FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The hotly debated issue of whether the Fairhope Police Department will continue to provide free escorts for funeral processions will not die.

After a month-long power struggle between the mayor and police chief over whether the escorts should continue as a traditional service to local residents, or be stopped for reasons of safety, liability and finances, the issue seemed to have been put to rest Tuesday.

Police Chief Bill Press sent a memo to Mayor Tim Kant that day stating his department would continue providing the service, despite his earlier pronouncements to discontinue or change the kind of escorts provided.

But later this week, Councilman Rick Kingrea requested that the city clerk’s office draft an ordinance to stop providing the service, with a few exceptions.

“The ordinance will be introduced no later than May 24,” Kingrea said Thursday, referring to the City Council meeting scheduled for that night. “The ordinance will state that the city will not provide police escorts by the Fairhope Police Department for funerals, except in the case of firefighters, police officers and citizens of Fairhope on military duty who are killed in the line of duty.”

At Monday’s council meeting, Kant threatened to bring a disciplinary action leading to termination against Press, if he followed through on his plans to stop the funeral escorts.

Immediately after the meeting, Press said he had no intention of changing his plans.

“I will not put the citizens of Fairhope at risk,” he said. By Tuesday morning, however, Press sent the memo to Kant that the services would continue, unless or until the council took any action.

“The City of Fairhope Police Department will continue to follow existing funeral procession procedures, in contrast to the safer procedures which I proposed that protects all of our citizens and removes any civil liability from the city,” Press stated in his May 11 memo. “Again, I feel obligated to remind you that the City Attorney agrees with the need to change the way we are currently involved with these events from a liability standpoint. From a public safety perspective, we can only hope that an accident does not occur during this period.”

Gary Wolfe, owner of Wolfe-Bayview Funeral Home, has been a prominent presence at recent council meetings, once arguing heatedly for the continuation of the service. But Monday, he sat quietly while a large audience often clapped in favor of his position, including during an unsuccessful attempt by Councilman Mike Ford to pass a resolution to continue the service.

“I know that Tim got all his people out that night to do that,” Kingrea said. “He’s a good politician. It’s an emotional issue. My biggest problem is we’re basically subsidizing a private enterprise. When other business people come up to me and ask why are you subsidizing them and not me, what do I tell them?”

Kingrea estimated the city spends at least $12,000 a year in providing free escort services to local funeral homes.

Wolfe could not be reached for comment this week, but his attorney, Sam Crosby, who spoke on Wolfe’s behalf at the Monday council meeting, said Friday he had not spoken to his client after learning about Kingrea’s action, regarding what steps they might take if the services are stopped.

“My client is blessed to have a business in a city like Fairhope,” Crosby said. “We hope the city will provide the same service it has provided to local families for over 60 years.”

Council President Lonnie Mixon indicated this week that the council would seek to change those services in the near future.

“We’ve got to get this out of the emotional arena and into the real-life world,” Mixon said Thursday. “We’ve got to look at this more from the liability side than the emotional one. To protect the city, I think we have to take some kind of action.”