BALLS

How many balls are on the City Council? Place your bets and take note how many council members have forgotten what our last election was about— and their promises. How many will stand up for citizens, and how many have no balls. PLEASE make your voice heard!

Monday night’s City Council meeting: Included on this agenda is the request to amend an ordinance (Item #6) that would allow an exception so that the Fly Creek Apartments’ prior approval would not expire due to the moratorium. WHY IN THE HELL WOULD THEY EXTEND IT? This is the 9th public meeting— all of which has shown overwhelming opposition to the project.

Council President Burrell did not include the updated job description for Public Works Director so it was not added to the agenda, another request of the Mayor denied.

From January 2016 through April 2016, Defendants Leaf River and Corte made numerous representations to the City of Fairhope Planning Commission, City Council, Plaintiffs and residents of Fairhope in order to convince them that the Fly Creek PUD Amendment was a good idea and should be approved. The representations continued through the October 2016 MOP Site Plan review process. These material representations included, but were not limited to;

A. That the drainage discharge system would be an environmentally friendly and sensitive non-point discharge system that would evenly distribute water, storm water runoff along and through a Gabion Wall structure via perforated pipe and gravel bed that would be adjacent and connected to the entirety of the Gabion Wall structure along the Fly Creek wetland boundary. And that this drainage system was far superior to a point discharge system that would traditionally use a discharge pipe(s) and a retention pond(s) area(s). However, the truth is that Defendants knew or should have known they planned to use and were going to use a point discharge system for the primary release of all water/storm water drainage via a large pipe that would connect to the already deficient retention pond servicing the big box commercial strip center, and flow out the one existing outfall pipe of that detention pond directly into the wetlands and Fly Creek. These Defendants also knew or should have known that due to the one point discharge system utilizing the one DOCUMENT 323 outfall pipe they were going to have to put at least 50 Tons of Class 2 rip rap underneath and existing in and toward the wetlands to try to handle the deluge of water outflow from the one point primary release discharge system. Had the truth about the PUD Amendment been accurately represented to the Planning Commission, City Council, citizens of Fairhope the PUD Amendment would never have been approved;

B. That the Red Soil Ordinance #1423 would apply to the entire site as they would not be using any Red soil (clay or silt) materials on the entire site. The purpose of the red soil ordinance is

“to protect the water quality and environmental integrity of the watersheds within []Fairhope. . . . [To] . . . limit[] the use of red soil (clay and silt) which may harm aquatic plants or marine life, from being used in critical and coastal areas.”

One of its objectives is

“to prohibit the use of red soil (clay and silt) in high risk ‘critical areas.’”

The Ordinance defines critical areas as

“Environmentally and ecologically sensitive areas to include but not limited to high risk areas for erosion and/or within 100’ of floodplains, wetlands, watercourses and gullies.”

The defendants represented that the not only would they not use red soil (clay and silt) in the PUD’s critical areas but the entire site. However, the Defendants knew and/or should have known that the truth was they intended and planned on moving red soil (clay and silt) from areas within the original PUD into and within 100’ of the wetlands, watershed and Fly Creek in clear violation of the Ordinance. The Defendants apparently were (wink wink) relying on a definition of “filling activity” which referred to any soil material brought from any other location to the site. They actually planned to move red soil from other parts of the 213 acre PUD land into and DOCUMENT 323 within 100’ of the wetlands, watershed and Fly Creek justified in their own mind because technically this would not be filling activity as the red soil was technically from the same PUD although still being moved from a non-critical area into a critical area. This was a blatant misrepresentation and material non-disclosure. Had the Planning Commission, City Council, Plaintiffs and citizens of Fairhope known the truth the PUD Amendment would never have been approved.

Fly Creek remains today filled with tons of red mud placed their during construction. The Detention pond has failed and a lawsuit was settled and a lawsuit is pending. The Fly Creek Basin is still being filled with mud from the original damage and requires annual dredging. The tree ordinance was violated to the tune on almost 1 million in damage, assessed by the Fairhope Tree Committee.

If this project is allowed more lawsuits will follow and Fly Creek will sustain further damage as well as require annual dredging.