FAIRHOPE, Ala. — On Monday, the City Council adopted a resolution unanimously to pay $25,000 for a feasibility study regarding the establishment of a separate city school system for Fairhope.

“This is a feasibility study, and that’s all it is,” Council President Lonnie Mixon said Tuesday morning about the contract that will be executed with Ira W. Harvey of Vestavia Hills.

A similar type study Harvey did for Saraland was followed by that Mobile County city’s establishment of a separate school system, joining dozens of other cities in the state that have school systems separate from countywide ones.

The council did not conduct any public review of Harvey’s credentials or discuss them in public prior to the vote Monday night. However, at an earlier council meeting, Quinn said that Harvey would address the council in person regarding the proposed study. That did not occur, she said Tuesday morning, because of a death in his family and the start of the state legislative session this week.

“He’s real involved with the school funding and (state) school (system) budget, and we didn’t want to put it off again,” Quinn said, about hiring Harvey to conduct the study. “So we had a conference call with him last week — Lonnie and I and (city attorney) Marion “Tut” Wynne — to walk through the contract to make sure we all understood it, and to make sure we understood what he planned to do, and how he’s going to do it.”

Quinn said Harvey, who does business as Decision Resources LLC, expects to complete the study in about three months.

“I’m hoping today (the mayor) will sign (the contract),” Quinn said. “Ira said he will be down sometime next week. I don’t have a committee yet, so he will probably just meet with me and whomever I can find and another council member, who can sit down and talk with him and probably some staff members that would be trying to help with whatever numbers that he might need.”

At Monday’s council meeting, Councilwoman Quinn said Harvey had recommended a committee be established that he could work with while the study was being conducted. She said she thought both those in favor and against the study should be on the committee.

“This is not a pro and con (situation),” Mixon said Tuesday. “The council is not getting involved in that at all. The only thing we are doing is hiring him, and then, if he wants to go out and talk with (Fairhope Education Enrichment Foundation) people or school board member Bob Callahan, I mean that’s his job to go out and (do so). Maybe we can get him names of people in various positions he might want to talk to.”

Mixon said Tuesday that the council did not establish a committee Monday as Quinn had requested. But Monday night, one member of the audience, who has been vocal in her opposition to the study, did request to serve on a committee, if one is formed.

“He asked for a committee that he could work with to make sure (he got) all the numbers he needed and all the numbers we expected him to get, but also a good range of folks in the community, so you don’t have just the people who want (the separate system),” Quinn said. “(This is ) so people can’t claim that he just got the positive numbers and not any of the negative numbers. It’s a more open, transparent way of getting the numbers and coming back to us with them.”

Mixon said if such a committee were ever established, the method for selecting the members would have to follow a new procedure, also adopted by resolution Monday, for filling vacancies on city boards, committees and commissions. That procedure involves an application process and review of applications by the government body or official that appoints the committee.

The feasibility study was initially requested by a group of 12 residents in a letter to the council last year, and $25,000 was put in the city’s budget in the event the council voted to approve a contract to have the study done.

Quinn said the contract with Harvey (a copy of which he provided to the city) was given to all council members late last week. However, it was not included in the council packet that was distributed to the media for Monday’s meeting.