FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The City Council approved salary hikes for mayor and council members during a contentious meeting Monday that included a discussion about whether the mayor and utilities director positions should be separated.

“I’d like to make a motion that we leave everything the same,” said Councilman Mike Ford, who was the only council member to vote against the salary increases. His motion failed for lack of a second.

The mayor’s salary was increased from $16,000 to $50,000 a year, with possible continuing education bonuses totaling $10,000.

Council member salaries were increased from $6,000 to $7,200 with possible continuing education bonuses totaling $1,000. The council president’s salary was increased from $6,600 to $9,000 with continuing education bonuses totaling $1,000.

The council left in place the mayor’s $77,233 annual salary as director of utilities. The mayor serves in that job at the discretion of the City Council, Council President Bob Gentle said.

A committee report presented to the council in October recommended separating the positions of mayor and director of utilities.

“The mayor’s job is a full-time job,” Gentle said. “Let’s call the mayor’s job what it is and not camouflage it.”

Gentle said the new council elected in August could take up the issue of separating those positions. He announced that he was not running for council again in August, and he was not running for mayor either.

“I’m not running for anything,” he said. “I’m retiring.”

The salary increases were accomplished through a complicated method involving an amendment to an ordinance that was introduced at the Jan. 28 meeting, but also required several procedural votes prior to the actual vote on the salary increases.

Councilman Cecil Christenberry’s first motion to increase the salary of mayor to $60,000 failed. It was Councilwoman Debbie Quinn’s motion to raise salaries that eventually prevailed.

Several times during the meeting Ford spoke against the measure, and several times Gentle interrupted him, stating one time, “We heard you, let’s move on.”

The salary increases will become effective in November after the new mayor and council are elected in August.

“You don’t want to have to spend money to (work) up here,” Quinn said before the vote to increase salaries. “It takes a lot of time to do this job if you want to do it right.”

In other business, the City Council:

• Heard from Mayor Tim Kant about a recent Standard & Poor’s rating of the city’s utility revenue bonds or warrants sold over the years to finance construction projects. “I’m proud to say we’re reaffirmed at an A+ rating,” Kant said. “We didn’t ask for this. This is (due to) dedicated managers who keep this city financially sound.

The credit profile report on Fairhope’s utility revenue bonds by Standard & Poor’s states that: “The (A+) rating continues to reflect: the city’s continued strong financial performance, characterized by healthy annual debt service coverage, sound liquidity, a regular passthrough of commodity costs to the city’s retail base, and moderate system indebtedness; the city’s role as the sole distributor of electricity to its affluent, mostly residential, service area in a state with no active retail or wholesale market restructuring efforts; and the system’s adequate capacity and competitive rates for its natural gas, water and sewer utilities, coupled with manageable capital needs.”

The report also stated that “the substantial pay-as-you-go efforts have enabled the city to keep the indebtedness of the system relatively modest; similar overall financial results are anticipated for 2007. Officials do not currently plan to issue additional debt in the near future.”

Later in the meeting, Councilman Dan Stankoski said the report was not all positive and pointed to the following sentence in the report: “The city’s substantial dependence on utility system transfers to support the general fund offsets these strengths.” The report summarized its analysis with the following statement: “The stable outlook reflects Standard & Poor’s expectation that the utility’s strong financial position and healthy debt service coverage levels will be maintained despite the large amount of transfers of utility funds into the general fund.”

• Heard an update on construction of the Fairhope Skate Park from Eddie Boyette, director of parks and recreation. He said the city had received a number of bids for the project to be built at Volanta Municipal Park and recommended the low bid. The city approved the contract with East Coast Contracting Inc., in the amount of $53,798. Councilwoman Debbie Quinn asked if the company knew how to do the kind of specialized work necessary for a skateboard park. “Yes, we had a pre-meeting with everyone,” Boyette said.

• Approved the bid contract with Kilpatrick Turf and Commercial Equipment Inc., in the amount of $182,952, for lease of four golf course mowers and other equipment at Quail Creek Golf Course for 36 months at $5,082 per month.

• Approved an application for a restaurant liquor license by Lydia Newman Myers to be located at 10 1/2 N. Section St.

• Approved the request from Casi Callaway, executive director of Mobile Baykeeper and Terry Hartley, Grandman Race Director, to subsidize the cost of 14 police officers (approximately $1,000) needed to monitor traffic during the triathlon race and to serve beer at the beach pavilion after the race.

The city’s Arbor Day celebration will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23, at Faulkner State Community College. The day will feature a number of tree-related activities, including a popular tree seedlings giveaway. For more information, call 929-1466.

Sullivan said the city maintains a current list of upcoming special events on its Web site at: www. cofairhope.com/specialevents.html.