July 19 Council Meeting

I had a feeling our first council meeting after the wet/dry vote would be well attended and it was, but not for the reasons I expected. Coach Don Jones attended and brought a number of people in support of him. Coach, with the help of the Marion County Drug Task Force, proposed a resolution to the city council regarding methamphetamine production in the state of Alabama.

As we all know, meth use and production in this region is rampant and statistics provided by the Drug Task Force show that it's only getting worse in Marion County. So, Coach Jones approached the council to approve an ordinance which encourages our state leaders to make pseudo ephedrine a class 3 drug which, in turn, would then require a prescription for any drug containing it. This approach has worked very well, in other parts of the country, to curb the production of meth. Mississippi recently made this law and, in a very short time, they've already seen a decline in the number of arrests for producing this drug. Of course, the mayor and city council approved the resolution and will present it to Senator Bedford and Representative Millican this week. My hope is that our community and our leaders will get behind this important project. Methamphetamine cannot be made without pseudo ephedrine and it's my belief, and the experts' belief, that this is the best route to ending production of this devastating drug. Great job Coach!

In other news:

- The City of Guin presented both schools their quarterly disbursements from the 1% sales tax.

- Guin Elementary School asked for and received money from the school tax reserve fund to make safety improvements to front entrance of the school.

- The city council agreed to purchase a truck from NW AL Gas for $3300. The truck will be used by the street department.

- Discussed building a concrete pad for storage of plant mix used in patching city streets. Action was tabled to a later date so that we may obtain more information, as well as, additional bids.

Bobby