By Chris Yow
Editor
CLAY — During the City of Clay’s city council work session before the Nov. 2 meeting, councilman Bo Johnson asked the council to consider bringing up an extension of the city’s police jurisdiction to include up to the areas not covered by other cities. The extension would include several businesses and residents, and many of those do not want to see the city extend any coverage into Grayson Valley.
“We said we did not want to be annexed,” resident Tony Marino said. “It’s like they didn’t want to accept that answer.”
Clay Mayor Charles Webster, however, told The Tribune at the council’s meeting on Monday the plan would not be brought up in the future.
Several business owners voiced displeasure in the idea of being placed in a police jurisdiction because the city could have enforced its ordinances and business license taxes on the businesses. Property taxes would have also increased.
Clay City Manager Ronnie Dixon said he planned to attend a seminar on changes made to the police jurisdiction laws in the last legislative session to bring back to the council a better understanding of what the city would need to do and what it would have to offer businesses and residents in the jurisdiction.
Dixon said the city would not have been able to provide much in terms of additional services for the area, and that would have been a major road block in the process.
“The only thing Clay would offer would be about a $3 per month savings on garbage collection,” he said.
Garbage savings alone would not have been enough to equate to the number of dollars the city took in, and according to Alabama code and the League of Municipalities, a city cannot take in more revenue than is spent in their police jurisdiction.