FAIRHOPE — By a vote of 4/1 Monday evening, the Fairhope City Council approved a resolution establishing the City Governmental Structure Committee, which was chartered at the July 23 regular meeting by Council President Bob Gentle.

Earlier Monday afternoon, at the council work session, Chuck Zunk, chairman of the City Governmental Structure Committee, asked the council to delete items 3 and 4 from the charter, which leaves the following as active committee objectives: structure between the utility company and city government operations, oversight of the utility company, management structure of city government operations, lines of authority, reporting and information flow between city government operations and the City Council and strategic (long-term) planning process.

“I think you will be better off to rely on a professional compensation consultant to review those items,” Zunk said, referring to the deleted topics of research (job descriptions, qualifications and pay range for utility superintendent and mayor), adding he thought this could be accomplished at a cost of about $7,000.

He also said the committee still planned to present their report to the council at its Oct. 8 meeting.

“Council members and the mayor may disagree on the creation of this committee, but friendly disagreement is good — good for the council, good for the citizens and good for Fairhope,” said Councilman Dan Stankoski. “Tim does a good job with utilities because he grew up in this system, and I am not in favor of firing him as superintendent, and I do strongly oppose creating a utility board,” he said.

Stankoski said that because of the city’s growth, it may need to change the way it handles management, expansion, profit rates and marketing.

“When we get the committee’s report, we don’t have to take action, or we may take action, but it will not hurt to have this committee conduct its survey — free of charge — and give us some recommendations,” Stankoski said.

“I think we are on dangerous ground because this committee was appointed by a private citizen, so we may be setting a dangerous precedent here,” said Councilman Mike Ford.

“If I remember correctly, I think both Mr. Gentle who proposed it and Chuck Zunk, the chairman, both said they didn’t want this to be an official city committee at the time. And I’m wondering, No. 1: What changed the minds of those people? and, No. 2: Are we setting a precedent in that anybody can come up here and do the same thing — carry on for three or four meetings and such and such, and then come up here and get legitimized?”

Ford said, “I like everyone on this committee so ya’ll don’t take this personally, but everyone on this committee has only been in Fairhope about 10 years at most I think, and here we are getting ready to run the city by committee rather than elected officials.”