FAIRHOPE, Alabama—A councilman during the contentious period when Fairhope was first changing to a strong-council system, Cecil Christenberry will give his perspective on “unity” amid a divisive political landscape this Sunday at the Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship.

“There is so much mean-spiritedness in politics today that it got me thinking about what ‘unity’ means,” he said Monday. “Does unity mean you always have to agree with one another? I’ll bring in some Fairhope issues about why the council and mayor are always bickering, and why we just can’t seem to get along.”

Christenberry opened Old Tyme Feed & Garden Supply in 1987 and served two terms on the City Council starting in 2000.

“We were trying to transition from a strong-mayor system, and there was a lot of opposition, not only from the mayor, but also from the good-old-boy club, those powerful people who had been behind the scenes.”

He insists, strongly, that he is not running for office again and that his talk will be a “light-hearted report” aimed at opening up a dialogue and will not “get political as to hurt feelings or stir up anger.”

But he does speak plainly about one current hot-button issue in town.

“He’s the first chief the mayor was not allowed to pick,” he said of Police Chief Bill Press, who was hired after a national search in 2009. “I think he’s a crackerjack and no-nonsense police chief. A mayor wants his own chief because he can control him, and that’s not this chief.”