BAY MINETTE CHRISTMAS AND THE HOG FARM
Christmas comes early to Bay Minette Mayor Bob Wills. Ole Bobby is pushing the envelope when it comes to in your face “self Dealing”, using his office for personal gain. Mayor Wills has an outstanding ethics complaint involving his office and personal gain. Then there is the Alabama Bar complaint hanging over his head.
Mayor Wills of Bay Minette has seen his downtown area vacant, abandoned and disintegrate to shell of a once vibrant community. He is responsible and his yes sir city council for Bay Minette’s slow demise.
Mayor Wills priority is to build a justice center and support the 903 bed new jail that is to be located downtown. This will insure more business moving out.
Let’s not forget Mr O J French:
Rumors is all the public has because Baldwin County Major Crimes Unit, BCMCU, the County Commission and the City of bay Minette, Mayor and Council have all swallowed their tongue. They are solely responsible for the lack of information, misinformation and rumors circulating throughout Baldwin County.
Mayor Wills is one of those people that will speak loud to get attention and browbeat weak kneed local politicians to do his bidding.
Mayor Wills has just pulled off a quarter million dollar deal. Read the article below, printed in it’s entirety.
By Guy Busby Government Editor [email protected]
BAY MINETTE — The Baldwin County Legislative Delegation will move into a new Bay Minette office following an agreement Tuesday, Nov. 16, with the Baldwin County Commission.
Commissioners voted to lease a building on D’Olive Street after the delegation agreed to pay the entire cost of the lease, $49,080 a year. The initial resolution called for the commission and delegation to split the cost.
Under an act of the Alabama Legislature, the county commission must provide office space for the state delegation.
Commissioner Billie Jo Underwood, chairwoman of the budget committee, initially asked that the vote be postponed until commissioners and legislators could discuss the proposal.
“I just simply didn’t think we had had an opportunity to discuss this and since there was an ask of the condition, a monetary amount,” Underwood said.
She said she wanted to study the proposal before voting on it and committing the county to a five-year lease.
“I just simply wanted to have an opportunity to look at what was there,” Underwood said. “This showed up on the agenda very quickly. And it’s like, OK, we’re going to enter into a five-year lease for something.”
Cliff McCollum, director of constituent services, said several new legislators have been added to the Baldwin County delegation and that more space is needed in the Bay Minette area.
“The thought was having a presence in Bay Minette is very important to the delegation,” McCollum said. “This is our county seat. This is a very important part of our government up here, especially for our members that are out of the county. We have five members of our delegation who do not live in Baldwin County.”
The delegation has an office on Oak Street in Bay Minette, but he said the building is not adequate for the legislators’ needs.
“It is the desire of the delegation that it be moved forward as expediently as possible so that we can make preparations for the office equipment we may be needing and the other things that we may need in preparation for the move,” McCollum said. “Other things, such as supply chain issues and because of continued issues we’ve had, it would allow us more time to be able to just get started.”
McCollum said the delegation would pay the entire cost of the lease if the commission would approve the action Tuesday.
“I believe that when we initially began this process, the delegation was thinking we were probably going to be on the hook for the whole thing anyway,” he said.
Commissioner Jeb Ball said he would agree to the proposal if the delegation was paying the full cost but said the matter should have been brought up before the first meeting of the new term.
“If our attorney’s OK with this modification and it doesn’t cost us anything and we’re not on the hook for anything,” Ball said. “We’re technically providing your space at no cost like we would anywhere else, but I do agree with Commissioner Underwood in the aspect of better communication on things like this. At an organizational meeting, we weren’t expecting something like this.”
WHAT IS MISSING IN THE ARTICLE?
What is missing is that the building is owned by Mayor Bob Wills.
So let’s get this straight Mayor Wills is responsible for Bay Minette’s plight of it’s numerous buildings. Mayor Wills get the contract and the hell with the downtown property owners that have vacant buildings.
What makes the quarter million dollar lease to Mayor Wills stink more than a hog farm is the county commission went along. The lease is for the Baldwin county Delegation offices. I hope you are following this story. The Mayor gets a quarter million dollar lease and the county commission approves it and it is supported 100% by the Baldwin County Delegation for the Baldwin County Delegation.
So right out of the box our county legislative delegation is involved in something so wrong a high school student could see the conflicts of interest.
The citizens of Baldwin County are being challenged by the very people we elected to office. How in the hell could everyone sit on their hands and hold their nose in support of Bob’s early Christmas.
It’s a tale of two papers, Lagniappe and Gulf Coast Media. Lagniappe provides the Mayor’s name as property owner and much more details that Gulf Coast omitted.
“Baldwin County’s state legislators have decided to use taxpayer money to rent office space in Bay Minette Mayor Bob Wills’ law office, according to a lease agreement presented to the Baldwin County Commission last week. The deal would see the legislative delegation pay $4,090 per month for a term of five years.
“The current delegation office location on Oak Street, I think we all know, has seen much better days,” Cliff McCollum, the delegation’s director of constituent services, told county commissioners near the end of their organizational meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 16. “And given the new influx of two new house members and a new senator into our delegation, it does not necessarily provide all the space we need to effectively do our jobs as a delegation.”
The lease with Robert A. Wills, Sr. grants the delegation — through the County Commission — the first floor, parking lot and grounds of 125 D’Olive Street from Jan. 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2027, for $245,400. The legislative delegation also sought to have half of that paid by the commission. Currently, local legislators use a county-owned building free of charge. There are currently two Baldwin legislative offices — in Bay Minette and in Fairhope.”
“Whether it creates a potential conflict of interest for Wills to act personally as the delegation’s landlord while also calling on them as mayor for the city’s legislative needs was a question neither the Alabama Attorney General’s Office nor the Alabama Ethics Commission would answer. The AG’s office declined comment and deferred to the Alabama Ethics Commission, which did not respond.”
Mayor Bob Wills is laughing all the way to the bank it is an early Christmas for his family, the hell with Bay Minette citizens that have to smell the hog farm while he collects a quarter million dollars.
If this is what Baldwin County Delegation calls ethical representation of it’s citizens then we are all in the hog farm.
WAKE UP BALDWIN COUNTY