Northport Approves Next Crucial Step In University Beach Project

NORTHPORT, AL — The Northport City Council on Monday voted 3-2 to appoint group home operator Shaferris Porter to the city's seat on the University Beach Capital Improvement Cooperative District Board of Directors, marking the latest major development on the contentious lagoon/resort project that developers claim would draw $350 million in capital investment.

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District 4 Councilwoman Jamie Dykes and District 5's Anwar Aiken voted against the creation of the special tax district and the subsequent appointment of Porter.

"We've been a quiet city for a long time," Porter told Patch, before saying that he applied for the position at City Hall after being recommended by a member of the council.

As Patch previously reported, two other prospective board members — Elite Recruiting CEO Steven Fikes and Allison Rush, who works as the clinic manager at Pickens County Primary Care — were selected and approved by the developers of the contentious project as part of the terms of the initial project agreement.

All three appointees are Northport residents who applied to form the Cooperative District and the principal office for the new entity will be in Northport City Hall, per the resolution approved Monday night.

This comes after Patch previously reported that the City Council voted 3-2 in late September to first create the University Beach Improvement District, which was part of the initial public-private partnership agreement the city entered into earlier this year.

Dykes and Aiken were the two opposition votes on the creation of the initial improvement district to oversee the large swath of property off of Harper Road for the development.

As part of the September vote, the council also appointed a trio of developers and investors to head up the three-member University Beach Improvement District Board of Directors: Texas developers Kent Donahue and John Hughes, along with investor Katie Le of San Marcos, California.

The selection of the aforementioned Northport residents tapped to serve on the board has raised substantial concerns in the community, primarily due to the lack of transparency in how the three candidates were chosen.

While the University Beach Improvement District Board will be tasked with shopping out the property to other interested developers, the Cooperative District, simply put, would manage the city's side of the public-private partnership agreement.

If the partnership agreement goes the distance, it will see the city provide the developers with up to $61,058,171 or regular payments until the 30-year term established in the agreement is reached, whichever comes first.

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Apart from the vote on Monday, it's worth noting that those on the City Council — other than District 2 Councilman Woodrow Washington — have claimed to have had no real input in the selection process, with Washington saying the extent of his involvement was simply passing along Porter's name as a possible candidate to the City Council.

When the floor was opened up to questions from the public Monday night, the primary concern once again was transparency and the lack of insight into the selection process for the Cooperative District's Board of Directors.

"I wanna know when these boards meet," Northport resident Tuffy Holland said, referring to meetings that have already been held with little public notice. "We all want to know where these boards meet and that's our right."

Northport City Attorney Ron Davis said public notices for the meetings had been posted at City Hall but after requests from Dykes and Holland, Davis said it would be modified.

Mobile-based attorney Alvin Hope, representing the University Beach developers, explained that the developers offered the names of the three candidates, with the city required to appoint one member of the board of directors.

The University Beach developers were not in attendance Monday night.

But when asked by Dykes why the specific board candidates seemed to have been arbitrarily chosen, Hope provided little apart from insisting that each candidate met the lone requirement of being Northport residents.

"It's not unusual to invest in cities they are not in," Hope said in response, without addressing the relationship of the out-of-town developers and the three Northport residents appointed to the Cooperative District Board of District.

The project is also mired in external issues unrelated to the players or personnel involved, namely the Tuscaloosa County Commission, which unanimously voted in October to send a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers requesting a temporary hold on any permits issued to the developers of the controversial University Beach resort development in Northport.

Indeed, the County Commission formally requested copies from Northport of all relevant impact studies for this site regarding environmental, watershed, endangered species, flood plan and water quality — described to Patch by officials as a fairly standard practice.

The City of Northport informed the county that they did not have a copy of the permit application and were told that there were no impact studies or at least none that had been provided as of October. This prompted the Commission to send the letter until more information on the impact of the project can be obtained.

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