Structure central to councilman’s ire moves along in demolition process

Two weeks after a Mobile City Councilman complained about a blighted property in a neighborhood he represents, the city is moving to take steps to demolish it.

After the City Council voted to declare the structure a nuisance, Councilman John Williams thanked the administration for moving forward in the process to tear down a home at 1268 Belle Chene Drive, following a public hearing in which no one spoke for or against it being declared a nuisance.

District 4 Mobile City Councilman John Williams.

During a pre-conference meeting on Nov. 24, Williams complained that the administration hadn’t declared the property a nuisance, despite parts of the structure falling in on itself.

At the time, Deputy Director of Property Maintenance David Daughenbaugh said the structure was in still being worked through the process and an emergency order couldn’t be made because it wasn’t in bad enough shape.

Daughenbaugh said the property was halfway through a 45-day process and predicted correctly that the property would be up for a vote in a month or less.

Williams said he favored a “midnight bulldozer” approach that would identify the structures in the worst shape and tear them down first.

Mobile Family Tennis Festival

David Calametti, a co-founder of Gulf Coast Team Tennis LLC, spoke to the council about the upcoming Mobile Family Tennis Festival and Mylan World Team Tennis Tournament at the Copeland-Cox Mobile Tennis Center this weekend.

The event starts Friday at 5:30 p.m. with a tennis open house that will serve as an introduction of the facility to residents, regardless of skill level. There will also be tennis professionals giving clinics and mixed play throughout the event.

The tournament itself begins Saturday at 8 a.m. and will feature 120 players on 17 competing teams. Calametti said the organization hopes to expand the event to the regional level, which he suggested would help prop up the local tourism industry during what is a traditionally slow period.

In other business

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson announced MPD officer Johnny Duval as the Mobile Police Department’s Officer of the Month in November 2015. This month alone, Duval responded to 101 calls for service and booked eight felony and 26 misdemeanor arrests.

The council also appointed Nancy Robinson to the Public Transit Advisory Committee and re-appointed Derek Atchison to the History Museum of Mobile’s board.

This is a corrected version of a story that printed in this week’s issue of Lagniappe.