Fairhope is a wonderful place to live! Picturesque downtown, vibrant community events, haven for arts and literature, full calendar of family oriented activities – the list goes on and on. But the very charm and rich texture of life in Fairhope is no secret, and people are moving into our community at the highest rate of anywhere in Alabama, over 25 percent per year, and this growth must either be managed properly or it will spoil everything we cherish about Fairhope.

One critical piece of our fragile ecosystem that has already proven it cannot keep up with the pace of growth is the outmoded system of government imposed upon us in 2004 by the State of Alabama, known as the Weak-Mayor/Strong-Council. Despite the best intentions and hard work by all of our Mayors and Council Members since 2004, the very design of the Weak-Mayor/Strong-Council system tends to create stalemate between Mayor and Council when addressing long term strategic issues within the City. It is not a system of checks and balances; it is an inefficient system of political gridlock.

Where’s the proof that strategic issues are not being addressed and resolved by Fairhope’s political leadership since 2004? In 2004 the major long term issues in Fairhope were storm water management; pollution on the beaches; decaying and under-capacity city-owned utilities (electric, natural gas, sewer, and water); subdivision regulations; and managing growth along the Route 98 and Route 181 corridors. Here we are, 14 years later, and none of those long term issues are resolved, and in fact many of them are worse. As population growth continues to accelerate the risk of catastrophic failure will become greater and greater putting even more pressure on our community while political leadership stays in gridlock.

If we keep doing the same things year after year by deferring long term problems for another day then we are trusting in luck to carry us into the future, which is reckless and irresponsible, and not worthy of the great legacy of Fairhope that has been entrusted to us. We have to prepare for the future by taking positive steps to improve, and that means throwing off the old system of government and changing to the proven Council-Manager system used by over half the communities our size across the country.

Employing a professional city manager not only pays for itself over and over again with efficiency improvements, it also frees elected officials from the administration of daily operations and gives them time to focus on the policy issues that will guide the future of Fairhope. A professional City Manager typically has a graduate degree in Public Administration, City Planning, or Business Management – plus years of relevant on-the-job experience. The City Manager of Fairhope, appointed by the City Council, will soon be running a $75 million budgeted business with a rapid projected growth rate, staffed by over 300 full time employees. No elected official however well-intended is likely to be nearly as qualified as a professional city manager.

City Council Members in the new council-manager form of government (the mayor, the at-large council member, and the three council members elected by district) have complete authority over the City Manager, but they are freed up from the day-by-day running of the city, and thereby are empowered to provide leadership, develop a strategic vision for the future of the community, determine what services and improvements to provide citizens, lobby the state legislature and county commission on Fairhope’s behalf, and communicate and forge new relationships with constituents. With the City Council and City Manager working together as a team we will achieve significant improvements in the way our government works, as proven by other Alabama cities who use this system such as Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, and Auburn.

Chuck Zunk

Fresh Start Fairhope spokesperson