While reimbursement funds have been approved and passed by both the Baldwin County Commission and the city of Fairhope for utility relocation issues on several county roads near the city, the war of words between the two groups has continued.

During the May 18 Fairhope City Council work session, Fairhope Water and Sewer Superintendent Dan McCrory addressed the council to discuss what he felt was the city’s side of the matter on the road project issues.

McCrory said on May 6, 2015 he and others received an email from the county that they intended to start some drainage projects.

“Within this email, after they sent this to us they said you only have six weeks to get this done,” McCrory said. “These are county relocation projects so there will not be any relocation reimbursements.”

McCrory said he and others approached former Fairhope Mayor Tim Kant, who told them they would not be moving the lines.

“At this point, when the mayor tells me no, no means no and I don’t question him,” McCrory said. “Neither would I question our current mayor if she said no. If she said no, it’s no.”

McCrory said the city was still continuing to try to cooperate with the county because it didn’t want to hold anything up.

“At some point, the politicians were liable to get together and talk so we still wanted to be ahead of this game,” McCrory said.

McCrory said Kant still told him not to move forward on the projects because they were not reimbursable.

“This is our ratepayers’ money and we need to look out for our ratepayers,” McCrory said.

McCrory said he and others did not expect some of the actions taken by the county in recent weeks as he felt Fairhope officials had made good faith efforts to try to work with the county as best as they could over the last few years.

McCrory said he took exception to some of the words said against him and the city regarding the projects.

“There were two commissioners that pointed out that this was the city’s fault and mine, but that individual is as lost as a ball in high weeds,” McCrory said. “I think the communication problem lies with the county by not including the city when they first started this project.”

County officials said the emails referenced by McCrory involved other projects were not actually the ones the two groups have faced problems with.

“The emails he referenced were related to other FEMA related projects, not the ones we’ve currently been having issues with,” Interim County Engineer Joey Nunnally said. “I think Dan may have gotten confused about some of these things.”

The projects the county has currently been sparring with Fairhope Utilities on are reimbursable through the Federal Highway Administration, not FEMA.

“All the emails he referenced during the council meeting were FEMA projects, not FHWA,” Nunnally said.

During an interview with WABF 1480 AM, County Commission Chairman Chris Elliott agreed that the facts presented to the Fairhope Council were not entirely accurate.

“I think at the end of the day that Mr. McCrory was simply confused and that some of the statements he made to his elected officials were simply inaccurate,” Elliott said. “I think that’s unfortunate, but I think what’s more important now is that with the action the commission took, we got their attention and the issues we had are either resolved or in the process of being resolved.”

Elliott said he asked Nunnally to prepare a memo outlining the inaccuracies that he then forwarded to Fairhope’s mayor and several council members.

Nunnally prepared the memo outlining the emails McCrory referenced during the meeting, showing where the county was talking about different projects than the ones currently causing issues.

In the memo, Nunnally also wrote the city of Fairhope had failed to meet statutory obligations to locate some of their utilities on these projects.

“Fairhope breached its statutory obligations by failing to locate any utilities at any of the project sites within the time required,” Nunnally wrote. “Fairhope made no requests to the design consultant for additional time to locate the utilities. When a utility fails to locate any infrastructure at a site, the designer has no other option but to proceed under the assumption that the utility company has no utilities at the site. Fairhope’s failure to locate its utilities has created significant problems for Baldwin County and its citizens. Had Fairhope located its utilities at the project sites, the design consultant could have made an effort to design around the conflicts. Instead, Fairhope utility rate payers and county tax payers in general have likely borne the cost of Fairhope’s inaction.”

Nunnally said in spite of the problems that have occurred over the last few years, the county remains committed to working with Fairhope and other municipalities to get needed projects completed in a timely fashion.

“The Baldwin County Highway Department has enjoyed a strong working relationship with all of Baldwin County’s municipalities, including the City of Fairhope and Fairhope Public Utilities, over the years,” Nunnally wrote. “Fairhope’s failure to locate its utilities at the subject project sites has resulted in significant setbacks and expense to the County and its citizens. Nevertheless, Highway staff is committed to working with the City’s public utility team to avoid similar problems in the future. Most recently, both entities successfully completed a complex utility relocation project at the proposed CR 13 / CR 30 roundabout site. We look forward to building on this success as we work with Fairhope Public Utilities on future projects down the road.”