After a climactic Bay Minette City Council meeting Monday, it's back to the drawing board for one project and the creation of another.

Police Chief Michael Rowland has to find new faucets for his Project Safe Neighborhood funds to flow into, while the Douglasville community and the Bay Minette City Council still want to fill the vacant Douglasville High School for the benefit of their community.

Troubled citizens filled the seats and lined the walls of the city council chambers Monday. They vented through a single voice, unlike the unorganized cries at the June 4 city council meeting.

Elouise Sanders-Robinson stood in front of the council after the standard proceedings. A blanket of silence fell over the room and she tenderly talked from prepared notes to the attentive council.

She was against Rowland's Safe Haven and she addressed the council as "we the concerned."

She cited a real estate agency, saying the Safe Haven — predominantly the proposed community re-entry program for the formerly incarcerated — "would bring down the value of our property making the homes in our residential area harder to sell," she said.

Although she claimed, "we would like to see the previously incarcerated get a new start in life," Rowland's plan was just too close to home.

"We are especially concerned about our children," she said.

The graduate of Douglasville High proposed using the school "for something more productive."

She added that the community's efforts should be put toward keeping its members out of prison and not just helping them after they serve time.

She said the community would prefer the Baldwin County School Board revisit the idea for a vocational school there, a student outreach, a Boys' and Girls' Club or an adult education program.

"A possible Boys' and Girls' Club" was the only idea Sanders-Robinson said the community would want on what Rowland later identified as his list of possible ideas for the Safe Haven.

Even the fully-functional police precinct was unwanted — Sanders-Robinson was concerned "it might be a wolf in sheep's clothing." She later declined to elaborate.

After she concluded with reiterating the community's demand for no Safe Haven, Mayor Sonny Dobbins immediately responded.

"You all don't want it," he said and a collaborative "no" answered.

"Then those items are scratched," Dobbins said.

Dobbins added his assurance that Rowland was "doing the right thing" and "wasn't trying to force anything."

"It's back to the drawing board for Chief Rowland," Dobbins said. "He's got a lot of grant money to spend on the community."

It’s money Rowland isn't sure he'll be able to keep now that there will be no Safe Haven.

"We're kind of in limbo right now," Rowland said. "We've got to look at any changes this might have on our grant. We might not be able to keep it."

Although the antagonism to the Safe Haven has developed only recently, the program met little support or resistance during the previous eighteen months.

The crowd's answer: they didn't know about it.

The final note of the council members was a mixture of praise and encouragement. Councilmen Melvin Bradley and Chris Norman both applauded the citizens for finally speaking out for what their community wants. They added that they also needed more participation to know what the community needs.

"We want input on what you want in the community," Norman said.

Norman commended Sanders-Robinson, specifically.

"We need people like you to get out and make this program," he said.

Bradley has a meeting scheduled at the Douglasville Community Center on Hurricane Road July 10 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss what to do with the deserted school.

"Please be at the meeting and tell us what we can do to make that school better," Dobbins said to the crowd at the meeting's close.

Otherwise, Douglasville High School will remain empty until someone else comes up with a new use for it.

"The only plan that was there was that plan," Rowland said, "unless a group comes forward with a proposal now."