Hoyt
Hoyt’s three-year employment agreement calls for a $ 100,000 yearly salary. He will begin Sept. 1.
Mayor Gene Robinson said he believes Hoyt will move Anniston in the right direction.
“He is an excellent candidate for this city and I can’t wait for him to get started,” Robinson said.
Hoyt, who currently works as Chambers County’s manager, said he has experience in redevelopment and other areas that he can use in Anniston.
“Mostly it’s an attitudinal thing,” he said after the meeting. “My approach to development is asset based. It’s not based on the idea that a community is sick and needs to be cured. You identify the assets and capitalize on them.”
An attorney general’s opinion released Monday confirmed that Anniston’s mayor shares executive powers with the city manager. The city manager is in charge of day-to-day city operations, while the mayor is in charge of the city’s financial health and planning, among other things. Hoyt said he doesn’t see a conflict there. “Whether it’s in (a law) or not, that’s the mayor’s job,” Hoyt said. “The mayor and council are going to set the priorities and I will carry them out.”
The council originally offered the city manager job to Richard Finn. When Finn asked for a $135,000 salary, which was outside the advertised range, the council rescinded the offer. The salary range was between $90,000 and $120,000.
In other business, the council:
• Voted to negotiate with the Calhoun County Commission and the McClellan Development Authority a payment in lieu of taxes program. Councilman John Spain suggested the measure because title insurance problems currently are halting land sales at the former fort. To circumvent that issue, the MDA is leasing property rather than selling it.
Spain pointed out that the city doesn’t get ad valorem taxes from leases. This program, he said, would require payment to the city when the MDA leases property.
• Voted to contribute just over $130,000 for fiscal year 2010 to the Calhoun/Cleburne County Drug and Violent Crime Task Force.
• Adopted the three-year plan for the Calhoun County HOME Consortium. The consortium is an agreement between Anniston, Jacksonville, Piedmont, Weaver, Hobson City and the Calhoun County Commission to seek federal housing money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Program, which provides grant money to state and local governments for low-cost housing.
HUD is funding the program $550,977 for the first year. Because the program requires a $750,000 minimum for the first year, the member governments had to make up that shortfall. HUD decides on the amount to fund based on local demographics.
Anniston voted to spend nearly $90,000 to make up its share of the shortfall.
If HUD funds the Calhoun County HOME Consortium with less than $750,000 in subsequent years, the governments will not have to make up the shortfall.
• Voted to look into tax incentives to stimulate development at the Greenbrier Shopping Center.
• Approved removing former city attorney Polly Russell as attorney-of-record in a federal suit dealing with McClellan. Anniston last summer sued to regain control of McClellan. The council later voted to remove itself from the suit, but the court required the city to keep counsel on it. City attorney Cleo Thomas now is attorney-of-record on that lawsuit.
• Agreed to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to decrease the space it occupies at the Anniston Municipal Airport from about 4,000 square feet to about 2,000 square feet. The city can now lease that space.
• Approved a special events permit for the Rumble on Noble on Aug. 22.
• Declared 10 vehicles public nuisances.
