Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
The Prattville City Council held their second meeting for the month of July Tuesday evening where the city honored both Jeeah Kim as the 2025 Distinguished Young Woman of Autauga County, and Prattville firefighter Josh Shedd as the State of Alabama Firefighter of the Year presented by the American Legion.
See how they were honored in this previous article, here.
In other business, the City of Prattville’s finance director gave a breakdown of the city finances to the council for the month of June, where everything seemed to be in working order with the various projects throughout the city.
The Council passed a resolution to start the condemnation proceedings for separate parcels of land, owned by three separate entities, for the widening of McQueen Smith Road.
The parcels of land to be condemned include a 1.67 acre and a 0.47 acre parcel owned by Centerpoint Fellowship Church. Approximately 0.58 is owned by L&L Properties, and approximately 0.02 acres and 0.04 acres are owned by GANESH 15 Inc.
As the resolution was read in, it was stated that the City and the three property owners were unable to reach an agreement. Now the matter will go to the Autauga County Probate Court where a fair market value will be decided for the three respective owners.
The widening of McQueen smith is reported to be part of the City of Prattville’s comprehensive plan and is alleged that the widening will improve traffic flow in the area.
The pedestrian sidewalk extension project will start phase two as the council amended the City’s budget to enter into a construction agreement with Alabama Department of Transportation, or ALDOT.
Phase two will run East main street from Shady Oak Lane to Geneva Street. The cost of the project was stated at the Council meeting not to exceed $467,043, with a net cost to the city not to exceed $93,408.60.
The Council also approved another project in partnership with ALDOT for the resurfacing and traffic stripping on Gardner Road from Upper Kingston Road and from Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The total cost of this project is not to exceed $543,553 with a net cost to the city not to exceed $108,710.
At the public comment portion at the end of the meeting, Charles Marsh addressed the council regarding the flooding and standing water within the Bent Tree Court neighborhood.
Marsh reiterated the issues that himself and his neighbors have been facing the last five plus years. Issues including mosquitos, snakes, slipping home foundations and thousands of frogs in their back yard were addressed.
A more in depth look to the back yard flooding can be found in a previously written article, here.
Essentially, it boils down to if the easement is privately or city owned. The easement is allegedly causing part of the flooding on Bent Tree Court. Marsh claims that the easement is only identified as a drainage easement, while Prattville Mayor Bill Gillespie also stated at the council meeting that he believes it to be privately owned.
During Marsh’s public comments, tensions seemed to be high between councilmembers and the Mayor, however they all seemed to have the same goal in helping their constituents and the citizens of the City of Prattville.
“If you’d like to keep me informed, I’ll be glad to be there, and I’m continuing to work, and I hope there might be a resolution to this with the city helping out. But this is a very challenging problem,” Gillespie said.
