FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The final meeting of the City Council before Tuesday’s municipal elections took a dramatic turn before adjourning Monday night.

At the close of regular business, the council met in executive session to discuss a letter faxed earlier that day from the Alabama Department of Transportation to the city regarding the median construction project that blocked access from the northbound lane on Greeno Road to Green Nurseries and Landscape Design Inc.

That closing of access has become a contentious issue between the business and the city, with the business owners hiring an attorney to represent them in the controversy.

“We (made) a previous offer to settle this matter, and we have not had a response to that offer,” said City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne, after the council returned to open session. “The council has put a 48-hour time limit on that offer.”

Wynne said the time period for accepting the offer would start at 9 a.m. Tuesday and end 9 a.m. Thursday.

Neither Wynne, nor the business owners, Bobby and Debra Green, who attended the meeting that night, would comment on the terms of the offer. The Greens’ attorney, James Sweet of Daphne, did not return a call for comment by press time Tuesday.

Prior to the executive session, Councilman Cecil Christenberry, who requested the closed session to discuss the issue, sought to read the ALDOT letter aloud but refrained after Wynne said the letter involved a private matter between the city and the Greens.

After the closed meeting, Wynne said the letter was an open record and could be released to the public.

“I have been monitoring, with concern, negotiations with the owner of Green Nursery to provide adequate and satisfactory access as part of the City of Fairhope US 98 project,” wrote ALDOT Transportation Director D.J. McInnes in the Aug. 25 letter addressed to Mayor Tim Kant and the City Council members. “I have instructed our Ninth Division Engineer, Mr. Vince Calametti, to become involved and seek an expeditious resolution to this impasse. I am personally asking this issue be resolved immediately and to the satisfaction of Mr. Calametti and ALDOT. Without an expeditious resolution that will provide adequate access for this business, I will take steps to halt this project and freeze the funds dedicated to this project. This problem involves a serious safety issue and safety is paramount in all our work.”

The median construction project on Greeno Road, involving approximately $1 million in federal funds, was halted by the council on July 14 to address concerns raised by the Greens and then started again on July 28.

During the July 14 council meeting, a representative from Volkert Engineering, the project’s engineering firm, stated that any modification of the project would not be approved by ALDOT, and that any change could result in eliminating a large part of the project.

The Monday letter from ALDOT seemed to take a position directly opposite that statement by the firm the city awarded the contract to direct construction of the project.

When the council decided to restart the project and block access from Greeno Road to the nursery, it also decided to provide an alternative access to the property from Hoyle Avenue that intersects Greeno Road next to the nursery property.

That alternative ran into roadblocks of its own when the city decided it could not also make improvements on the nursery property itself. The issue of what the city will and will not do regarding providing alternative access to the nursery property is central to the negotiations between the city and their attorney, Bobby Green said Tuesday night while the council met in executive session.

“It’s real inconvenient, but we can live with it,” said Green, referring to an alternative route to the nursery business from Hoyle Avenue. “We just want an access to our business for large vehicles.”

Mayor Tim Kant, who has often been on the receiving end of the Green’s criticism for how the Greeno Road median issue has been handled, was absent from Monday’s council meeting.

In other business, the council:

•Authorized the city’s Planning Department to apply for a $100,000 grant with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs to help fund the acquisition of a .36-acre access at the corner of Scenic Highway 98 and Nelson Road to build a city park there called “Sweetwater Park,” named after the nearby Sweetwater Branch. “The city would like to return this site to a green space that contains an edible fruit and herb orchard and a pitcher plant bog,” the draft grant proposal states. “(The park would) provide an education and public outreach tool for general public to respect our natural resources. Pitcher plant bogs occur naturally in the Baldwin County area.”

•Heard a financial report from Rose Fogarty, city financial reporting manager, who stated that she learned Monday that the city could receive approximately $1.5 million in property taxes by the end of the week. Those taxes have been in dispute during appeals of property tax appraisals and caused a shortfall in cash in the general fund this year, she said.