Council discusses coyote issue, hears presentation for movie theater upgrades
Mayor Ashley Curry began Monday night’s Vestavia Hills City Council work session by saying that it should be a quick one.
That didn’t turn out to be true.
From managing the burgeoning coyote conundrum to debating how to get involved in fighting the opioid crisis, the council discussed several issues that are expected to come up for a vote over the next several weeks and months.
AMC Theater Improvements
The work session began with a presentation from Stan Glantz, vice president of development for Katz Properties, which is the company that owns the City Center property, and Frank Lewis, representative from AMC Theatres about the future of Vestavia Hills’ movie theater.
The theater, which has been owned by multiple theater companies over its lifetime, became an AMC along with several other area theaters a few months ago, and AMC and Katz Properties have agreed that it will stay for at least the next 10 years.
As the property is redeveloped, Glantz said, the revitalization of the theater is a key part of bringing more people and businesses to the development.
To that end, Glantz introduced Lewis to discuss significant changes to the theater, including drastically reducing the number of seats, improving food options and serving alcoholic beverages.
The idea is to transform the theater from one that was built to hold as many patrons as possible to one that is focused on customer comfort and amenities, Lewis said.
What AMC found after partnering with Coca-Cola was that the trend of the 1980s and 1990s where the primary demographic for theaters was teenagers has changed, and that now, more than 75 percent of moviegoers are 21 years of age are older.
Lewis said that the industry has seen a 3 to 4 percent drop in ticket sales over the last decade, and worked with Coca-Cola to determine ways to combat the drop and bring families back to theaters.
“AMC is evolving and changing and growing,” he said, and told the council that the company has found that focusing on comfort, food and adult beverages has spoken to customers.
The idea, which was presented in its preliminary stages to the council but will mirror projects the company has done around the country, would be to add a full restaurant kitchen, a bar and seat-side service for food and beverages.
The idea, he said, is to provide enhanced food and alcohol as amenities to ticket-buying customers, not as the primary draw for the location.
“The experience is the movie, the alcohol is not the experience,” he said.
Lewis went through AMC’s extensive alcohol responsibility protocol, which includes training all staff on the signs of intoxication or underage drinking, requiring all staff that serve alcohol to be 21 or older, using cameras in the areas alcohol is sold and consumed, and doing “secret shopping” to evaluate commitment to the company’s requirement that all patrons be asked for ID.
Lewis said that in most cases, customers only purchase one drink per visit, so AMC experiences very few cases of rowdy patrons or other “trickle down” crime.
City Manager Jeff Downes said the preliminary plans for the renovation of the theater are in the process of being filed, but the city would need to approve an alcohol license for the facility to operate in the described capacity.
Coyotes
Vestavia Hills Police Department Corporal Jimmy Coleman gave an update on a topic that has dominated community Facebook pages over the last two months: coyotes.
Coleman reported to the council that he and Downes had completed interviews of several local trapping firms to get an idea of if anything can be done to reduce the interactions between the animals and humans.
Coleman explained that the reason people see coyotes in the winter months is because most food sources are reduced and the animals are having to roam farther to find a meal.
However, the higher frequency of sightings leads him and others to believe that it is now-or-never if the city is going to attempt any type of trapping program.
Coleman and Downes explained that after meeting with and receiving quotes from different companies, the staff settled on West Alabama Wildlife Services, which will charge $300 per day for a pilot program to trap coyotes in the city.
Downes said that the “pilot program” of 10 days will be paid for out of the current budget, and the council can review the results once the period is over.
Councilors asked what the trappers thought would be a reasonable amount of coyotes to expect to be caught, but Coleman said he wasn’t sure.
If any coyotes are trapped, the city and trappers are bound by Alabama law to dispatch the creatures, as they are considered a nuisance species and cannot be relocated.
Coleman said he would give the company a call in the coming days and provide an update.
Opioids
Curry, as he has in previous work sessions and council meetings, again brought up his concerns about the opioid crisis in the city and beyond, as well as a few ideas he has for doing something about it.
At an upcoming meeting, he said, he plans to present a proclamation making March 13 Addiction Awareness Day to highlight two programs that will be taking place to emphasize the issue.
The first will be a breakfast at Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church, hosted by the Freedom from Addiction Coalition that Curry and neighboring mayors have started, and the second will be the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Both events will feature speakers who have lost loved ones to the opioid crisis, as well as resources for how to help those who are currently trapped in their addiction.
Additionally, Birmingham attorneys Rob Riley and Keith Jackson presented a proposal to the council to join Jefferson County and neighboring municipalities in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Riley explained that while the state and some municipalities are trying their luck with federal lawsuits, his firm wants to file a suit on the state level and actually take it to trial.
Riley and Jackson went through statistics and reasoning they plan to use in the suit, including reports of drug companies falsifying scientific research or not reporting suspicious activity, and explained how the city could get involved.
If the city opts to join the suit, there would need to be a fact-finding period to determine what “damages” the city has accumulated in using resources to combat the issue — Riley explained that could be in man-hours from the police department or other items — as well as proactive measures to combat the issue in the future.
Riley said it is his opinion that because municipalities have the ability to “abate a public nuisance,” cities are unique in their ability to take on these companies.
Stormwater
Councilor Kimberly Cook requested that the council go through the city’s stormwater permitting and regulatory processes to address concerns that have spawned contentious posts on social media and calls to the city.
City Engineer Christopher Brady briefly explained the city’s current stormwater management ordinances, and explained how those might change in the future due to updates proposed by the Stormwater Management Authority (SWMA).
Downes reiterated remarks he has made at previous meetings that the city’s engineering staff, currently made up of two people, has limited time and resources to investigate every site to ensure compliance. The newest member of the team, an engineering technician, is scheduled to start in the next week, which should help with that workload, Downes said.
Additionally, he said, because sites over one acre are regulated by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the city has limited ability to seek rectification in many cases.
The conversation stemmed from debate about whether South Bend, a development of Taylor Burton Company, has been compliant or not.
Taylor Burton and Blake Pittman were at the meeting representing the firm, along with David Butler of Cahaba Riverkeeper, who made the complaint — and authored the social media post in question.
Burton and Butler went back and forth about whether the site was in compliance, and Curry ultimately requested that Butler file an item on the city’s Action Center or email the council with specific complaints, and said that as the city’s resources allow, they would continue to monitor issues as they arise.
Fire Department
Vestavia Hills Fire Department Chief Marvin Green came to the council with a request to give more weight to the city’s fire marshals when it comes to preventing future fires.
“We put a lot of effort into preventing fires,” Green said of the department’s regular fire-inspection process and commitment to finding violations to prevent future tragedies.
However, when violations are found, the fire department doesn’t have the law-enforcement capability to make sure that those who need to make changes actually follow through.
Ultimately, that goes through Corporal Coleman, who Green noted has other things to do.
Green requested, and presented a draft ordinance, that after meeting state and federal requirements, certain fire marshal officials would have the ability to enforce the city’s fire code ordinances through fines or other means.
The issue is expected to come up as a first read at the Feb. 26 meeting, and could come to a vote as soon as March 12.
BOE Application Process
As spring approaches, so does the next vacancy on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education.
Applications will open in March and be accepted through April 9. The council will then have until April 20 to appoint a new member, who will start in the summer.
Councilor Cook said she wanted to address some of the issues the council had in its most recent round of board appointments, in that many were concerned the city wasn’t being open enough because it only had one day of interviews, and multiple interested candidates were unable to attend on the one specific day.
Cook suggested splitting the interviews between two half days to provide more options for those interested in applying, but still having the slots fill in the first-applied, first-scheduled basis.
After discussion, the council determined it would find two days that work for everyone and set those ahead of the vacancy announcement.