Put Your Hip Boots On - Triangle Settlement Spin

PUT YOUR HIP BOOTS ON!

If Mayor Kant’s lips are moving he is lying.

The Mayor wants Fairhope to believe “everything dealing with the Dyas Triangle is completely finished and done”. This is after the latest settlement of a lawsuit by the city’s former insurer, Alabama Municipal Insurance Corporation, AMIC. This is after a “41 year bloodbath” of lawsuits costing Fairhope taxpayers untold millions of dollars.

The Hand Arendall law firm has been a major contributor to Mayor Kant Campaigns during the numerous lawsuits throughout the years, earning the firm millions of dollars in fees. The last estimate for the now settled lawsuit was over 3 million dollars in law fees on a settlement of 8.75 million dollars, which required the city to purchase the Dyas triangles, that’s over 30%. We paid 30% for attorneys to tell us to buy the land? The Mayor wants you to believe this is a win, hell I would hate to see what losing would cost.

Mayor Kant is also saying this settlement is based on the property becoming a park, and all our money will be coming back to the city by pursuing BP Restore Act money. Get out your KY now and put your boots on, ‘cus the Mayor is in full BS Spin mode. He is telling us the de-forested triangle, with deep erosion and still visible trails where the timber was cut down and hauled out, is PRISTINE property. If we pursue turning this property into a park it will take millions just to clean and prepare the land.

Part of the SPIN is to convince us that the total cost is 8.75 million, but that doesn’t include 3.2 million in law fees as part of the cost. The attorney fees are considered “water under the bridge”, do you think the city has a bookkeeping line item labeled “water under the bridge”?

The AMIC lawsuit, now settled, will cost us over 500,000 dollars. That’s a total cost of over 12 million we will have invested in the property and attorney fees, does that sound like a win for the taxpayer?

We have had only two Mayors in Fairhope in 40 years, they are solely responsible for the lawsuits and the corruption surrounding these lawsuits. We need to retire the Mayor, if we don’t there will be more lawsuits and more corruption at taxpayer expense.

It is past time to consider a viable replacement and elect a new Mayor. We need a candidate that is not a ‘good ole boy’, a candidate concerned about the city, a candidate who will stop the corruption and send the ‘good ole boys’ packing. Start thinking, discuss it with your friends and neighbors, we need a new Mayor.

Francis Paul Ripp