FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Supporters of an independent school system in Fairhope got some good news Monday, after some of their hopes might have been dashed last week.

City Council President Lonnie Mixon indicated Monday that the council would take up the issue of whether Fairhope schools should split from the county school system after a feasibility study to consider the issue is completed.

A $25,000 study to be conducted by Birmingham consultant Ira Harvey was funded by the city in January after a request for the city to fund such a study was made to the council in September by about a dozen local parents and others interested in the issue.

“My understanding now from Ms. (Debbie) Quinn, the committee chair, is that once the study is complete, she and her committee will study that and make a presentation at the work session and then to the council,” Mixon said during a Monday work session prior to the regular council meeting that night. “Then it will be up to the council to go one way or the other.”

That statement was a far cry from what Mixon said last Thursday during a budget committee meeting, which he acknowledged Monday when he said he “misspoke” last week by saying the council would no longer be involved in the study or issue.

His statements last week, however, were definitive, which he reversed on Monday.

“We authorized that the study was for the parents for them to do with what they will,” Mixon said on July 22. “The council will not get involved after that.”

After Mixon made that statement Thursday, Senior Services Director Sherry Sullivan said, “If (the study) says the city should move forward, then the council might get involved.”

Mixon replied quickly, “Let me assure you that the council will not.”

After the committee meeting last week, Mixon expanded on this statements during an interview.

“That’s not for the city to get involved,” Mixon said. “I would no more put something like that to the council without a referendum and vote of the people. I would even ask for that group to show the council that there was a good probability that the majority of people would vote for it. The group can have a forum, but as far as the council is concerned, we have no intention whatsoever in making any move on this.”

Quinn reacted with surprise last week after learning of Mixon’s statements.

“He said that without seeing the study?” she said. “The City Council asked for the study. It’s a council study. It’s not the parents who funded the study. If we felt that way, we could have said go right ahead and do your own study. But we spent taxpayer money on the study.”

Quinn said last week she hoped the rest of the council would want Harvey to make a presentation during a work session and council meeting. She also said the study that was to have been completed in May was now close to being finished, with Harvey currently editing it.

“(Harvey) and I have to meet over it, before I put it out to the public, to make sure I understand it and am comfortable with its assumptions,” Quinn said last week. “I envision sometime like the middle of August when school gets back in and everybody is paying attention. We should have a work session with the council, and then have a public hearing over it so that the public can hear it.”

At Monday’s council meeting, Quinn summarized the status of the study and stated a reason for why it was funded by the city.

“The (study) committee has not seen or heard any final analysis of the Fairhope school feasibility study, and we are all looking forward to discussing the study and its finding with Dr. Harvey and the council,” she said. “The Baldwin County School System is in dire financial condition. The future of our community’s children depends on us being knowledgeable and deliberative in coming to conclusions about what is good for all of Fairhope. We look forward to hearing from Dr. Harvey within the next month.”

During the single time the study committee has met, in February, Harvey said an independent school system would use existing buildings but would have to assume the debt for construction costs of several new schools built the past few years.

Last week, school board member Bob Callahan said that indebtedness for local school construction in Fairhope, which began in 2006 and finished with the new elementary school that will open for students next month, was approximately $50 million.