Author: Jane Nicholes

Mayor Karin Wilson and the Fairhope City Council on Monday night proved they can play nicely together. After months of increasingly contentious and divisive interaction that had citizens demanding the council and mayor figure out how to get along and work together, at least some of them agreed to try. On Saturday, Wilson invited City Council President Jack Burrell to lunch. Later, she had dinner with Councilman Jimmy Conyers and their respective spouses. While Conyers said they talked of everything but politics over dinner, Burrell said he and Wilson talked politics among a number of other subjects. Both councilmen thanked Wilson for the invitation. “We’ve got better things to do than have a lot of arguments,” Burrell said. A photo taken of the pair that appeared on Wilson’s Facebook page was not staged but simply taken by someone sitting near their table, he said. But while the change in tone made for a smoother, faster meeting Monday, it was not without controversy. The council approved $32,510.97 in payments to Walcott, Adams, Verneuille Architects for exterior repairs and maintenance on the Fairhope Public Library, although no paperwork could be found showing the work had been authorized. The work took place during the administration former of Mayor Tim Kant. The city received bills for the work, but current city staffers could not find evidence of a contract or any other form...

As the state of Alabama kicks off its bicentennial celebration, up the road and back in the woods archaeology work quietly continues into a much older piece of Deep South history — the original site of Mobile. Students at the University of South Alabama and volunteers work in a clearing on squared-off dirt slab that was once a house. A larger one-time house site is nearby, covered in heavy black plastic to keep it clear and protected from weather. Anyone idealizing archaeology as a glamorous undertaking has watched too many Indiana Jones movies. The people working on the house are literally scraping away the hard-packed dirt with handheld tools, hoping to find scraps of whatever the earliest settlers brought with them from France in 1702 and left behind in 1711, when they headed downriver to a place that didn’t flood so easily. Once known as La Mobile and nominally protected by Fort Louis de La Louisiane, today the site on the western bank of the Mobile River is known as the Old Mobile historic site. It sits on property that also is home to a DuPont agricultural chemical plant. Regular access is restricted to Gregory Waselkov and his crew; Waselkov is director of the Center for Archaeological Studies. But occasionally a busload of visitors is allowed onto the property to tour the site. A recent tour group was arranged...

After many weeks of rhetoric and number crunching, here’s where things stand in Fairhope. The 2016-2017 budget is passed, about six months after it should have gone into effect. The hiring freeze put in place by the City Council is lifted. Mayor Karin Wilson says she’ll “likely” have to cut city services because the council’s hiring freeze left her short-staffed. Councilman Jay Anderson talked to the League of Municipalities and was told Wilson can’t do that without council approval. The new job created for Sherry-Lea Bloodworth Botop, Wilson’s most high-profile hire since taking office, has been eliminated. So has her department of community and economic development. Employees who have been with the city a year or more will receive 2 percent raises. That’s another defeat for Wilson, who wanted to give no raises this year while she implements a merit pay system. “I received a hard copy of council’s changes to my proposed budget on Thursday,” Wilson said. She provided copies at Monday’s council meeting and asked how council members could have done so much work in detail without consulting her. As for the elimination of Botop’s position, she said, “It’s not council’s role to determine the positions needed to run a city.” Botop herself was reported to be out of town at the time on city business. Council members said they all had experience in preparing budgets for...