FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The City Council changed the personnel rules Monday, allowing a number of city employees to have take-home vehicles, no matter how far they live from Fairhope.

“All this does is remove an arbitrary line for take-home vehicles,” said Council President Lonnie Mixon, referring to the previous requirement that employees with take-home vehicles had to live within the city’s police jurisdiction.

That change in the law apparently brought to an end the question of whether some 16 employees living outside the police jurisdiction would be allowed to use those vehicles. Mayor Tim Kant had issued a directive last month, requiring compliance with the take-home vehicle rule by April 18. Police Chief Bill Press initially said he did not intend to have his officers comply with that order, citing public safety concerns. But later, he and Kant met, with the mayor giving permission for police officers with take-home vehicles living outside the police jurisdiction to continue using the cars until the council’s action Monday night.

While most of those employees previously in violation of the personnel rules live near Fairhope’s police jurisdiction line, several live in Gulf Shores, Bay Minette and Foley. The city pays for the fuel for those vehicles, including the commute to and from work, according to city staff.

The ordinance specifically authorizes the following employees to have take-home vehicles: city administrator, general superintendent, gas superintendent, electric superintendent, water and sewer superintendent, public works superintendent, information technology director, police chief, law enforcement personnel as recommended by police chief and approved by city administrator, and weekly standby utility employees.

“Of all the people I’ve talked with, they think all the cars should be parked, except for police (cars),” said Mac McCawley, a member of the Financial Advisory Committee, during a report he gave at a meeting of that committee prior to Monday’s council meeting.

The “home use of city vehicles” was one of 17 items the FAC had identified as “financial opportunities for improvement” to make up a budget shortfall of close to half a million dollars this year.

After the FAC meeting, McCawley said he thought it would be “premature” for the council to act on the take-home issue prior to a work session meeting the council has scheduled for May 17 to consider that item and other possible cost-cutting measures during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

At Monday’s council meeting, Councilman Rick Kingrea also sought to limit the use of take-home vehicles to police officers, but was overruled by the other four council members.

Councilman Dan Stankoski did state that the council might revisit its decision on take-home vehicles at the May 17 meeting.

“All of the people I’ve talked with don’t think the city should be paying these people to drive their cars back and forth to work,” McCawley said after the FAC meeting, referring to those city employees with take-home vehicles other than police officers.

In other business, the council voted unanimously to rezone the property of Karen Urbanek, located at 860 Edwards Ave., from R-1 low-density, single-family residential to a B-4 business and professional district.

Although the planning department had recommended the rezoning, the request failed to receive approval by the Planning Commission earlier this month, which split 4-4 on the issue. At that commission meeting, Mixon, a commission member, made a motion to accept the planning staff’s recommendation, with the addition of a self-imposed deed restriction of a 30-foot landscape buffer of screening and fencing.

That buffer will be installed as part of the rezoning approval, a real estate agent involved in the rezoning request said at Monday’s council meeting during a public hearing on the issue.