Fairhope mayor says city looks to a successful future

By Allison Marlow
Posted 2/12/19

When Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson presented her annual State of the City speech this year it was more show and less tell.

In front of her the civic center floor was filled by residents and city …

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Fairhope mayor says city looks to a successful future

Posted

When Fairhope Mayor Karin Wilson presented her annual State of the City speech this year it was more show and less tell.

In front of her the civic center floor was filled by residents and city workers who were interacting, laughing and learning. Department heads answered questions. City workers outfitted children with safety gear and let them try their hand at playing detective and utility worker. Attendees clamored for free Conecuh sausage dogs and stylish lunch totes specially made for the event.

Wilson, who will be the first to tell you she abhors public speaking, was succinct and swift in her delivery of a list of recent successes for the city. Her smile spoke volumes.

Two years after upending the small town’s politics and defeating four-term incumbent Mayor Tim Kant with 53.4 percent of the vote, after entering the campaign just a month prior to election day, Wilson said she finally finds herself in the position she campaigned for - moving forward.

“Being mayor is not running every department. It’s making sure there are experienced department heads that have what they need and letting them do their job,” Wilson said. “There were already so many people within the city that were just hungry to implement plans they felt were great for their department.”

Wilson said she “tipped the apple cart” in that election, and subsequently spent the first two years of her term in a standoff of sorts with the City Council that was ignited with the termination of two longtime city employees. Since then there have been questions of transparency, legal threats and disagreements, much of it splayed across local newspaper front pages.

“We have a lot of new people in Fairhope. They see the flowers, they see a happy town because it is and all of that is authentic, but, the reality is that the government did not match that. The flowers distracted from the serious issues we were facing,” she said.

Wilson laments the media coverage and says it has given the idyllic town a public black eye. Now, however, with several new department head hires, the city’s financial security in place and innovative comprehensive planning strategies underway she said the future is bright.

“We’ve done a lot and now as we implement what we have in the works for every department it takes time,” she said. “We just need to make sure we don’t lose sight of the big thing.”

That biggest attention stealing priority is growth.

“When you address growth you take care of every other concern: property value, quality of life. All of these things are under the umbrella of responsible growth.”

As a third generation Fairhope resident, Wilson has watched the seaside artists’ retreat march steadily from hidden gem to retirement mecca to one of the fastest growing areas of Alabama.

When she entered the mayor’s race, Wilson said her goal was merely to alert voters to the need for better planning among city leaders.

“I wanted them to know that there was no plan for growth. The last comprehensive plan was in my opinion, a sheet of paper with no teeth. It was put together so you felt like you might be part of the process but you absolutely weren’t,” she said. “Nobody was addressing the fact that most of the area in Fairhope is unzoned. We have to address it in a very big way,” she said.

When she took office in November, 2016, there were already enough building projects approved to last four years. Her administration halted all new project approvals until they could assess the situation.

“It wasn’t transparent; we were at the mercy of developers. For Fairhope that is a tipping point,” Wilson said. “It is a time when the whole town can change drastically and we absolutely lose everything.”

Wilson said it took a year to transform the planning commission and transition it from a department that was making decisions to benefit developers to one that was looking to improve the city as a whole.

In addition to making city planning a collaborative effort, Wilson said her administration took on the monumental task of untangling the city’s finances. Previously 51 percent of utility profits, roughly $5.37 million each year, were used to pay the city’s operating costs.

By cutting costs and hiring experts to work in-house, rather than pay increased contractor fees, the city now relies on only 5 percent of utility profits for daily operational costs. This means the remainder of the utility profits can be used to improve and update those utility operations.

“I was shocked by how much we were able to improve that amount,” she said. “We’re going to just continue to get better. Now the types of profit we’re making can sustain the five year plan without borrowing money.”

During the state of the city address Wilson also unveiled the plan to move the city forward using the Innovative Communities by Design system to address storm water, sanitary sewer overflows and future land-use planning.

Among the plans she announced were these funded by the Secured Restore Act:

• Eastern Shore sanitary sewer overflow prevention plan, three-year project, $1 million: to minimize sanitary sewer overflows and improve overall water quality of Mobile Bay

• Working waterfront and greenspace restoration, three-year project, $6.2 million: primarily a bluff stabilization project that integrates improvements to the shoreline and bluffs. Includes a green infrastructure and living shoreline strategies.

• Fairhope area community-based comprehensive land use plan, a two-year project, $650,000: This three-pronged approach combines the city’s first ever land use plan, a full comprehensive plan and recommendations to integrate form-based code for the main thoroughfare in Fairhope, the Greeno Road Corridor.

• Fairhope sewer upgrade, a five-year project, $10 million: reduce discharges to Mobile Bay by reducing the number and frequency of sanitary sewer overflows.

Wilson said residents will begin to see each of the plans begin to unfold soon. Her hands begin to wave animatedly through the air as she describes the projects and how each will transform and improve the current stretched infrastructure.

Despite the long hours, and the public drama, Wilson said serving as mayor is the most rewarding task she’s ever had.

“A lot of the distracting stuff people see in the newspaper and hear about is just 1 percent of this job. The reality is the other 99 percent of what we do is building a positive and exciting future for our city,” she said. “The best thing about being the mayor of your hometown, a place you truly love and that is part of your life in a big way is that it is all opportunity. We are building for all of our futures. It really has been a blessing.”