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That changed Monday when a new table at floor level had been added to council chambers.
“I read the article in (the Fairhope Courier) and the comments (in the story) and decided it made sense to be sitting here,” Mayor Tim Kant said after Monday’s meeting, pointing to the table where he sat during the meeting, next to Assistant City Clerk Lisa Hanks and City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne. “I thought it would be less confusing to the public this way. It is the council that makes policy for the city.”
The story in Saturday’s newspaper reported that a law professor stated that Alabama law regarding the city’s new strong-council system required a new seating arrangement.
By state statute, when a city reaches a population of 12,000 or more, at the next election, “there shall be elected a mayor, who ... shall not sit with the council nor have a vote in its proceedings.”
David Hricik, who teaches at Mercer University School of Law, said that language means a mayor should not physically sit with the council.
“While it’s not perfectly clear, it seems to me that on its face, the statute does not permit the mayor to vote or sit on the dais with the council,” said Hricik, who wrote a 2006 textbook on statutory construction and maintains an Internet blog on the subject.
The Saturday article also reported that two nearby cities also have seating arrangements where the mayor sits apart from the council. In Mobile and Daphne, the council sits at a dais and the mayor, city clerk and city attorney sit at different tables.
Daphne also changed to strong council-weak mayor system with the 2004 elections, based on the 2000 census.
“At that time (the mayor) had to come off the council,” Daphne City Clerk David Cohen said in the April 12 edition of the Fairhope Courier. “The mayor should attend all council meetings, but the council should sit as a body by themselves. The mayor and clerk should sit to the side.”
Cohen did not state that the Alabama statute compelled a new seating arrangement, only that was how Daphne did it. An attorney with the Alabama League of Municipalities was also quoted in the article. He said he did not believe the statute prohibited a mayor from sitting with a council in cities with a strong council-weak mayor.
“Different cities do it different ways,” said Ken Smith, ALM general counsel and deputy director. “It would be up to the council to make a decision about that.”
As the mayor and council members filed in for Monday’s meeting, some council members were surprised at the new arrangement.
“I did not know about it until that time, ” Councilman Cecil Christenberry said Tuesday. “I am very proud for the mayor that he did this, and I’m glad that there was no confrontation over it. Several council members had discussed that this needed to be done. It was a wise move.”
In other business, the City Council:
• Requested city attorney Wynne to draft language for a new city policy regarding the public availability of “council packets” prior to council meetings. Until the policy is changed, the public and media only has access to the documents in those packets or notebooks used by council members during council meetings, after the meeting is adjourned. Councilwoman Debbie Quinn said Assistant City Clerk Hanks had prepared a report on how other cities handled those documents. Wynne was asked to research whether letters by the public addressed to council members were public records and should be released with the packets prior to council meetings under the new policy.
The council did not indicate if, or when, it would take any action on the change in the overall public records policy made verbally by Kant in late February. That change resulted in a reduction in the costs of copying public records, but the change is not yet reflected in writing in any official document of the city. The old policy remains on its public information request form and on the city Web site;
• Discussed the need for a city strategic plan as recommended by a report presented to the council in October. Chuck Zunk, chairman of the committee that prepared the report, was charged with presenting a plan to the council on how the city might conduct a strategic planning process. The council decided it would set a deadline for that initial report’s presentation, possibly at its next meeting;
• Authorized the mayor to sign the Municipal Water Pollution Prevention Program Report for 2007. A copy of that report was included in the council packet;
• Appointed Savan W. Wilson to a vacant position on the city personnel board;
• Appointed the members of the new advisory board to the Fairhope Museum of History;
• Delayed voting on the request to rezone the property of Herbert and Ruth Pierce from B-4 Office and Professional District to B-3b Tourist Resort Commercial Service District. The property is located on the east side of Greeno Road, just north of Twin Beech Road. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommended denial of the request in an earlier meeting. The council is required to vote on the request at its next meeting.
The council’s next regular meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m., Monday, April 28.