FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Tempers flared over two agenda items at Thursday’s City Council meeting.

One started simmering at the 5 p.m. work session before the council meeting, which met that night instead of Monday due to a National League of Cities conference that some council members are attending.

“What are you going to say, Mike?” City Council President Bob Gentle asked Councilman Mike Ford about an item Ford requested put on the agenda to discuss council procedures, directions and goals.

“I just don’t like the way things have been going and I want to get it out in front of the public,” Ford said.

At the council meeting, during an often-heated discussion that lasted about an hour, Ford aired a number of grievances, including how the council handled last Monday’s override of Mayor Tim Kant’s veto of pay hikes for mayor and council, which were approved at the council’s Feb. 11 meeting.

“I think we ought to find for certain that we didn’t break our own rules,” Ford said.

He asked why City Attorney Marion “Tut” Wynne had not requested an Attorney General opinion as instructed by the council at the Feb. 25 council meeting.

The council asked Wynne at that meeting to seek an opinion about whether the mayor’s veto, which occurred that night, was valid.

“I made a decision not to ask for an attorney general opinion, but I did ask if you still wanted me to do that and to help me frame the question,” Wynne said, referring to a letter he sent the council on Feb. 28.

Wynne said facts learned the day after the council meeting, for example, that the veto had been delivered on time to the clerk’s office, made the question about whether the veto was valid unnecessary.

However, Ford said he also believed the council’s veto override was invalid because the council failed to follow the city ordinance requiring a unanimous vote by the council to add agenda items during a council meeting.

“I don’t think we broke our own rules,” Wynne said.

The council voted 4-1, with Ford voting against, to withdraw the request to Wynne to seek any legal opinion about the events at the Feb. 25 council meeting regarding the veto and its override.

“It’s a done deal,” Gentle said. “(The ordinance) has now been published. The salaries will be what that ordinance says.”

The other hot item at Thursday’s meeting was over plans to change how traffic will be routed at U.S. 98, Veteran’s Drive and Alabama 104 near the “Triangle” property where a large mixed commercial and residential subdivision is planned called Village North.

That property has been the subject of recent controversy because the developer sought to increase the size of a “big box” grocery store there from the size initially approved.

That application to change the approved plan was rejected by the city’s planning and zoning commission last year, which recommended to the City Council that the amended application be denied.

The developer withdrew that application for an amended site plan a few days before the Feb. 25 council meeting.

It submitted a new amended application to the city’s planning department the following week, officials said. That application will be considered at the April 7 planning and zoning commission meeting.

One of the owners of that property, Eric Dyas, presented his arguments Thursday for why the plan as proposed should be changed. He also met with some council members, staff from the Alabama Department of Transportation and others at a meeting of the city’s street committee on Wednesday.

He stated that when the initial planned-used development was approved several years ago, a traffic light at Veteran’s Drive and U.S. 98 had been given the green light by the city.

The plan considered at Thursday’s meeting calls for no traffic light at that intersection, instead making other major changes in the traffic flow.

The plan would add turn lanes at North Section Street and 104, and at 104 and U.S. 98. It also would prevent traffic from turning left from Veteran’s Drive onto U.S. 98 going north.

Dyas said those changes would harm the proposed Village North development.

“It (the proposed plan) is done, that project is going to get gigged permanently,” he said. “The problem is, if this is done, we’re going to be in a box.”

Dyas said the current plan would undermine the settlement reached between the city and his family over development of the Triangle property that was the subject of major litigation several years ago.

After an animated discussion, at which the council considered delaying acceptance of the contract with the company that made the lowest bid on the project, the council voted to accept the contract with Summit Industries in the amount of $632,389.

The bid forms state that about 50 percent of that amount would be reimbursed by the ALDOT.

“If you take this action tonight, I think the die is cast,” Dyas said regarding whether a traffic signal would ever be located at Veteran’s Drive and U.S. 98.

In other business, the City Council:

• Voted against passing a resolution supporting the county’s current efforts to build a larger animal control facility at the Magnolia Springs landfill to be funded through new pet licensing fees to be collected and enforced by the county.

• Passed a resolution allowing the developer at the Fly Creek planned-use development at U.S. 98 and Parker Road to request permission from ALDOT to put a traffic light at that intersection. The resolution stated that if approved, the developer would pay for construction of the traffic signal.