City to get pedestrian signals

Trying to cross Main Street in downtown Hartselle may get a little easier thanks to pedestrian traffic signals.

Hartselle’s City Council approved an agreement with the Alabama Department of Transportation to install pedestrian signals on Alabama 36 at the intersections of Sparkman Street and Sycamore/Hickory Street.

Mayor Dwight Tankersley proposed installing the pedestrian signals because of the way the traffic signals are timed in downtown.

“We’ve had a few close calls,” Tankersley said. “There haven’t been any accidents yet, but we need to prevent it.”

Council President Kenny Thompson said he was one of those close calls.

“I was nearly in the middle of a wreck trying to cross the road there,” he said. “Something definitely needs to be done.”

The cost of the project will be $12,000, but it will be split 50-50 with the Alabama Department of Transportation and the City of Hartselle.

The city is also planning to spend $55,000 to improve the drainage at Booth Meadows Subdivision to fix a flooding problem.

Cheatham, who was the developer of the subdivision, said the city signed off on the project in 1999.

“I can show you where the city engineer, planning commission and Hartselle Utilities all signed off on the project,” Cheatham said when he was asked about it by Councilman Bill Smelser during his interview for the utilities board Monday night.

Goodwyn, Mills & Cawood, the city’s current engineering firm, reviewed the project and determined that the subdivision’s drainage was not built to the specifications of city regulations at the time the subdivision was accepted into the city.

The city’s planning commission initially signed off on the subdivision, but when it came to accepting the subdivision, Tankersley said it was denied by the planning commission. Tankersley added that there was no reason given for the rejection.

However, due to a technicality that brought a lawsuit against the city, City Attorney Larry Madison said the city agreed to accept the subdivision as part of the lawsuit’s settlement. Madison said there was no meeting with Cheatham within a 30-day window to review or approve changes to the project.

Tankersley, who lives in this subdivision near the flooding area, said this problem was the city’s because it is in a subdivision that was accepted by the city.

“I do not see any way that the city has any recourse,” Tankersley said. “This is potentially a major liability issue for the city.”

Tankersley said that water has risen as high as two feet against the garage of his neighbor that lives three houses down from him. In fact, he said that resident has backed his cars up against the garage door to prevent water from penetrating the garage door.

In other business, the council:

• increased its gas and oil budgets across the city by a total of $60,775 due to the spike in gasoline and diesel fuel prices.

• Transfered $4,000 from capital improvements to its utilities line items to cover the utility costs of taking over the animal shelter. Public works uses the building for sign storage while the fire department also stores equipment in the animal shelter building.

• approved eight roads for paving out of the city’s gasoline funds for a total of $101,000. They are the west end of Thompson Road SW, Perry Street SW, Memory Lane NW, Hidden Acres NW, an unpaved road parallel to U.S. 31 S, dead end near Southern Hickory Barbecue, south end of Mountain View Road NE and the north end of Hampton Road NW. Public works director Byron Turney said these roads were selected because they are the only unpaved roads in the city.

• appointed Ed Henry, Hartselle’s state representative, to the Park and Recreation Board and Ann Tucker of Arley to the CBD Design Review Board.

• heard from residents living in the subdivision near Bible Baptist Church who are upset that the church may be allowed to build a residence for their new pastor inside an old sanctuary, which is attached to the current church building.

They believe this violates the covenant for the subdivision, which includes the church. The covenant states that there can only be one dwelling per parcel of land.

There were no representatives from the church present at Monday’s meeting.

Dick Carter said if the city doesn’t stop the construction, that they would likely take the case to court.

“We’ve been to court over this before and won,” Carter said at Monday’s meeting. “It looks like it will cost us another $10,000 to do it again.”

Jeff Johnson, building inspector and director of the department of development, said the church approached him about doing this several weeks ago. Although the church is zoned B-1, he doesn’t believe it will violate the city’s zoning ordinance.

“As far as I can tell, what they’re doing is perfectly legal,” Johnson said.

While he hasn’t issued a building permit yet, Johnson has given a verbal agreement that he will likely issue the permit after talking with City Attorney Larry Madison to make sure this is legal.

To that end, the church has already begun gutting of the interior of the old sanctuary. However, Carter and the other residents that attended Monday’s meeting were upset that the church began work without the permit.

Thompson said the city doesn’t have the authority to enforce covenants.

“As long as it’s legal to do it according to our laws and regulations, there’s nothing we can do,” Thompson said. “We don’t have the authority to enforce covenants.”

Johnson said he gave verbal approval to begin demolition because that doesn’t require a permit. However, he said he has learned that the church has already begun to build back, which is a violation of the city’s building code.

Because he hasn’t issued the permit, Madison recommended that the building permit fee be doubled, according to the city’s building code. He added that the church could also face a misdemeanor offense, but he would leave that discretion up to the city management.

Smelser added that since the church wasn’t trying to hide the fact that they were doing construction without a permit, he recommended that church leaders not be charged criminally, but have the permit fee doubled.

In addition to that, Johnson added that he had heard the pastor’s family was living inside the church building, which is a violation of the city building code. Madison recommended that the city send a cease-and-desist letter to prevent that from happening.