By Erica Thomas, managing editor
TRUSSVILLE — The Trussville City Council met for a short regular meeting on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Councilor Perry Cook was not in attendance for the meeting.
The council approved changes to the city’s public records request policy. The changes will add charges to some document requests in order to offset the costs of the time and preparation of such requests.
“This actually brings us more in line really with the city of Hoover,” Councilor Jaime Anderson said.
The changes add a charge of $50 for digitally standard zoning certification letters, $100 for detailed certification zoning letters, including open building and/or zoning code violations, $200 for complex certification zoning letters, including open building and/or zoning code violations, approved site plans, variances, ordinances, resolutions, special permits, conditional and/or special use permits, zoning cases, certificate of occupancy road project plans. The changes also increase the fee for non-zoning retrieval from $10 to $25. Other fees will remain the same.
The council approved the measure unanimously.
The city will join in Alabama’s Back to School Sales Tax Holiday during the third week of July 2021. That measure was also approved unanimously by the council.
The following items were approved as part of the Consent Agenda:
- Consent Agenda
- Section X. Auditing Accounts
- Reassign Donna Newton to City Hall Administration from Parks & Recreation, effective May 3, 2021
- Hire Haley Hollis as Parks & Rec part-time Gymnastics Coach (Grade 5 – Step 3), effective May 8, 2021
- Promote Jason Parsons to IT Network Systems Admin II. (Grade 32- Step 7), effective May 8, 2021
- Hire Beth Burden, via mayoral appointment (Grade 13 – Step 1), to cover an immediate need in Municipal Court, effective May 3, 2021
- Approve installation of small cell technologies at 1118 North Chalkville Road and P&R Sports Complex at 4600 Riverbend Road, recommended by Building Inspections Officer J.R. Malchus, as required by Ord 2016-006-PZ
- Appoint Mayor Choat as delegate and Ben Short as 1st alternate to the Alabama Municipal Insurance Corporation annual membership meeting May 13 in Huntsville, coinciding with the League convention. (Councilor Ben Short abstained from voting on this item)
- Auditing accounts
- Accounts payable
- Public Safety Diving Certification for TPD Officer Adam Anderson, May 17 – June 11 in Birmingham. $625 registration fee
- First Line Supervising Training for TPD Cpl. Casey Shelnutt, June 2-4 in Stapleton, AL. $295 registration + accommodations
- Tactical Operations SWAT Conference for TPD Sgt. Ryan Robinson and Detective James McCool, July 21-23 in Nashville. $299.99 registration fee per person + accommodations
At the end of the meeting, Mayor Buddy Choat announced that the city will add two voting precincts. One will be at Faith Community Fellowship and the other will be at the Trussville Civic Center. Lines have not been approved by the county at this time. The mayor said voters will be notified as soon as the city has that information. Choat said the purpose of adding voting locations was to alleviate locations that were overcrowded during the last election.
During public comment, a resident of the Magnolia South Drive and Promenade neighborhood thanked the city for handling an issue with the city of Birmingham. As Birmingham was clearing landfill property, the resident said the cul-de-sac borders with the city were damaged. They notified the city and Choat said the issue was resolved.
“They came inside the subdivision and brought trucks in and had some things going on they probably shouldn’t have and so we stopped them the second day,” said Choat.
Choat said he will continue to communicate with Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin to make sure problems do not arise again.