FAIRHOPE, Ala. - The City Council voted Monday to award a contract for some city landscaping services to the single bidder on the project.

The contract for $106,153 was awarded to the Fairhope-based Jubilee Landscape Inc.

The company will be responsible for mowing all city and county rights of way now mown by the city, all grass mowing on U.S. Highway 98, and all mowing on Gayfer and Morphy avenues and Section and South Mobile streets. The city will continue to mow all city parks and ball fields, according to city records.

The contract was the first outsourcing of city services to private companies in recent years in what Councilman Mike Ford stated could be a “domino effect” on other services, such as the privatization of garbage pickup and volunteer fire department services.

Ford said the outsourcing of garbage services about a decade ago resulted in the city taking over the job after numerous complaints were received by residents about the services provided by the private company.

Ford and Councilman Dan Stankoski voted against the contract, with Council President Lonnie Mixon, Councilwoman Debbie Quinn and Councilman Rick Kingrea voting in favor of it.

According to city records, the request for bids on the project, which resulted in a single bid, went to the following companies and businesses in addition to Jubilee Landscape Inc., none of which responded: Jim Rillo Landscaping, Martiniere Landscaping, Greenco, INS Construction LLC, Trojan Landscape Inc., Jubilee Landscape Management, Landscape Workshop, Falkner Landscape, GT Landscape, Chris Francis Landscape, Coastal Exposures, Coastal Woodland Landscape, East Bay Landscape and Summit Landscape Supply.

During a meeting last week about the contract, Mayor Tim Kant said the outsourcing could save the city approximately $200,000 a year, but he said Monday that he had not recommended the services be outsourced. Since that meeting, Kant said he had asked Public Works Director Jennifer Fidler to recalculate the possible savings by privatizing the grass mowing services.

“On paper the savings are over $150,000,” Fidler said at the Dec. 13 council meeting. “(The actual amount) is $156,973.”

Fidler qualified her comments by saying that after going through the process of finding other laborers for some tasks performed by the four positions that would be eliminated, the savings would be closer to $100,000.

“Do you want to save the money or keep Fairhope as it is?” she said, referring to some tasks she stated would go unmet by the award of the contract and the reassignment of four employees to a different section within the public works department.

Fidler said the possibility existed that the award of the contract, despite the current reassignment of employees, could result in a loss of four employees to her department overall during the next budget cycle.

Kingrea said the award of the contract, and the reassignment of four employees without the loss of their jobs, woujld allow the city to evaluate the quality of private services provided and decide in a year’s time whether to continue the contract.

At last week’s meeting about the landscaping services contract, Mixon said that any outsourcing of the city’s garbage, trash and recycling services would not occur without further study being done and recommendations made.