FAIRHOPE, Ala. — About 20 employees currently in violation of Fairhope’s take-home vehicle policy may yet get their ticket to ride.

Last month, Mayor Tim Kant directed all supervisors to ensure that employees in their departments with take-home vehicles be in compliance with the city’s personnel manual (which requires those employees to live within Fairhope’s police jurisdiction) by April 18.

But City Council President Lonnie Mixon has proposed an ordinance that would eliminate that provision from the personnel manual, according to city records.

Mixon said the ordinance would be valid even though it might conflict with an existing provision of the personnel manual that requires any change in its rules to first be initiated in writing by the mayor and then adopted by the council.

“I think maybe we’re talking about semantics here because the council can enact any law they want,” Mixon said Thursday. “Even though it might say that, I don’t think it would really hold water if someone wanted to test it.”

Although the ordinance will be introduced at Monday’s council meeting, it will not be voted on until April 26. It could also be discussed at the work session immediately prior to the regular council meeting that day, he said.

Some notable employees subject to Kant’s March 18 directive, which could require moving their residences into the police jurisdiction or relinquishing their vehicles, are City Administrator Gregg Mims, who lives in Gulf Shores, Information Technology Director Jason Colee of Spanish Fort and Assistant Police Chief Terry Sanders of Bay Minette. Several police officers subject to the directive also live well beyond Fairhope’s police jurisdiction in cities such as Foley, Bay Minette and Gulf Shores.

The proposed ordinance would replace the restriction on living within the police jurisdiction with the following designated list of city employees who are authorized to “drive their city-owned vehicles to and from their place of residence to work: City Administrator, General Superintendent, Gas Superintendent, Electric Superintendent, Water and Sewer Superintendent, Public Works Superintendent, Information Technology Director, Police Chief, Law Enforcement personnel as recommended by Police Chief and approved by City Administrator, (and) Weekly stand-by utility employees.”

Those specific city employees would thus be authorized to have take-home vehicles and be allowed to live anywhere with no restriction on the distance of their commute.

Such take-home vehicles receive gas from the city garage, including fuel for the commute to and from work, according to city officials and staff.

“The police jurisdiction is just an arbitrary line,” said Mixon, explaining one reason why that restriction would be eliminated by the new law. “I mean, who established that? This is something that Kant himself, or (former mayor Jim) Nix, said way back when.”

The cost to the municipality of some employees commuting from distant cities is less important than the position of the employees in question, and whether the use of a take-home vehicle was part of their employment package, he said.

“You look at the importance of the position and whether it has to do with a perk, if you will,” he said.

What is more important than the cost to the city of the take-home vehicle usage is to ensure that all those employees comply with IRS rules requiring reporting of additional income from the benefit of using a city-owned vehicle, Mixon said.

“As long as these people comply with the IRS and it’s part of their employment package, I don’t see anything that’s wrong with it,” he said.

The city’s personnel manual is currently undergoing significant revision and will be submitted to the council soon for its consideration and adoption, Mixon said.

The provision that requires the mayor to initiate changes in the manual will be removed, Mixon said, as well as other provisions which give the mayor power regarding a number of personnel issues.

“You’ll see some more climbing of the walls when (the mayor sees) he’s been taken out of all of the provisions in the manual,” Mixon said.

The proposed ordinance regarding take-home vehicles did not eliminate the language stating that “any violation of these rules … may cause the City to revoke your driving authorization, and subject you to disciplinary action.”

Whether the proposed change in the take-home vehicle policy would be valid or not, the expected adoption of the ordinance on April 26 would come more than a week after Kant directed that all employees with take-home vehicles must be in compliance with the existing rule.

“I haven’t studied or read the complete ordinance in detail yet,” Kant said Thursday. “But I do have a few problems with it giving carte blanche to the police chief and city administrator to decide who all could (have take-home vehicles). I don’t think that’s appropriate.”