School releases for summer, sidewalks and renovations

Dear friends and neighbors,

By the time the next addition of The Homewood Star appears, school will be out and summer will be here. As a reminder, many of our children will be out and about and possibly thinking of things other than safety. Please allow this to serve as a reminder to slow down and watch out for our children. I have met with the police chief and specifically asked him to increase citations for speeding especially within our neighborhoods.

Our Motor Scout Unit continues to do a great job patrolling around our schools in the morning and evenings, but will be more visible within the neighborhoods when school is out.

Our K-9 Unit also continues to do a great job.Recently, they pulled a car over and found three hidden compartments and drugs. The two occupants were promptly taken to jail, and their car was impounded. Although the K-9 Unit is relatively new for Homewood, its members continue to do very well with their training. They have now qualified to attend the Nationals, and I appreciate all of your overwhelming support for this program.

With the coming improvements to our parks including the new recreation center, please be sure to check homewoodparks.com for periodic updates. The Park Board consists of volunteer residents who have worked hard to help our city. Under the direction of Park Board Director Berkley Squires, those serving on our Park Board include Chris Mason, Chris Meeks, Becky Morton, Paula Smalley, Tom Blake, Tim Baggett, Tom Walker, Dr. Don Little and Dr. Keith Stansell. Please take a moment to thank these neighbors when you see them.

I also wanted to remind you to visit our city’s website, homewoodal.net. There you will find a great deal of information about our city including my State of the City address, budget information, videos of city council meetings, upcoming events, committee and council agendas, links to all department websites and a host of other helpful information. I appreciate James Yates and Steve Bottchen in our IT Department for all they do to keep our websites and every city computer we have up and running.

The newest sidewalk is nearing completion and is located on Carr Avenue. This sidewalk will link our great businesses on Green Springs to Broadway.

I continue to receive letters and phone calls about how much you are enjoying the new improvements. Jim Wyatt and his team in Inspections are doing a great job keeping those projects moving forward in a timely manner.

Homewood continues to do very well, and I trust you enjoy living and working here. I am grateful you allow me to serve and look forward to many more great things to come.

Sincerely,

Scott McBrayer

Mayor

City of Homewood