Councilman Will Sconiers, Councilman Kennith Mount, Councilman Ralph Wells, Mayor Earl Johnson, City Clerk John Thompson, Councilman Terry Powell and Councilwoman Hazel Griffin are shown with the award they received this week.
The Alabama League of Municipalities (ALM) has named Andalusia a Certified Municipality, an honor awarded to cities and towns in which the mayor and all council members have earned the professional designation of Certified Municipal Official.
The designation signifies that the mayor and all council members have completed a minimum of 40 credit hours of formal training on municipal government conducted or endorsed by ALM through its Certified Municipal Official program.
City Clerk John Thompson said that each of Andalusia’s elected officials has gone a step further, and also has earned the ALM’s advanced certification.
“As mayor, I am proud that Andalusia is just one of a handful of cities to be represented in the inaugural class of certified municipalities,” Mayor Earl Johnson said. “This is representative of the hard work you have done, reading the assigned materials, and getting up to speed on the law. I know the citizens you represent appreciate what this represents.”
The awards were presented in Mobile on Tuesday, during the closing session of ALM’s annual convention.
Council deals with abatements, OKs ordinance
In the same meeting in which the Andalusia City Council increased the minimum administrative fee for abatement of a property, approved abatements or several properties for weeds, and moved to have a dangerous structure torn down, a local resident begged the council to get even tougher on property owners.
Carter Williams, who lives on Church Street, appeared at the council’s workshop meeting to voice concerns about three pieces of property on his street which are regularly in abatement for unsightly weeds.
Williams said because the abatement process takes several weeks, a particular property was not mown more than two times last summer.
Whit Carroll, who manages abatements for the city, said the process begins with a courtesy letter from the city asking property owners to take care of problems. If the owners take no action, the official abatement proceedings begin. If a property owner fails to take care of weeds again during a 12-month period, the city’s ordinance allows the abatement officer to take action again without waiting for council approval.
Williams said he believes there is no need for the city to be courteous to repeat offenders.
Mayor Earl Johnson said if the city moved abatements at the fastest clip possible, it can’t prevent property from being overgrown.
“We can’t take action until it becomes a nuisance,” he said. “Even under the best circumstances, we can’t keep nuisance weeds cut like you and I keep ours cut. That’s not to say we can’t do a better job, and we’ll try.”
At present, Carroll takes bids to clean up nuisance property once it has been abated. Johnson suggested that the city accept bids to have one contractor to clean abated property to shorten the process.
In other business, the council:
• Approved an ordinance increasing the minimum administrative fees for any abatement to $150. That charge will be assessed along with any costs for work done to abated properties.
• Approved an abatement at 523 South Cotton Street asking for an unsafe structure to be torn down. The property owner did not appear at a public hearing during the meeting. Carroll said the walls are buckling and the floors are badly damaged, and the structure could present a danger. It could not be repaired at a reasonable cost, he said.
• Abated more than a dozen properties with overgrown weeds.
• Agreed to contributed $1,500 to the Andalusia Junior Rodeo Finals set for Andalusia at the end of May.
Former AU standout, Dallas Cowboy joins other sports greats in statewide hall of fame
Tommie Agee said he’s humbled by the support family members, former coaches, and new Andalusia friends showed this past weekend when he was inducted in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
Agee, who is the director of leisure services for the City of Andalusia, grew up in Maplesville, and played football like his older brothers. It was there that he caught the eye of Auburn University, where he was a four-year starter at fullback as lead blocker for Bo Jackson. He finished his college career with 356 carries, 1,733 rushing yards, and 13 touchdowns.
He was drafted in the fifth round of the 1987 NFL draft by the Seattle Seahawks. He played six seasons in the NFL, which included playing for the Dallas Cowboys during their Super Bowl runs in 1992 and 1993.
“Dallas is where I found my niche,” Agee said. “I fell in love with the plays and the coaches. Jimmy Johnson reminded me so much of Pat Dye in the way that he worked us to death.”
“I never dreamed I’d be included in the Hall of Fame,” Agee said Tuesday. “I was blessed to play at Auburn, in the pros, and to win a Super Bowl ring, but this weekend took the cake.
“I was deeply humbled to be inducted with all of the other athletes,” he said.
His immediate family, including his children and grandchildren, were a part of the ceremony, but many other special family members and friends were, too.
“Coach (Joe) Whitt who recruited me to Auburn was there, and so was our dorm mother,” Agee said. “I had relatives who came from as far away as Florida and Dayton, Ohio. So many people from Andalusia also supported me, from my city co-workers, some members of the city council, and some park board members. It was just great.
“It was definitely a weekend I’ll never forget,” he said.
Other inductees with local ties include Robert Horry (basketball, 2010); Arthur P. “Tarzan” White (distinguished sportsmen, 1981) who was born in Lockhart in 1915; and Mal Moore (distinguished sportsmen, 2012), who was a native of Dozier.
For 11 years, Wendell Dyess has been the master gardener for the City of Andalusia, but he said that his best memory of working with the city has been as the engineer of the Candyland Express.
Dyess spent 20 years in the Air Force before settling down and working at Shaw for another 10 years. He began working for the City of Andalusia 11 years ago as an assistant to Ginger Hassle.
“I like to say that I was thrown to the wolves in the beginning,” Dyess said. “They hired me to work under Ginger Hassle and she decided to leave in the middle of the summer. The city posted Ginger’s job opening and honestly I don’t think they found anybody that was qualified to fill it. They called me up to Andy Wiggins’ office and told me that they wanted me to take this job.”
Despite feeling unqualified, he accepted.
“I remember telling Mr. Andy that I was not qualified for this job at all,” Dyess said. “He just kept on saying, ‘Oh you can do it, you can do it,’ and so I kept on telling him, ‘Mr. Andy, I am not a master gardener, and when I wake up in the morning I’m still not going to be a master gardener,’ I ended up taking the job and Mr. Andy’s first instructions were, ‘Wendell just keep everything alive,’ and that’s what I did.”
Dyess said that he is going to miss the people he works with the most.
“The City of Andalusia has been so good to me,” Dyess said. “You just can’t ask for a better group of people to work with. More than anything, I am going to miss the people.”
He enjoyed driving the train at Candyland so much, that he was asked to continue after he retires.
“Mr. Andy asked me to come back and drive the train and I told him that I would,” Dyess said. “I just enjoy making the kids happy. That is why I do it. I remember last year, one Sunday during Candyland it was starting to rain pretty hard and we were starting to pack everything up, but a family from Florida had come all the way to see it. Those kids looked up at me and I took them on a train ride in the middle of the pouring rain. I just couldn’t say no. That is what makes it all worth while.”
Every morning for the past 11 years, Dyess said that he would drive down East Three Notch and Church Street to make sure that everything looked its best.
“I’m sure that there have been several days where people just thought that I was taking a joy ride,” Dyess said. “But I just did that to make sure that everything looked the way that it was supposed to.”
Dyess said he would advise his successor to just make sure to do the best they can do.
“Don’t let it overwhelm you,” Dyess said. “I’m going to tell you, there has been more than one day where I have had panic attacks, because there is just so much to do and so little people to do it.”
In his retirement, Dyess plans on cutting grass, spending time with grandchildren and raising goats.
“I’m just going to keep cutting grass,” Dyess said. “I told my grandson a couple months ago that when I retire, I’m going to buy some more goats. We used to have several goats. So Monday, he called me on the phone and said, ‘Grandpa, are you retiring today?’ and I told him no, that I was retiring tomorrow [Tuesday] and he said, ‘We gonna get some goats?’ and I told him, ‘We gonna get some goats.’ ”
The Andalusia Farmers Market’s first weekend was a success, weekend with most vendors selling out of their products by 9:30 a.m. Saturday, manager Allie Vuyovich said.
“I was super pleased with our first weekend,” Vuyovich said. “I really couldn’t have asked for a better day in terms of weather and the customers and vendors kept on saying that as well.”
Vuyovich said that a lot of the vendors sold out of products, but that is what she wants.
“I mean, you always want people to buy so much that you run out,” Vuyovich said. “But we are definitely going to have to work on getting more vendors and more products out there.”
Since it was at the new location on the square, Vuyovich said that they had the factor of people stopping just to see what was going on.
“We definitely peaked people’s curiosity this weekend,” Vuyovich said. “We have people impulse stopping now, which is exactly what we wanted. It was just very different from being at the Farmers Market building. We had some vendors that had cookies, lemonade and boiled peanuts, so it was nice for people who just wanted to stop quickly and get a snack and look around.”
Vuyovich said that for the coming week, they will be more prepared.
“Now we know exactly what to expect,” Vuyovich said. “The vendors are going to be prepared and bring a lot more produce, at least to keep them there until noon. I think with the farmers, they don’t want to pick too much and then not sell enough of it, so I think now since they know what they are getting into, they are going to pick a lot more. The set up and take down of the tents also went a lot more smoothly than I expected.”
She said that next Saturday there will be a sheet ready for people who are looking into becoming a vendor.
The Andalusia Farmers Market is open today from 7 a.m., until noon at the Farmers Market building at 256 Historic Central Street.