FAIRHOPE – Resolving conflicts, protecting the environment and dealing with growth were some of the topics discussed by the four candidates running for Fairhope mayor during a recent Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce forum.
During the Aug. 11 event, incumbent Karin Wilson and challengers John Manelos, Annette Sanders and Sherry Sullivan answered questions and discussed their positions. The election will be Aug. 25.
Candidates answered questions from their homes over internet connections due to COVID-19 precautions.
Moderator Kesshia Davis asked candidates how their leadership style would unite the City Council and open communications with the community.
Sullivan said she has experience working not only as a Fairhope city employee, but as a leader in many community organizations.
“I think what I bring to the table is being able to communicate well,” Sullivan said. “Being able to bring anybody who has a vested interest in whatever topic or organization I’m working with, bringing everybody to the table to have respectful dialog. You can’t find solutions to the problem without bringing everybody to the table and I think you have to make them part of that solution in order for them to invest themselves in whatever project you’re working on.”
She said all sides need to work to improve cooperation.
“I think that the mayor and City Council’s relationship is something that we have all seen in the news or seen in the council meetings that it has not been the best relationship over the past four years and I think that we need to work on that. I think from both sides and I think that they just need to be respectful of each other. I think that if you bring respect to the table when you come and if you’re able to communicate respectfully and discuss the issues at hand, then you’ll be able to find a solution to it,” Sullivan said.
Manelos said his early experience starting as a Houston police office helped prepare him for dealing with conflicts.
“You have to be the calm voice in the room. Sometimes you are the only voice between chaos and civility. I carried that forward the rest of my life, 28 years in the corporate world,” Manelos said.
He later became a corporate vice-president, which also helped prepare him for conflicts.
“You don’t achieve leadership positions unless you learn to work with people that maybe you don’t agree with and maybe you don’t even like, but to move forward in an organization, you have to have the skills to be able to work together with people,” he said.
Manelos said he has a master’s degree in conflict management and has worked as a mediator in Mobile District Court.
“I listen to people. I respect people,” Manelos said. “I respect people who have different views. As most people know, this form of government that we have is not just one person. There’s six, five in the council and one in the mayor’s position and for the citizens to be best served, they have to work together to achieve what needs to be done.”
Wilson said her business experience, which is needed in an organization with a budget of almost $70 million.
“I bring 30 years of experience in this background and because the city does not have a full-time city administrator, something that had been in place before 2000 and defunded two weeks before I took office, I have served as a full-time mayor and a full-time city administrator,” Wilson said. “I tried to promote early on the manager form of government because while I am qualified to run and manage a city because of my business background and years of finance. A city this size now and the fastest growing city in the state has to have professional experience to deal with a lot of the complexities of a growing city and a mayor cannot do that single-handedly and also work on the future objectives that are promised.”
She said Fairhope has made many accomplishments in her term in office.
“More has been accomplished in the last four years than in the last 20 combined and the promises and platforms that a lot of people are running on are things that I created in 2016 that nobody was talking about and these things have been addressed and they are going to be completed, specifically the sewer infrastructure,” Wilson said. “When I took office, I declined the supplemental salary of the superintendent of utilities because I knew we needed a professional and I did hire that professional and we are now under a plan that started late because we couldn’t get council support two years into the term and that’s why I went around and got the funding through RESTORE funds and I also was able to make our utilities the most profitable that it’s ever been because we’re not utilizing over 50 percent of the utility profits to break even for a city.”
Sanders said her experience in education and environmental efforts have shown her the need for cooperation and communication.
“I support and try to do my very best to make sure everybody learns right away my leadership style, which is I’m here to help us work together and be our best,” Sanders said. “I did that in environmental engineering in the ‘60s. I did it in working with the cleanup of Mobile Bay in the ‘80s. I worked in my school to make sure that I turned my school, a failing school into the very best school by making my teachers the very best, help them be the best they can be. I’m very supportive of employees. I’m also out in the public. I work a lot right now as a support for our public works to let them know about problems that we have in our area, drainage problems and I found that by properly staffing our different departments we can get the job done together. I’m also wanting to work together with the other municipalities because one of my main goals is to clean up the bay and we need Mobile, north and south. We need Spanish Fort. We need Daphne and we need Fairhope. When I say we’ve got to work together to clean up our bay, we need everyone working on this.”
Asked about the $6.2-million Working Waterfront plan for improvements on the Fairhope Pier and South Park, candidates stressed the need to protect the area, particularly the bluffs overlooking Mobile Bay, but expressed doubts over the current proposal.
Wilson said no decisions will be made until planners hear from citizens.
“It is not any political decision. It will only be citizen driven, so other politicians and candidates can always come to the table like any citizen, but what will be adopted is a citizen vision that’s going to be re-engaged this fall and I made that announcement several months ago,” Wilson said.
She said she did not agree with all of the project proposals and the plan is being changed.
“Bring your ideas to the table,” she said. “The bluffs were not being destroyed. That’s actually a cutback to develop the South Park. Trees were not being cut down. I think in the proposal it had one tree, but none of this was adopted. It was talking to hundreds of people, trying to come up with a balance for pedestrian safety and vehicular traffic. So, the vision is never going to come from one person and it certainly wasn’t going to come from me.”
Manelos said the proposal was well intentioned but flawed.
“On the South Park, I think anyone who goes down there would agree, and I do agree, that we need to replace the bulkheads,” Manelos said. “I don’t know how much that would cost, but I’m sure it’s well over $1 million. A lot of people may not realize this, but the bulkheads, the concrete ones at the beginning of the pier, we had a hurricane a couple of years ago, it washed out most of our sidewalks. Those are in need of repair because water encroached underneath. Beyond that, I can’t think of much that needs to be done.”
He said some cosmetic improvements are needed, such as benches and rest rooms, but the overall area should be preserved.
“The simplicity and beauty of that park is what we go down to enjoy. You go any day of the week and you see families taking their loved ones around the rose garden. I just don’t think we should touch that space at all other than some of the structural things that need to be repaired,” he said.
Sullivan said she did not favor the current plan. She said planners need to hear from the community before making any proposals.
“I definitely think the area needs some upgrades. I don’t think the bluffs should be touched,” Sullivan said. “They should remain untouched. The upgrades, of course, would include the stairs, the seawall, rest room facilities. There are some issues on the pier that need to be addressed, some lighting issues, but for the most part, the park should remain, just with some minor upgrades, some cosmetic things.”
Sullivan said the pier and bluffs were set aside by the community’s founders and is a special place for everyone in Fairhope.
“The pier area has been referred to as Fairhope’s unofficial town square and it really should reflect the vision of our entire community and I think the community engagement is so important for that park,” Sullivan said. “It is one of the most treasured areas of Fairhope. It’s the first place I want to take people when they visit our town.”
Sanders said the bay is one reason many people live in Fairhope. She said the shore and waters have been neglected in recent years and must be protected.
“In the last 20 years, we’ve forgotten about how our leaders years ago provided easements so that Fairhope could be in control of supporting our bluffs and supporting our waterfront and also to guard it from improper sewage treatment and also in many ways by owning the property and the Single Tax Colony, which was set up as a Utopia,” Sanders said. “We lost that concept of making sure that we control and manage our development in a way that all of us who came here years ago and protected it for so long, we need to protect it from overdevelopment and mismanagement of development and it seems like in the past few years, we’ve been more concerned with development than conservation.”
Asked about the need for planning for growth, Sanders said the city should stop development until Fairhope can manage the population it already has.
“I am very doubtful that with the plan that we have right now, that we’ve reviewed all of the compliance schedules, all of the environmental impacts that are open to us right now. The Corps of Engineers has done environmental impacts about this area and we’ve talked about the fact that we’re going to address this area for 20 years. I would be in full support of stopping growth, a moratorium on growth until we can at least treat our sewage from our city,” Sanders said. “Fast growth is usually not smart growth and during the last four years, I’ve seen nothing but fast growth.”
Wilson the city has developed a land-use plan that is being put into place, with updated zoning and regulatory amendments. She said the plans will hold all developers to the same standards.
“A lot of the things that we enforced actually took profits out of developers and this was evening the playing field because it wasn’t being done for all. We were just in debt because of lawsuits because of decisions not being made consistently,” Wilson said. “Comprehensive planning has to have a transparent, fair process and the development process and application process now has been completely reformed. We meet with developers before engineering and before architecture fees are spent so they understand what is expected if you’re going to build here in Fairhope.”
Sullivan said Fairhope is a victim of its own success. The city is often listed as one of the most beautiful places to live and best retirement area and is drawing an increasing number of people.
“We can’t stop the growth, but we can manage it and can make sure our infrastructure can support it and we do not compromise our environment or Mobile Bay in the process,” Sullivan said. “It’s up to the leaders of Fairhope to continue to evaluate our comprehensive plan. We currently have a comprehensive plan, but that needs to be adapted to meet our city’s current needs. It needs to be revisited and all the leaders must come together and work with the citizens and the staff to ensure that plan is working for Fairhope today and for tomorrow.”
Manelos said the city not only has to have a plan, but it must be enforceable.
“The only way that a city can have enforcement around a plan is to have requisite ordinances that define zoning, so yes we need a plan, but we also need to enact the enforcement capability that, hopefully, reflects the will of the citizens as to where and how they want to see growth managed,” Manelos said.
He said allowing exemptions to the plans is hurting Fairhope, with taller buildings taking away the charm of downtown.
“Eventually, it takes away the charm of the city. If people want to build big buildings, go down Greeno Road, don’t go into the heart of the city and take away the charm,” Manelos said.
