Special called commission meeting April 18

A special called meeting of the Dale County Commission is set for 10 a.m. Thursday, April 18.

The meeting will serve as a public hearing on a resolution to approve an agreement between the Dale County Commission, the city of Ozark and Motobilt Inc., and Anvil Industrial Group LLC.

Following an executive session held during the March 26 commission meeting, the commission reconvened and voted to approve allocating $100,000 to the unnamed project—code named Project G— as an incentive to bring that company to Dale County.

Alabama law allows a governing body to go into executive session—a confidential meeting closed to the public—in order to discuss specific items, to include real estate transactions in the interest of economic development.

“According to Alabama law, when using taxpayers’ money to give to a private company, we are required to have a public hearing,” Dale County Commission Chairman Mark Blankenship explained at the April 9 commission meeting. “That is the first step.”

The $100,000 is a cash incentive to “reimburse the companies for relocation and construction expenses in connection with the companies’ development, improvement, installation, equipping and operation of an approximately 85,090 square foot facility located on property” owned by the city of Ozark, according to the legal announcement of the special called meeting.

Under the agreement, Ozark will lease some 13 acres and the facility on that land for use by the companies who will, in turn, “develop, improve, equip and operate as an industrial facility for the production of custom fabrication parts.”

The expected return on the incentive investment is “increasing the number and diversity of industrial jobs and related employment opportunities, enabling the local area to better retain, attract and locate other industrial enterprises, expanding the overall tax base of the county and enhancing the overall quality of life for the citizens of the county.”

The next regular meeting of the Dale County Commission is April 23 at the Dale County Government Building. A work session begins at 10 a.m. and is followed immediately by a voting meeting. Both meetings are open to the public.