amount of the bid was $498,000, and 70 cents, 498,070 cents. Is that correct, Mr. Clerk? Yes, sir. All right. Again, that was the low bid, and it was also the only bid, but it was a very good bid. Quite frankly, we expected probably a higher bid than that. So we're very happy with that, and we would like for y'all to go ahead and approve that, accept it, accept the bid again. the low bid on this project, and we will get that work started after homecoming, Andalusian High School homecoming, which I think is in a couple of weeks. Get started working on that. There will be some grinding that has to be done, and then some checking of the underpin of the asphalt, and then that will be attended to as needed. And then the asphalt will be placed on the top, of course, for travel. So I would recommend to you that we approve resolution number 2026-27, East 3 Notch Street Rehabilitation Project.

Mr. Mayor, I move for approval of resolution number 26-27, authorizing the East 3 Notch street rehabilitation project and accepting the low bid of 498,070 cents with the proceeds coming from the series A bond issue to facilitate this project.

And let me repeat as part of the motion, if that's okay, Mr. Nix, that the low bidder was Three Notch Group, which is a firm here in Andalusia. All right, do we have a second?

Mr. Mayor, I'll second that.

All right. Any further discussion, questions, or comments from the council? Hearing none, all in favor of the resolution, please indicate by raising your right hand and saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, the same sign. Hearing none, the resolution is adopted. That is all of the actual business that we have to take care of tonight. I should have been a little clearer about Three Notch Group is the engineering group that is hired by, is on our, we selected them to be the engineers on this project. The actual winner of the bid, as far as the work is concerned, is from Wiregrass, let me get there, Wiregrass Construction Company, INC. Did I get that correct? Yes, that's correct. Thank you. All right. Remind everyone that Thursday morning at 10 o'clock there will be an unveiling of an interesting article, artifact, I don't know what you want to call it, but it's a small helicopter that was designed by a gentleman here in Andalusia back in the 1930s by the name of Jess Dixon. And we've had a person that's come in that had a real interest in that writing a book about that event or those events about Mr. Dixon. And he wanted to put a model of that helicopter in our park. And that has been done in Thursday morning at 10 o'clock. at our park, it will be unveiled and open for the public to see for the first time. So everybody's invited 10 o'clock Thursday morning, come in and take a look at our new new event. There will be a new article that will be in our new park.

Okay, is there anything else to come before the council?

Hearing nothing, we will stand adjourned.