FAIRHOPE, Ala. — They didn’t get the memo.

Signed by Mayor Tim Kant, the memo seeks to bring a number of city employees into compliance with Fairhope’s take-home vehicle policy within 30 days.

Only those employees who live within the city’s police jurisdiction are eligible for take-home vehicles, according to a city personnel manual rule.

“We are unaware of any such memo,” Fairhope Police Sgt. Craig Sawyer stated in an e-mail Thursday. “If one was generated, we did not receive it.”

Currently, close to 20 employees are out of compliance with the take-home personnel rule because they live outside the police jurisdiction, some as far as Foley, Gulf Shores and Bay Minette, according to city records. In all, more than 40 city employees have been assigned take-home vehicles, and of those, all but three not in compliance are police officers.

“I gave the memo to the city administrator and told him to work with the city managers to bring their employees into compliance,” Kant said Thursday afternoon, after being informed that Sawyer stated that Chief of Police Bill Press had not received or seen a copy of the week-old memo.

“I just assumed it had gone out to everybody,” Kant said. “I’ll have to look into it.”

The three non-police employees apparently out of compliance with the take-home vehicle policy are City Administrator Gregg Mims (who lives in Gulf Shores), Information Technology Director Jason Colee (who lives in Spanish Fort), and an animal control officer who lives in Daphne. Kant said he gave verbal permission for Mims and Colee to have take-home vehicles although they live outside the police jurisdiction.

“Those are the only two that I gave verbal permission to live outside the police jurisdiction,” Kant said.

According to the personnel manual, any changes in its rules can only be initiated by the mayor through a writing that is later adopted by the council.

City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne did not return a call by press time regarding whether the mayor’s verbal waivers to the rule were valid.

“Everybody will have to make other arrangements,” said Kant, regarding all employees not currently in compliance with the rule, including the two that were given his verbal permission, he said.

For Mims, Colee and more than a dozen police officers who live outside the police jurisdiction, those other arrangements would presumably mean either moving within the police jurisdiction or returning their take-home vehicles.

For the 40-plus municipal employees with take-home vehicles, they get fuel for the cars at a city garage, but they must also report the benefit of having a taxpayer-owned car at their disposal to the Internal Revenue Service as additional income, a city official said last week.

Those employees write their names on a board at the city garage with the amount of gas or diesel fuel received, which is entered into the city’s computer system and can be tracked both by vehicle and department, Kant said.

The mayor does not have a city vehicle himself but receives 45 cents per mile reimbursement for business-related travel, which runs between $300 and $400 a month, he said.

“It’s to keep the costs down,” said Kant, regarding the reason for bringing city employees into compliance with the take-home vehicle policy. “A lot of the times the council says I don’t enforce the rules, so that’s why I sent the (March 18) memo and put it in their mailboxes. If they want to deviate from the policy, they can bring it up at a later date and make exceptions.”

Kant said he suspected that some managers would make a list regarding those employees they would like to receive exceptions and be allowed to live outside the police jurisdiction and still retain their take-home vehicles.

“We hope that the City Council will make the sensible decision and realize that the city needs emergency personnel to have the ability to respond to any emergency 24 hours a day,” Sawyer stated Thursday.

Wynne also did not return an e-mail and phone call by press time seeking a comment regarding whether the council could legally approve a waiver to the take-home vehicle policy itself — as it may have done for Assistant Police Chief Terry Sanders (who lives in Bay Minette) when he was hired in January 2009 — without the mayor first approving that exception in writing.

Although the council is currently considering significant revisions to the personnel manual, the personnel board chairman said last week there were no plans to revise the section on the take-home vehicle policy. However, there have been changes considered by that board that would relieve the authority of the mayor to initiate changes in the personnel manual, shifting that power completely to the council, according to statements made by personnel board members during a number of meetings the past few months.

In the meantime, more than a week has passed since the mayor’s memo announced that all city employees with take-home vehicles should be in compliance within 30 days.

“I found a copy of the (memo) in my box about a week ago,” Mims stated Thursday afternoon. “I am told that copies were also placed in the individual City Council members’ mailboxes. The memo was prepared by City Clerk Lisa Hanks at the direction of Mayor Kant. I received a call today from Chief Press requesting a copy of the memorandum. I called the mayor’s assistant and asked her to get a copy of the memorandum from Ms. Hanks and to forward it to all department heads. I was a recipient of the (memo) not the author or distributor. The mayor’s assistant and/or the city clerk distribute the mayor’s correspondence.”