FAIRHOPE, Ala. — A local group leading a yearlong effort to locate a community garden at Stimpson Field has brought its proposal to the City Council. Monday evening, it will be discussed at the council’s work session and considered at the meeting that follows, according to Council President Lonnie Mixon last week, when the council tabled a resolution supporting the plan until the next meeting.

“We have put forward a resolution to the City Council,” said Elaine Snyder-Conn, chair of the Local Food Production Initiative’s community garden committee, at a Jan. 18 meeting of the group. “We still feel Stimpson Field is the best location, with the best parking, a flat sunny area, and with water onsite. I think that the city would have a beautiful tourist attraction on its hands (with such a garden).”

At its Jan. 11 meeting, the council passed a resolution in favor of the concept of community gardens generally in Fairhope, stating the council “supports the establishment of community gardens on city land.” A related resolution on the agenda that night, supporting the establishment of a 20-plot community garden to be managed by the LFPI pursuant to a contract with the city, was delayed in order for it to be discussed in more detail at the Jan. 25 work session, Mixon said.

The council agenda is usually released Thursday afternoon, and it is unclear at this time whether the council will invite presentations by the LFPI at the work session and council meeting, and by those opposing the proposal.

The idea of a community garden at Stimpson Field, where new tennis courts and several acres of open fields now exist, has been vigorously opposed by a local resident, Mike Baugh, through correspondence with city officials and leaders, according to city records.

A past president of the Fairhope Pirate Boosters Club, past commissioner of Fairhope Youth Baseball and a vice president of US Tool Group in Fairhope, Baugh circulated a petition in opposition to the proposal, signed by residents of 12 houses on Morphy Avenue and Young Street, the intersection where the park is located. The petition states that “the proposed community garden is a worthwhile project in the right location, (b)ut we feel that Stimpson Field is a park that was designed to serve the community at large as a tennis facility and general recreational park and is not configured to coexist with this community garden project.”

In a February 2009 e-mail to Mayor Tim Kant and recreation board member John Baker of Thompson Engineering, Baugh outlined a number of reasons to oppose the project, including that the LFPI group had “apparently represented that our neighborhood is universally in favor of the project. That is obviously not true.”

Baugh also solicited a letter in opposition to the Stimpson Field location cosigned by Glen Merritt, commissioner of Fairhope Youth Baseball and president of Fairhope Youth Football, and Tommy Faust Jr., past commissioner, Fairhope Youth Baseball and treasurer of Fairhope Youth Football.

That Feb. 27 letter to the Fairhope Recreation Board stated that athletic practice fields were growing scarce in Fairhope, for several reasons, and that “taking away more park land for other ‘special’ purposes is a not a good policy when we are only losing, not adding parks” anywhere near the city borders.

Since that letter, the recreation board successfully negotiated the purchase of approximately 40 acres of property for new athletic fields close to the Founder’s Park ball fields east of the public high and middle schools.

Snyder-Conn said the proposed 20 4-by-12-foot raised beds for the community garden would occupy approximately .07 acres at Stimpson Field, where there are now seven acres of open fields.

“We’re not positive we will get a positive vote in favor (at the Monday council meeting),” said Snyder-Conn, a former employee of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We’d love a great turnout to support it.”

Last month, the LFPI, working with the Master Gardeners program of the County Extension Service, built a small “youth garden” at the Fairhope-Point Clear Rotary Youth Club on Young Street, which includes a curriculum to help the children at the club learn about gardening and how to care for its two raised beds.

In other business, the LFPI:

• Heard a report from Sherry Sullivan, city senior services director, regarding the future of the Fairhope farmer’s market. She stated a new fall market that started last year behind the public library was a success, and that the summer farmer’s market previously located on Church Street on Thursday afternoons will be moved to the new location this year.

• Heard a report from Mac Walcott, local architect and owner of the new Windmill Market, who said the Bancroft Avenue open-air market of food, arts and crafts, will reopen Feb. 5, extending its previous weekend hours to 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

The City Council work session starts at 5:15 p.m. Monday, Jan. 25, and will be followed by the regular council meeting at 6.