DAPHNE, Ala.—The City Council in its Monday business meeting enacted a hiring freeze until July 7 when a motion to adopt a moratorium passed 4-2.

Councilman Ron Scott expressed his disdain for the idea.

“Why do we feel the necessity to organize a hiring freeze?” he asked.

He added that initiating a hiring freeze might send the wrong message that the city is in a financial crisis. Typically, a hiring freeze is instituted to help  debt-ridden businesses cut costs.

However, in Daphne’s situation, Scott said, “the city … has added to a surplus the first six months of the year.”

Mayor Fred Small said he opposed the motion.

“I don’t understand why no one’s directly talked to me about this since it directly affects me,” he said.

Small questioned the motivation behind the measure, and began listing his most recent department head hirings.

“I hired Tonya Young to head up the library,” he said. “I moved Mr. (Bill) Eady to Public Works. I hired Adrienne Jones to be our Planning Department director. I’m batting 1,000 (percent), three out of three.”

He added that if he’s done something wrong, someone should have told him directly.

“I don’t know if I’m being punished for something,” he said. “I deserve the opportunity for someone to tell me why.”

The motion extended from a first-read ordinance on the agenda that would make the city council appointing authority of city officers.

The ordinance reads that the council believes it’s in the city’s best interest to remove appointing authority from Small for certain employment positions and place it within the seven-member council’s discretion.

The ordinance, which normally would first go through an ordinance committee, didn’t follow traditional protocol.

“The ordinance never came to committee,” Councilman Greg Burnam, a 12-year member on the committee, said.

Scott suggested that the perceived politics behind the measure be taken out so the policy can be thoroughly examined and assessed.

“We think (Small’s) doing a bad job; that’s what the ordinance says,” he added, referring to how the ordinance, to him, may be inaccurately perceived.

In other business, council members:

The city has committed to matching funds from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources/Marine Resources Division.

The city will cover 25 percent of the project’s $593,333 total bill. The remaining portion will come from Department of Conservation.