Fairhope has been cited for many national awards for its beauty. But, it deserves awards for more than just flowers. Placing a gas station located on a safety roundabout in a residential area on the cityโs gateway, Fairhope Avenue and 13, only two blocks from three other filling stations/convenience stores, certainly will be an American oddity; and altogether deserving of an Onion American Planning award. This is so bad in terms of safety negligence that it even beats building a fire station on a dead end road (Parker); or having an open sewer line regularly discharge into Mobile Bay, along with all of Trip Pittman and Tim Kantโs expensive BP anchors.
The Fairhope City Council unanimously refuses to support economic and community development as a department. However, it unanimously approved a $40 thousand handshake deal our previous mayor made, without any invoice, work order or paperwork. Jack โCome Fly With Meโ Burrell contends there is no good ole boy network in Fairhope. The councilโs actions speak otherwise.
Why Baldwin County is Alabama’s undisputed king of growth
Baldwin County added 3,000 residents last year and it’s growth continues to elate and worry local leaders.
Source: www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2016/04/why_baldwin_county_is_alabamas.html
Let us not forget the โJack Burrell Come Fly With Me Municipal Airportโ serving less than 1% of the community and receiving more in appropriation funds than any of its schools, which are overcrowded because of the good ole boy developers. The present and past Fairhope City Councils have all had education committees strive to increase school performance. A city school system has been beat to death by an overwhelming opposition. Our schools are facing the same problem as the entire county: unbridled growth; and we did not rank in the top 25 schools in the state. This is not a teacher problem; it is a population problem, fitting too many people into an area without the needed infrastructure investment.
US News – Best High Schools
Back to the roundabout.
This was all done in the last administration. Beavis and Butthead (Boone and Come Fly With Me Burrell) were there. They dealt with this (chose to do nothing) along with Mayor Kant and County Commissioner Elliott. All chimed in on the issue before the election, assuring that it would not happen. The construction of a gas station on the roundabout became a dead issue and most people thought that was the end of it. Well Kant lost and the good ole boys had already secretly paved the road to the roundabout, literally.
ROUND AND ROUND WE GO
Baldwin County has recently been introduced to the traffic intersection known as a roundabout.โ The modern roundabout is a beautiful thing. Traffic flow is improved, they look nice and they are saferโฆ
The roundabout provided the needed infrastructure for the gas station. Correction–you, the tax payers, did! Councilmen Burrell, โCome fly with me,โ insists there is no such thing as the good ole boy club or network. Well go drive your kids through the roundabout a hundred times and repeat to yourself, โThere is no such thing as good ole boys,โ also known as โThe Good Ole Boy Network.โ
Ask yourself a question: โWho thinks to put a convenience store on a roundabout; and who allows them do it?โ
The entire purpose of the roundabout is to slow traffic in a safe and efficient manner. By placing an entrance and exit to the gas station on the roundabout, the safety of the roundabout is forever compromised. Where was ALDOT? This is an embarrassment to the city and county planners and I predictโlike I have repeatedly and successfullyโthere will be a future lawsuit regarding this mistake.
Someone in government dropped the ball. Whether or not a payoff was involved is suspect, but it certainly would explain the stupidity of it all, as greed is what motivates the good ole boysโฆas it is certainly not โthe citizensโฆthe citizensโฆthe citizensโ (Jack โCome Fly With Meโ Burrell).
BOYCOTT THE IGNORANCE and NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT OF A GAS STATION ON A ROUNDABOUT AND BLOW YOUR HORN AT THOSE WHO SLOW DOWN TRAFFIC AND CANNOT WAIT TO DRIVE TWO BLOCKS!
Call wkrg. This is preposterous!
Everyone knows what I love about this blog? The owner does not live inside the city limits of Fairhope but he knows everything there is to know, just ask him.
All you have to do is ask for your property to be annexed just like the good ole girl mayor wants! Annex into the city then you can bitch, like I tell everyone if you don’t vote you can not bitch! You’re not eligible to vote!
The reason you don’t want your property to be annexed is you’ll have to clean up that hell hole and start paying 2% in property tax.
You take up time in from the council that is reserved for citizens, you are not even a citizen!
The citizens want this, the citizens want that, how the hell do you know? You are not even a citizen and you supported a mayor that assaulted a long-term employee but yet you could not even vote for her!
You know what is called someone that is an outsider like you, a propagandist! The only reason you care about those apartments is you think the traffic will be too much on your street. There is a business on your property that doesn’t have a license from the city, and your sign doesn’t meet the ordinances of the city sign laws!
Oh, Boone and Burrel do this, oh, Burrel and Boone do that, why don’t you start paying your fair share of taxes and obey the laws like the rest of us? Huh??????
Tell it
I can Ripp and Wilson both sharing a cell. Ripp would need to sleep with one eye open though!
It’s in the PIPELINE
RIPP is going to have the last laugh. RIPP
Has been right all along
Nobody appreciated your satire. I did.
The gas station is not in the Fairhope city limits. Article forgot to mention that little fact.
It is also unzoned. A fact.
What is wrong with all these politicians assaulting people. Maybe the mayor needs to move out to Montana!
Well, that figures. A transplant complaining about too many people here. And you want to bring up the fire station situation? The land was donated do the department for the specific use of the station. It was needed for the North End of the city to satisfy ISO requirements, thus keeping the insurance rates low for the citizens. It was all roses till some pretentious transplant renting a house nearby started complaining about the possible noise, demanding that the fire department not use Sirens or horns. Its always “not in my backyard” with this guy. Must be a horrible way to live being miserable all the time.
Transplant? We are all transplants you jerk!
My family is not a transplant – maybe you are but my family has been around these parts long before it was a state. Yeah, you are clearly a transplant, you all of the others that have made this place a living hell.
I’m sure you can share how it feels everyday!
The parcel where the station is being built is not within the city limits, correct? If true, what control would the City have over it?
Burrell and Boone are responsible.
35th in Alabama! Thanks to the good ole boys (GOB).
All the Yankees that have moved here are the reason why we’re 35th. They bring their Yankee attitudes and dumbass children that drag down the city! Go back up north!
This makes Fairhope look like Sh#t…in a roundabout way.
๐
Lol!!! That’s a great one. Jack Burrell doesn’t give a crap what it looks like. He doesnt give a [email protected]&! That made my day. Thank you very much. He won’t ever get elected to anything again in Fairhope! He smells worse and is more rotten than a suitcase full of assholes. The same one he carries on the private planes he flies on out of Fairhope. The Gas station looks like crap and is an awful eyesore. You can put lipstick on a pig. But, its still a pig. In a round about way! Still laughing…
At least Jack and Kevin do not assault employees! You’re right, you can try and put a lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig!
Let’s boycott all the bitchers and whiners! Get over it, it’s there, stand in line for a Dr. Pepper and a snickers with the rest of us.
Oooooh! Sounds like Dumb Azz might have had something to do with the gas station on the round about. Go get your Dr. Pepper and your snickers at one of the several stations already in the area and chill. Get Jack Burrell one too for helping make the “round about” come true. Like you said. “Guess we will just need to get over it”. Another broken promise by so many of our Fairhope council members?
Because boycotts have proved so effective any time we don’t get our way. This is a GREAT idea! I’m not sure this is a national embarrassment, either. Heck, the people in our own county probably aren’t as worked up as some might think. Here’s one in Washington State and I think I see two gas stations in the picture. Doubly nationally embarrassed I guess.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/3951629182
Fairhope really built a fir station on a dead end road?
Where is the crap pipe located?
I think you meant. Where is the crack pipe located that they were smoking while deciding to buildi the fire station on a dead end road?
They are not dumb
In fact they are smart
They were preparing in 2015 that those publix apartments would go through along with the new firefly development
They were just so blatant and sloppy towards the end that it will all come to light
What is the firefly development?
Neighborhood behind Sandy ford in Rock Creek and across the wetlands…..
Connecting dots……..
Well the cracked sewer pipe was located in the vicinity of the fire station….
The citizens paid for the new sewer lift station probably for Cortes publix apartments and that’s Why the fire station was put there …. It’s not about the citizens at all … It’s all about the good ole boys and their corruption!!!
Might as well put a landing strip to the wetlands off Parker road!!
Beavis and butthead LLC
There are sewer leaks where it should be, right where of all the poop is!
Get your facts straight. There is no service station within 2 blocks of the roundabout, also the said gas station does not have a entrance or exit connected to the roundabout. #FAKENEWS
It looks like it is connected. I am out here now.
Stop drinking, you know you can not drink and drive! Duh…
Boycott the Ripp Report! What a freaking joke.
Boycott beavis and butthead. Criminals!!
The only criminal that is a politician that is in an office of Fairhope is the mayor! She assaulted a lady because she wants ‘yes men’ or should I say ‘yes girls’ like everyone she hires! She needs to be charged and removed from office!
I doubt that she ‘assaulted’ anyoneโฆโฆ.sour grapes all over here! Heathcoe is being demoted and was clearly the target of Karin Wilson’s (unwarranted) wrath, but this is not an indictable offense. If it were, we would have been aware of it almost 6 years ago. Lots of sour grapes from uneducated and overpaid City employees who have been put in their proper places since the last election. Clearly, Wilson was out of line if she even touched Pandora, but the fact that Jennifer Fidler is the witness tells the story. Just because someone was ‘close to’ Mayor Kant does not entitle one to ‘special salaries/priviliges’. Yes, these ladies miss Kant!
So Jennifer “City Dump” Fidler is the witness?
OK.
You doubt this? You doubt this because you are blind to the law! You need to read the law, if you can read! Duh, duh, duh…
We all know the mayor is a loose cannon, she wants everything her way and if she doesn’t get she blows a fuse. There were witnesses and the mayor knows what she did.
It’s like going to municipal court and listening to everyone that says: I haven’t done drugs, no not me, then the judges order them to take a drug test and they are positive for drugs.
She and Ripp in one jail cell, someone is going to become someone’s little …yeah…and we all know who’s going to run that cell.
I am still laughing my ass off, I don’t have a lot of ass either! Who is going to be eating sour grapes now, or should I say a TV Dinner for every meal!
They accusers are both liars and know how to work the system
And they are not the mayor and they know how to work the system. Maybe Wilson should have listened to them!!!!
I will not boycott this station! If I am going to boycott anything it is who approved it, and not penalize the owner. To boycott this business is wrong! At least it will be nicer that any gas station on hwy 98.
Fairhope will soon be a shitbird town like Daphne and Foley. Sad but true. Greed ruins everything.
This sure looks like a good ole boy deal. Daphne doesn’t put businesses on its four roundabouts.
Fairhope has major infrastructure concerns. I have watched for years the city fail to reinvest in water, electric and roads, not to mention the sewer plant, which I consider a health concern given the alternatives to discharging into the bay.
The discharge pipe should be removed and a new plant should be built. This is a refusal by the past mayor and two council members to do the right thing. They prolonged the problem by throwing money at the current antiquated locale.
While traffic concerns are real as commute times increase heading north and south on 98, most don’t know that our lift stations that push sewerage through our hilly system–do not possess generators. This is a real threat in hurricane situations where we lose power for days.
This problem has existed for more than a decade. The council and mayor have done nothing.
The fire station on a dead end road was a huge piece of infrastructure for Mr. Corte’s apartment complex (planned) and neighborhood. It was not for city safety–after all it is on a dead end road.
Im not arguing with you here but yes Parker Road is a dead end…today. The PUD overall master plan has that road going all the way to Co Rd 13.
Burrell $old his $oul.
Fake news, entranc.es are not on the roundabout. They are on 13 and Fairhope.
Isn’t there a plan for development?? If this is in compliance it is not a good plan.
I called when started clearing to ask what was & found out stupid convenience store – I called County & they blamed on City & called City & they blamed on County – also close to Intermediate School – do you have to be a certain distance away from schools to sell alcohol?? Also emailed Kevin Boone about it – his City Council email (where he wants to represent the citizens of Fairhope) which is a joke in itself – This was emailed before the election & to this day he still has not responded to me. He is out there only for himself – plain & simple – He does NOT listen to the residents of Fairhope. He will not respond to emails from the citizens of Fairhope. Do not believe what he says – it is an act – he may go to church but it is totally for show!
Even if the driveway did enter/exit the circular roadway, so what? Modern roundabouts operate in the 15-20 mph range, making such driveways safer than along long straight segments of roadway.
There are many examples of modern roundabouts with driveways, school driveways, fire station driveways, etc., in the US.
I would bet the real reason they roundabout was so that they COULD put a gas station there.
Wow. I,belive I just lost some brain cells reading these comments.there really is no reason to have have a gas station there. Why does fairhope have 3 dollar generals?
O