LOXLEY, Ala. — In a special called council meeting Monday night, the Town of Loxley passed a motion to proceed with the demolition of a house on the corner of County Road 64 and Holly Street because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

Loxley mayor Billy Middleton had given owner Eric Craig two weeks to get the house torn down or make other arrangements but when Craig failed to show up for the meeting and had not made any contact with the town, Middleton had no choice but to proceed with setting a date for demolition.

Attorney Joey Shaw, who is representing the town, said Craig has 10 days to appeal the decision and if he doesn’t appeal, the town can set a date for demolition. “Because it is considered a public nuisance and unsafe, the town has the right to get bids for demolition. Any cost incurred should be assessed after everything is compete.”

Middleton said the town has acquired three bids and will go with the lowest one if Craig doesn’t appeal.

Craig purchased the house for investment purposes in 2009 and paid for engineering work to be done and was going to develop the property but when the bank backed out on the financing, Craig had to put the project on hold and was now stuck with property he couldn’t afford to keep.

The town views the property as an eyesore and had given Craig 45 days to tear down the house and cut the grass and weeds growing on the property. At the time of the meet on July 11, Craig had failed to comply with the town’s request.

“I am not trying to be disrespectful to the town but this hit us at a real bad time and we just don’t have the funds to tear down the house right now. We have gotten the notices and we are here to ask for a stay of execution until we can figure out what to do. We had no idea the bank wasn’t going to finance us and back out when we started the project or we wouldn’t have done it. We would like to try to do a short sale if we could,” Craig said.

In other council business:

-A motion was passed to accept a bid from Volkert and Associates of Foley for the Disaster Management and Recovery Monitoring Services in the aftermath of a natural disaster. An overall bid price was not available as everything is based on hourly prices.

- B.D. Daughtery, RHS soccer coach, approached council about starting a co-ed soccer league for 5-8 year olds in Loxley. The purpose of the league is to introduce the game and get children involved in the sport. Following United States Soccer Federation Module, it would be a 4 on 4 team format, 30 x 40 field, two 20 minute halfs. Practice once a week and play a game one night a week and have free soccer camp. There would be no cost to the town and goals for practice and games would be portable. Sign-ups will be in the next couple of weeks with games beginning in September. Contact Daughtery at (251) 377-0141