HANCEVILLE, Ala. – At Hanceville City Council’s meeting Thursday evening, the council appointed Leigh Ann Courington, professor at Wallace State, to place three on the Hanceville Water and Sewer Board for a six-year term.
Tim Brigum was reappointed to the Zoning Board of Adjustments for a three-year term.
The council considered the installation of a new security system at the city hall. The company Stream South Communications of Oneonta would install the alarm from vendor alarm.com. The company has installed security equipment at the City of Oneonta, the City of Snead, the City of Arab’s parks and other municipalities.
The security system would have card readers on doors to grant access. The front door would not be equipped with a card reader to give public access. There is an optional fee of $2,000 – $4,000 for a yearly service contract; however, the council could choose to pay the $100/hour rate for a technician to diagnose and fix any issue that may arise. The council chose to table this proposal and examine it again at the next meeting.
The council granted the request of Willow Brook Boutique to waive the vendor fees for an arts and crafts festival to be held at the civic center on April 9. This will be a first-time festival which will have 23 vendors.
The mayor brought up the topic of damage being done at the Veterans Park. He reported an estimated $1000 worth of damage. He said, “I’m about fed up with this” and discussed a proposition from police chief Bob Long, who said, “He recommends that we pass an ordinance not to allow juveniles in the park unaccompanied after dark.” The mayor also recommended creating an ordinance to hold the parents or guardians responsible for damages done by juveniles.
There is currently a curfew of 11:00 p.m. set in Hanceville; however, Chief Long said he would like to have an ordinance created that states that from sunset to sunrise, juveniles should not be unaccompanied by an adult in the park. City Attorney Dan Willingham says there is an existing statute, 6-5-380, that hold parents and guardians liable for damages up to $1000, so the council would only need to make an ordinance to prevent children from entering the park after dark.
The mayor said that he did not want to close the park entirely after dark because, “We got folks who get off at 11:00 p.m. at night and they go walking, they use the exercise machine. We got people that get up and can’t sleep during the night – 4:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. in the morning, they are down there walking. That’s not the people utilizing it that we want to penalize.” The council did not create a new ordinance at the meeting, but plan to discuss the issue further.
The city does plan to install cameras at the park. Mayor Nail said it was a shame to have to put up any cameras. Some of the recent damage done is to the globes on top on the lampposts. The mayor said, “We have probably replaced five of six of them in the last seven or eight months, and those things are anywhere between $200 and $400 apiece.”
In old business:
- The council adopted the ordinance allowing the rezoning of statewide sales.
- An ordinance was also passed to allow property zoning for DB Technologies.
- Chief Bob Long reported seven motor vehicle accidents last month, a total of 59 arrests, 12 incident reports, 234 citations, four felonies and 19 misdemeanors.
- Fire Department Chief Rodger Green reported 1276 calls last year. 1055 of the calls were medical, 221 were fire related. The department has six new volunteers since last year.
The next council meeting will be on January 27 at 5:30 p.m. at the Hanceville City Hall. The next work session will be at 5:00 p.m.
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