PHOTO: The city council discussing "demand charges" on electric bills with Public Works Director Tim Williams. (Tyler Pruett | Southern Torch)
By Tyler Pruett, Managing Editor
FORT PAYNE, Ala. — (Video at the Bottom) In the Tuesday, June 5th meeting of the Fort Payne City Council, the meeting was opened by a prayer by Otis Washington.
After approving the minutes from the last meeting, the council then opened up the meeting to public comments on the approval of an alcohol license for the new Applebee's and the renewal of the license for Toke Sushi. After no public comments, the council approved the license for Applebee's.
When it came to the license for Toke, Fire Marshall Ron Saferite notified the council the building wasn't fully up to code.
"During the process of Ron's routine inspection, he discovered that their cooking hood and suppression system wasn't malfunctioning, it just had not been updated. So I just recommend that we conditionally approve this license, and I will not send an approval letter to the state until they do what Mr. Saferite requires," said City Clerk Andy Parker.
The council voted to conditionally approve the permit. After the license hearing, the council approved an amendment to the logging ordinance.
"In addition to the $50 permit fee require a deposit of $5000.00 to cover the cost of the city hiring a forester. If that money is not used in it's entirety, the unused funds will be used to refund the logger," explained Parker.
The council then voted to suspend the rules and approved the amendment to the logging ordinance.
The council then discussed and approved Ordinance 2017-10, establishing a two way stop at the intersection of Quail Hollow Road and Quail Hollow Drive.
Councilman Wade Hill explained that there is only one stop sign currently, and, "it's become quite an issue there, people going out quail hollow road that turn into quail hollow, but people are coming out, and if everyone has to stop there then it lessens the likelihood that someone's going to get hit head on."
The council then accepted the high bid of Alvin Scott Wooddall for $12,646.42 for the Public Works department's surplussed bulldozer. Danny Wagner also submitted a bid of $12,100.00. Councilman Red Taylor abstained from the vote as he had a family member that had submitted a bid.
Next, the council approved Resolution 2017-30, replacing Resolution 2013-08, regarding the establishment of rules for overtime pay, holiday pay, etc. This resolution attempts to solve a problem regarding overtime pay with city employees, mainly the police department, whose pay schedule didn't line-up with their pay period.
Parker explained that the police department had recently changed to a two week work schedule, and had changed their days on/days off to coincide with the work period. The vacation penalty has been removed, meaning if an employee is on vacation, and they come in to work, they will now receive overtime pay. The resolution also re-established the 5 week vacation period for employees of 25 years of service or more. The cashed out value will now correspond with the value awarded for vacation. The measure also removes the requirement for, "time worked" to receive overtime pay.
"I'd like to congratulate the guys in the police department for bearing with us on this. It's been an issue, that's turned into a real issue with the accounting up here, trying to get the new software going, and trying to have this 3 week pay cycle when you have a two week pay period," explained Hill.
"There was a lot of thought and work that went into to putting this together. Trying to make sure it's the best fit for our city and our employees. We wanna take care of our employees," added Council President Brian Baine.
"It's only right for a person that works overtime in a given two week period that they be compensated for it, and as far as the fifth week of vacation, as far I understand it's only going to affect two employees at the police department, so it doesn't effect a lot of people city wide, but it's a good incentive for a person to stay on if they are a valuable employee," said Taylor.
Other items addressed at the council meeting:
- Authorized an agreement with ALDOT for a resurfacing project in the sewer rehab area on Forest Ave, Alabama Ave, and Grant.
- Approved an appropriation for $1000 to the Fort Payne High School Fishing team to help off-set tournament costs. The team has several anglers going to the World Finals soon.
- Hired Tim Chesnut as the city's forester to inspect logging operations to ensure compliance with the logging ordinance.
- Notified the public of reimbursements of $138,428.30 for Traffic Light Labor and Benefits and a $54,725.00 reimbursement for equipment.
- Approved a 2 year lease of the small building located at 509 Gault Avenue North, adjacent to the Mapco Station at 5th Street and Gault Avenue North.
- Approved a "Polices and Procedures" Amendment at the request of the Alabama Department of Public Examiners
- Discussed a settlement of $10,603.22 to the Fort Payne Improvement Authority for lights at the little league baseball field. A meter had not been functioning properly, and the Improvement Authority assessed a charge to the city. The council also discussed renegotiating the demand fee. The council would approve the settlement.
- Discussed a question that arose about serving alcohol at the Coal and Iron Building. Recently, alcohol was mistakenly served after a "miscommunication" at an event where High School students were serving the food, and organizers reportedly had been asked not to by the school. The council and mayor discussed guidelines for the future to prevent the bar being opened in the building when it's not appropriate.
Mayor's Report:
- Phase II of the EPA Study of the needed cleanup of the old hospital building should be completed next week. The city should know the results of the study by July or August.
- The city will meet with the Mapco CEO regarding the fuel station on Gault Avenue this Wednesday.
- Despite the Rue 21 closing in Scottsboro, the city had been notified that the location in Fort Payne had no plans to close
- The Mayor reported that the "Fiddler's Convention" was well attended, but few from the city came out for the event.
- The city had fought the "out of town delivery license bill" that was recently passed in Montgomery. The mayor stated that it was, "ridiculous in my stand point. A $10 penalty doesn't stop anyone from doing anything." The new bill sets the penalty as $10 for those who do not obtain a business license for shipping goods from Fort Payne to there locations. This pertains to businesses who ship more than $7500 worth of goods out of the city limits; leaving little motivation for those businesses to obtain a license.
- The Mayor also discussed obtaining lock boxes for the city's buildings to keep a key in the event of an alarm. Recently, when a fire alarm went off the key to a building had been misplaced.
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