Photo by Jon Anderson
The Hoover City Council considers restrictions on short-term rental housing in the city on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. From left are Khristi Driver, Sam Swiney, Derrick Murphy, John Lyda and Curt Posey.
The Hoover City Council on Monday night plans to consider whether to hire a City Council administrator or assistant who specifically works for the council.
Councilman Derrick Murphy said it’s not unusual for city councils, sometimes even in cities smaller than Hoover, to have an administrative staffer working directly for the council. Some city councils have a staff member for each council member, he said.
He is proposing to hire just one person to work for the entire City Council.
This would be very helpful considering that Hoover City Council members work only part-time for the city and sometimes are not available during regular working hours to address concerns from the public because they work other jobs during the day, Murphy said.
Councilman Curt Posey said if this is approved, it would be important that this person have autonomy from the mayor and his staff and report only to the City Council. Sometimes the legislative branch and executive branch clash, and this person doesn’t need to get caught in the middle of that, Posey said.
The pay grade for such a position could be determined during the budget process, Murphy said.
The City Council also is considering amending a resolution passed at its Aug. 5 meeting so that video recordings of Hoover City Council meetings remain on the city’s YouTube page permanently instead of being removed after eight years.
Murphy said a comment made by former Council President Gene Smith and other comments from the public made him reconsider his position about the length of time that video recordings should be made available for public review.
During the Aug. 5 council meeting, Smith mentioned that in the past, when he did research regarding past actions of the City Council, he found it useful to be able to read the minutes of those meetings. However, more recent minutes of council meetings have become much more abbreviated and less descriptive, which makes it more difficult to determine legislative intent, he said.
Having videos of council meetings going back eight years would help, but he often had to research meetings that were more than eight years old, he said.
Another item on Monday’s council agenda is an ordinance seeking an attorney general’s opinion as to whether it’s appropriate for the City Council to pay the legal fees submitted by Councilman Steve McClinton in response to a report that former City Administrator Allan Rice filed with the city’s Human Resources Department in regard to a meeting McClinton had with a female city employee in April 2023.
In his report, Rice cited the city’s policy concerning sexual harassment and said the employee initially felt uncomfortable about the invitation to meet with the councilman away from City Hall outside of business hours. In a subsequent report, Rice indicated the woman no longer felt uncomfortable about the meeting.
However, McClinton, upon learning of the report, still was concerned about it and hired an attorney to represent him. He felt the report was unfounded, highly unethical and done for political purposes and retribution against McClinton for not clearing the meeting through Rice first, according to a letter from McClinton’s attorney.
McClinton later sought reimbursement for those legal bills, saying the legal advice and representation was needed in relation to his duties as a councilman and because the city attorney, Phillip Corley, could not represent both the city and him in this case.
Council members on Aug. 5 voted to postpone a vote on whether to pay that bill until they could obtain an attorney general’s opinion as to whether McClinton’s legal representation served a public purpose. However, Councilman Casey Middlebrooks noted in the council work session this past Thursday that Corley already had communication with the attorney general’s office about the matter and had been told that the City Council would be the one to decide if such a “public purpose” existed.
Middlebrooks said he may vote to recall the resolution from this past meeting and let the council vote up or down about whether to pay McClinton’s legal bill.
Meanwhile, Council President John Lyda said he already has filed a report with the Alabama Ethics Commission to determine whether it was ethical for McClinton to seek reimbursement for the legal fees. In a previous meeting, Lyda polled other council members to ask if McClinton had lobbied them to pay the bill, and some said he had. McClinton said he wasn’t seeking anything for personal gain, only to be made whole for expenses he incurred in the course of his official duties as a councilman.
In other business, Murphy also is proposing an ordinance that would change the length of term for city council president and president pro tempore from four years to two years. That would give both the council and the officers the opportunity to reassess during the middle of the term whether they want to continue with the same officers, he said.
McClinton on May 6 attempted to remove Lyda as council president and put Middlebrooks in that position, but the motion failed to get enough votes to pass. Three councilmen — McClinton, Posey and Middlebrooks — voted in favor of the change, but Councilwoman Khristi Driver voted against it, and Councilmen Derrick Murphy and Sam Swiney abstained. Lyda was out of town.
Photos by Jon Anderson
From left are Hoover Council President John Lyda, Councilman Casey Middlebrooks and Councilman Steve McClinton
Murphy’s new ordinance to take another vote on council officers during the middle of their four-year term, which would take effect with the next City Council (after the 2025 election), will have its first reading Monday night, with a vote expected at the council’s Sept. 3 meeting.
See the video from Thursday night's work session in which these matters were discussed on The Hoover Channel's YouTube page.
