Town hall meeting held for District 4 residents
Published 9:49 pm Tuesday, January 15, 2013
A crowd turned out for Monday’s town hall meeting for residents of Atmore’s District 4, hosted by newly-elected City Councilwoman Susan Smith, but concerns over that particular area of town were fairly tame.
Among the issues brought up to Smith, Mayor Jim Staff, Atmore Fire Chief Gerry McGhee and Atmore Public Safety Director Glenn Carlee were noise, speeding cars, trash and drainage problems.
In fact, a portion of the Monday’s meeting saw residents thanking the city leaders for the new street sweeper currently at work around town.
District 4 resident Jimmy Beck did express concerns over trash blowing in from a specific street in the district, but was assured more attention would be paid to that area.
Resident Robert Mays expressed concerns over past meeting he felt unfairly excluded from during executive session and questioned Staff on his understanding of open meeting laws.
“If you’re talking about someone’s good character you can call executive session,” Staff explained. We’re not going to have any closed meeting unless we’re talking about someone’s character.”
Smith also reinforced the new administration’s desire to be open and accessible.
“I think you’ll notice things being done much differently than in the past,” Smith said. “There’s nothing we can do about the past, but that’s not how we want to do things.”
Other town hall dates are pending.