Lipstick on a Pig - Fly Creek Apartments

FREAKY FRIDAY
Dec. 18 2015
THE RIPP REPORT / BALDWIN COUNTY LEGAL EAGLE

LIPSTICK ON A PIG

The Fly Creek PUD, (planned unit development), proposed changes were rejected by the public unanimously and voted down by planning and zoning by a 5/4 vote. The Mayor and Councilman Ford voted against the proposal. You would think this apartment project was a dead issue. That is exactly what they want you to believe.

The truth of the matter is that the 300 plus people that showed up “freaked out” the Mayor who took Councilman’s Ford’s lead to back off and vote against the project. The crowd had not left the room before the land owner Author Corte told the Mayor “I may not live in Fairhope but I have influence”.

The next day our good Mayor was lobbying anyone who would listen, saying the vote needed to be repeated. He described the 300 people attending as an “angry mob of people not from here”. Excuse me! These were concerned citizens of the community.

TIP THE RIPPSTER has many sources of information within Fauxhope City government, from department heads to several employees that resent the Mayor’s bullying, on issues he promotes, regardless of public input. The subject of Fly Creek has inspired several, never heard from, employees to speak up.

Lobbying to support a cause is a normal function of government. Threatening employees and intimidating them to comply with his wishes is not acceptable. The Mayor is way out of bounds insisting employees agree with him. It’s his way or the highway.

LIPSTICK ON A PIG The Mayor is going to be loyal to his major political benefactor, Mr. Corte, and betray the public’s trust. He has floated several plans to reintroduce the same apartment complex, through planning and zoning or the short cut approach, the City Council. He is scared that a repeat of planning and zoning public meeting will result in the same “angry crowd not from here” showing up. He is favoring a BLINDSIDE of the public by using the City Council. He has the deck stacked on the Council and feels he has 3 votes in the bag as the same 3, Ford Boone and Mueller, would follow him off a cliff. Brewer and Burrell are the ones he has to convince to have a unanimous vote, which he feels is necessary. Brewer voted for the 35 thousand dollar football “gift” to Mayor Kant’s other benefactor Mr. Angus Cooper, who sits on the board of the Maritime museum in Mobile, Brewer’s current employer. She will face extreme pressure, to vote the way the Mayor instructs. Mr. Burrell voted against the “gift” and is the only vote with which the Mayor will have difficulty with. He has refused to talk with me about the subject for fear of getting hit by lighting. Some people have no sense of humor.

Forget the issues of Property Values, traffic, connectivity, Fly Creek environmental damage, Parker Road and quality of life, which will come later. The project in no way is beneficial to Fairhope.

Planning and council can say NO. Remember they denied all development on the triangle for 25 years. The fact that a project started in 06 with phase 1, has the right to start phase 2, with indefinite time limit, is a major flaw in Planning and Zoning the Comprehensive plan and Master Plan. It is however the major leverage the Mayor needs to BLINDSIDE the community.

INSULT TO INJURY Mr. Corte, quite shrewdly, donated land to the city to build a fire station on a dead end road. This cost the taxpayers half a million dollars, plus contents and fire trucks. He also donated land for a sewer lift station, costing several hundred thousand more. This infrastructure benefits his project and saves him about 1 million dollars. It is all in HIS master plan and connectivity to Rock Creek and highway 13 which will follow. We are told that only the City Council can vote on this connectivity and they have no plans PRESENTLY, to do so. Those plans will come in the form of emergency actions of the council once the project is completed and the full impact of traffic becomes abundantly clear.

The property will have to be completely stripped of trees, even if construction is done in phases. This is what happened with phase 1, which resulted in the present condition of Fly creek, which is full of red fill from the site. The proposed 10% reduction of impervious surfaces is a joke and will do nothing to stop storm water runoff.

Most important is that the city has no enforcement powers or uses them selectively. The first phase broke every promise made by the land owner and contractors. So how are we to believe them now with such a track record? The Tree committee evaluated trees removed in phase 1 at a million dollars and the city turned a blind eye.

The project refuses to provide any safeguards; they want us to TRUST them, like before. There should be a comprehensive traffic study, a watershed management plan, an environmental impact study, and a bond posted by the development that would insure any further damage to the creek, can be repaired by the developers not the taxpayers. The contractors and sub-contractors should be libel for their actions and not allowed to “INSULATE” themselves from litigation.

This will go before Council early next year. Pay attention the Mayor is going to try and restrict notification to the public, (another TIP THE RIPPSTER), and slip it into council while everyone is distracted with their daily lives. This is what he did to settle the triangle lawsuit that cost us 11.25 million dollars, and then told us it’s a Park.

One speaker best described the apartment complex, as an abomination.

YOU CAN PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG BUT IT’S STILL A PIG

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS AND CITIZENS OF FAIRHOPE

THIS DOES NOT BENEFIT OUR COMMUNITY.