By: John Zippert,
Co-Publisher

The Eutaw City Council held its regular meeting on Tuesday evening at 6:00 PM at the Carver School gymnasium. The Council and the audience had on masks and were socially distanced.
The Council was breezing along passing routine business items when LaJeffrey Carpenter offered a motion for “an emergency audit of all City Departments” which was seconded and supported by Sheila Smith. The discussion on this motion re-opened the controversy on the Mayor’s handling of the City’s water system.
Mayor Steele said he had contracted for an audit with a CPA in Tuscaloosa. “This person, whose name I do not recall, is 90% complete with the audit of the City’s finances for 2019.
We have not paid him yet. Gardner, a former accountant for the City, did a budget but the Council did not approve it,” according to Steele.
The Council voted to approve the motion for an emergency audit. Councilwoman Shelia Smith said “The Council has not received a clear financial statement from Mayor Steele in four years. The revenue deposited in the bank from the water department has been steadily declining. The Council voted in February, not to accept cash payments, to have a better and traceable record of water income but the Mayor refused to implement this policy.”
Councilwoman Latasha Johnson, who is in an October 6th runoff election with Mayor Steele, said, “Someone is spreading rumors that we are selling the city’s water system. This is not true we are trying to straighten it out and make it produce the revenues it should.”
Johnson said, “The Council voted to have Kathy Horne with Water Management Associates come to review and correct the problems in the water system, including billing. But the Mayor would not allow her and her associates to come in the City Hall last week, under threat of arrest for trespassing. The bills for water are still messed up. Residents got their bills late. Some are for two months but only have one month’s charge for garbage. Some meters are covered with dirt so how they be read? Some people are complaining about the quality of the water and others say the bills are too high.”
Mayor Steele said he stopped the people from Water Management Associates from coming to the City Water Department because the Council’s motion was illegal. “I am the Mayor and I make the day-to-day decisions. I feel your motion was illegal and should have been presented to the State’s Attorney General, for a legal opinion as to its validity. Without the opinion, which the Council would not authorize, I stopped the contract. I did not say I would arrest the people if they came into City Hall.”
Councilman Joe Lee Powell stated, “I was in the meeting, you said to Kathy Horne and Water Management Associates, that they could not come to work, under the contract we adopted and signed. The water situation and the bills are still not corrected and we are not getting the income we should.”
The Mayor then argued that the new Eutaw Water System cost too much and more grants should have been provided rather than loans from USDA Rural Development. He also said the bills were late because the cord that connects the meter reader to the computer was damaged and had to be replaced, which led to a delay in shipment through the mail. The Mayor also encouraged everyone who wanted to see the records to come to City Hall and ask to see them.
Latasha Johnson said, “the state of the water system is an election issue. We tried to correct the problems but the Mayor stood in the way of the management consultants coming in to fix the problems. He has not given us any reports for us to have confidence that the system has been corrected. Bills are late and not connected to reality. We must make a change from the top to correct this situation.”
In its regular business session, the Eutaw City Council:
• Referred a claim from Rachel Nixon to our insurance company through the City Attorney.
• Approved a liquor license for Family Dollar Store for retail sales of beer and wine, off premises; transfer of Piggly Wiggly off premises beer and wine licenses to Samuel J Hamilton LLC.
• Accepted a bid of $39,700 from Central Alabama Asphalt for paving M & M Drive.
• Approved purchase, with CARES Act funds, of LIFEPAK 15 Monitor and Defibrillator for the Greene County Emergency Management Service for use with the city’s ambulance service, to revive and monitor patients, provided sufficient funding remained in the City’s CARES Act funding allocation.