LISTENING NOT READING

The Fairhope City Council needs to do more reading of facts than listening to unsubstantiated statements by Council President Burrell. One thing needs to be made perfectly clear the issue of the complaint against Mr. Burrell and Mr. Hix is not going to disappear because Mr. Burrell dismisses it.

We’re just getting started.

Authority explains how board member won hangar lease bid

When the Fairhope Airport Authority posted an overview and timeline regarding a controversial hangar lease awarded to a board member, the link to supporting documents did not work for a

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A rebuttal to this article is being prepared and will be posted soon.

During the public participation in last night’s city council meeting Mr. Burrell defended the Fairhope Airport Authority. First he explained the Authority did not need to issue a RFP [request for proposal] that they could just lease hanger property without bidding it out. This is fundamentally wrong and he knows it, however he deliberately misled the audience.

JACK IN THE BOX - AIRPORT

The Airport Authority has a great idea! They are going to use your tax dollars to hire “ the top ethics attorney in Alabama” to investigate me and The Ripp Report, and attempt to “head off” any investigation with the Attorney General’s office and the Ethics Commission. Your tax dollars are going to pay for the defense of the authority board members, Jack Burrell and Ray Hix, who are the focus of the complaint.

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The Ethics Commission “The commission has constantly held that when a public official wishes to do business with the entity on which they serve, it must be done through some type of bid process, regardless of whether the bid laws apply.”

The Airport Authority was compelled to bid the lease due to Mr. Hix being on the board, Burrell knew this. The Authority could not directly lease the space to Hix. Prove I am wrong:

$5000.00 CASH REWARD

The Ripp Report and BCLE are offering a $5k cash award to anyone who can prove that the contents of the formal complaint against Councilman Jack Burrell of Fairhope are false. Prove that the documents quoted or provided are fabricated or altered from their original copies or that there is any willful malicious intent to mislead the public for any reason or to unlawfully disparage Mr. Burrell by making fictitious claims or providing erroneous documents, and you will be five thousand dollars ($5k) richer.

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Mr. Burrell’s next statement defied logic or common sense. He explained to another public participant that the hanger in question does not profit “anyone.” So, a hanger that cost 750,000 dollars and houses a million dollar airplane; has it’s own fuel farm, and a 30 year lease has no real profit being made? I thought the intent of the Airport was to make money and that the bid was going to the best bidder for the economic engine of the Authority?

The council is mad with the Mayor for filing an ethics complaint against their friend, councilman Jack Burrell. They should read a little more,

Senator's company awarded $639,000 while he supervised grants for boom work
blog.al.com

Of $1.15 million paid to Fairhope from BP grant funds overseen in part by state Sen. Trip Pittman for oil spill response work, the city awarded Pittmans company $639,000, according to city records reviewed by a Fairhope councilwoman.

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A complaint can be a request to an authority for an opinion on an issue that may or may not be in violation of ethics. During the BP oil spill the county commission and the county manager threatened to file ethic complaints against Sen. Pittman if he did not withdraw his name as contract of record for debris removal for Fairhope. They explained that, as elected officials, it was their duty to do so in light of the situation.

Fairhope city councilman Rick Kingrea 1/12/11 sent a “plain vanilla request” to the Attorney General, also referencing BP. “Several citizen-activist have gathered information [documents possible witness testimony, etc] which they believe “prove” at least, an ethical violation by a public official, and possible criminal activity by the same public official.” If you are an elected official and information is presented to you of possible criminal behavior you are suppose to notify officials. It is called covering your ass. Please blame the Ripp Report because my complaint is not “plain vanilla.” It is based on facts and documents. Anyone of the council could find themselves in the same situation— get over it.

Now the Mayor has fired two employees. For what, we still do not know. They are real quiet; however, the council found it necessary to have a knee jerk reaction and demand a special meeting and punish the Mayor with a hiring and firing freeze.

Fairhope mayor fires two; council responds with hiring freeze

The decision by Mayor Karin Wilson to fire two well-known city employees led to the City Council instituting a temporary hiring freeze Monday, and seemed to leave the city divided.

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That is holding up 43 personnel needed in different departments. The council is calling for cooperation and civility with the Mayor, but they refuse to acknowledge that Mr. Burrell and Mr. Boone started the whole mess by their rude and bulling tactics against the Mayor. At the same time, they call for cooperation, they block the Mayor’s appointments to the Airport Authority. Boone, Burrell and Brown voted the nominations down while Robinson and Conyers voted for the nominations. Mr. Burrell fought tooth and nail against the Mayor’s selection , however he never contested any appointment by Mayor Kant. Fact is I cannot recall an appointment by a Mayor ever being denied in the last 15 years in Fairhope.

The whole community of Fairhope is now being held hostage by Mr. Burrell. Boone, we know will follow. Let’s hope Brown wakes up. It makes you ask yourself what is the motivation?

It is two fold.

First Jack acts like he is guilty.

Second is that during the last election Jack did not have the balls to face off with Kant and Kant promised he would support Jack in the next election for Mayor if he did not run. Trouble with that was Kant also promised two other people the same thing. So Jack ran against a faux candidate, Kant supplied, to assure a win.

Well things did not go as planned. Fairhope had it’s first fair election supervised by the Sec. Of State and Karin Wilson became Mayor without any assisted transition into office.

The icing on the cake is now the council is bashing social media and the negative response it is receiving in the court of public opinion. We know they cannot be talking about the Ripp Report because we have a 5000 dollar reward if you prove we are lying. Fairhope just had it’s first social media election where every candidate utilized the Internet, Facebook and other social media outlets and now all of a sudden they don’t like it.

WELL LET THEM HEAR FROM YA! USE SOCIAL MEDIA