Editor:

Fairhope’s City Council members seem to have lost any sense of practicality and are hell bent on damning the mayor at every turn in the road.

Our mayor has been doing a fine job running the day-to-day operations of this city for the last eight years. The employee turnover is nil and the city employees are treated well, work hard and are quite happy. The citizens of this fine city are treated well and have never complained about day-to-day operations of the city.

Our current mayor earns $80,000 per year for running the city, and it is a busy, tough job with hundreds of employees and thousands of citizens, and none of us are complaining. Now the City Council on the other hand wants to continue to pay the mayor his full salary and strip him of all his duties, except for kissing babies and cutting ribbons, and hire a new city manager to take over operations at a salary of $80,000.

If the mayor were doing a horrible job, it would be evident, the citizens would feel it, and the employees would be complaining and quitting. The problem is the City Council and their distain for the mayor.

The residents certainly deserve more from the current council members. They need to learn to get along with the mayor and they need to allow him to do his job for the rest of his term. Then, if they want to make changes at the next election, we an vote for a figurehead mayor at the same salary as the council members make and hire a city manager.

Fairhope

Editor’s Note: Currently Tim Kant is paid $60,000 per year for his services as mayor. He no longer draws the salary for the utilities superintendent position. He also receives about $33,000 a year in RSA retirement monies for his prior years work as a city employee.