Athens Utilities customers will soon be making payments at a new location. A resolution to lease property at 1003 US Highway 72 East passed 3-2 at Monday night’s Athens City Council meeting. Councilman Harold Wales and Councilman James Lucas voted no. Councilman Wayne Harper paused before finally voting yes on the resolution.

According to city officials, the Customer Accounts building on Jefferson Street is in need of renovation.

“The drive thru window is working there, but it’s leaking when it rains, as are the windows, so fixing it would require renovating that entire side of the building and shutting part of the operations down during construction,” Communications Specialist for the City of Athens Holly Hollman said.

The City of Athens will lease the building from owners William C. Ming and Susan N. Ming beginning March 1, 2023, for $7,083.33 per month ($85,000 annually). The lease includes an annual increase of 2 percent. The lease is for five years and will be paid by the Utility Departments: electric, gas, water/wastewater, customer service with ratepayer funds.

“I think this is a large sum of money to be paying out in rent,” Wales said. “We need to build our own building, and I know the talk for that is under way now.”

“At the last meeting when this was introduced, I was still in doubt about whether I could support it or not. To me, to pay that amount of money for rent, I don’t know. It seems like an awful lot of money to pay for rent. When we get finished we won’t have a building or anything,” Lucas said.

“To me, the amount of money is just more than I can almost accept per year,” Wales said.

While Mayor Ronnie Marks has no vote on City Council decisions, he was supportive of the lease.

“Steve (Carter) was doing this at the direction to help out for customer service, because that building down there is in such bad shape. Yes, we need to build a building along with a fire station, but it takes some time to do that. I understand the amount of rent, it is under the going rate for rent. It’s less than $5 per square foot. The going rate is probably $5-$7 square foot,” Marks said.

Marks added, “We are out of room. The building is leaking. We are in critical need and this building is available.”

In other business, the City Council held the following public hearings and approved the following agenda items.

Public hearings

• A public hearing concerning the zoning approval for the sale of alcohol in the City of Athens by Jay Pavanputra, Inc., dba Westend Outdoors Chevron, 17171 US Hwy 72 (change of ownership)

• A public hearing concerning the zoning approval for the sale of alcohol in the City of Athens by Mozza Pizza, Inc., dba Mozza Pizza, 202 Jefferson Street, Athens. (change of ownership)

• A public hearing concerning the zoning approval for the sale of alcohol in the City of Athens by Jay Dharati, Inc., dba Midpointe Chevron, 24999 US Hwy 72, Athens. (change of ownership)

• A public hearing concerning the zoning approval for the sale of alcohol in the City of Athens by Sai Shani, Inc., dba Chevron, 1515 East Elm Street Suite A, Athens.

Consent calendar

• Resolution to re-appoint William Flood to the Athens Housing Authority for a five year term, expiring February 26, 2028.

• Resolution to approve travel/education expenses for personnel of the Mayor’s Office.

• Resolution to approve the purchase of mapping software for the Planning Department from ESRI not to exceed $8,500.

• Resolution to appoint William R. Marks as the voting delegate for the Annual Business meeting of the Alabama League of Municipalities on May 12, 2023.

• Resolution setting a public hearing to consider whether to vacate a portion of Hatfield Lake Road, a public right of way.

• Resolution to purchase one 2023 F-150 crew cab pick-up truck for the Street Department (revised from the Jan. 23, 2023, meeting).

• Resolution to purchase two 2023 F-150 crew cab pick-up trucks for the Engineering Services and Community Development Department (revised from Jan. 23, 2023, meeting).

• Resolution to purchase five AGM Rattler 25 handheld thermal imagers for the Police Department.

• Resolution to approve a restaurant Retail Liquor Class I alcohol license for La Finka Mexican Restaurant, Inc.

• Resolution to approve a Special Events Retail on Premises Consumption alcohol license for Boys & Girls Club of North Alabama.

Regular meeting

• Resolution concerning the administration of human resource functions related to the Library Board of the City of Athens, Alabama.

• Resolution concerning the lease of certain real property located at 1003 US Highway 72 East.

• Resolution to allow the City of Athens to perform hydrologic and hydraulic study with the assistance of Schoel Engineering to submit a LOMR to FEMA to potentially reduce the floodplain/floodway of Town Creek from Elm Street to US Hwy 72.