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Womack bids farewell to council

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Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Members of the Mountain Brook City Council will assemble on Nov. 7 for an organizational meeting as they plot a course for the next four years.

However, Alice Womack won’t be there. “I’ll be cheering you on,” she said during the Oct. 24 meeting as she concluded her final meeting as a member of the council.

Womack has served on the council the past eight years, but did not seek reelection.

“My husband thinks I'm gonna be starting with home-cooked dinners more often,” she quipped. “I've told him sadly that's not gonna be the case. I'm not gonna come home and cook all these nice meals.”

Council President Pro Temp Billy Pritchard chaired Monday’s meeting in the absence of President Virginia Smith. The first order of business was acknowledging Womack. 

“We'll miss you,” Pritchard said. “Your eight years of service has been invaluable to our community and we're all a lot better for it. We couldn't let this night pass without saying that at least.”

After the meeting, Womack thought back to her first council meeting, remembering the discussion of the Piggly Wiggly in Crestline. 

“The Pig not only brought the grocery store back to Crestline, it improved the area around it,” Womack said. “Interestingly enough, I am ending my tenure on the heels of Lane Parke being finalized and beginning to see that area becoming unified with Mountain Brook Village to provide a fantastic shopping destination.

The departing councilwoman said leaving the council is bittersweet. 

“I'm going to enjoy some extra free time, but I'm thoroughly going to miss the people that I've worked with,” she said. “This is just a quality group of people that – between city staff, department heads and everybody at the city – is just top notch.”

Prior to her first term on the council, Womack was very involved with the Chamber of Commerce and was on the finance committee. 

“My relationship goes back more than eight years with a number of these people,” she said. “I'll still be around. I'll still be involved but knowing that the regular being with them and the banter, I am going to miss it. I really am going to miss it.” 

During the pre-council meeting, Rick Sweeney gave an update on the city’s changeover to AmWaste providing garbage and recycling pickup. He acknowledged there had been missed pickups, but said there has been improvement.

“We're absolutely not OK with (that),” Sweeney said. “As we got further in the contract -- week one, week two – (missed pickups have) been going down. On top of that, our time to recover or trying to address missed service … those numbers are getting to the point that we are same-day recovering those pickups. It's not 100 percent, but we are getting better.”

City Manager Sam Gaston said he knew the transition to AmWaste would have “some hiccups.” Sweeney said the company had hired an operational administrator support person to help provide faster responses to customers.

Fire Chief Chris Mullins gave an update on a conditional use request for Rougaroux to establish a rear patio at the restaurant at 2716 Culver Road in Mountain Brook Village. The question was raised at previous meetings about the ability for firefighters to access the alleyway in back.

Mullins recommended that the right of way behind the restaurant and adjacent businesses be striped off as a fire lane. “Instead of us telling people where you can park,” the chief said, “I just want to tell people where you cannot park.”

In other action, the council:

On Nov. 7, Billy Prichard and newly elected Graham Leigh Smith will be sworn in during the 8 a.m. organizational meeting. Lloyd Shelton will be out of town and will be sworn in at the council’s next regular meeting on Nov. 14. 

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