The Franklin Stove Blog (FSB) has posted a number of articles about T-Town’s Li’l Sister city.

In 2015 the FSB opined: “N-Port or Northport may be more like a red-headed stepchild than a sister.”

The Tuscaloosa News once described the City of Northport’s Council in an editorial:

Over the years, the Northport City Council seemed to draw its character from the rough-and-tumble riverboat crews that made their northernmost landings in that city and blew off steam in its taverns. At times, it didn’t seem like the mayor and city councils of the past accomplished much, but it sure was good theater.

The 2016 FSB post Too Much Monkey Business asked:

Did three Council Members  decide on their own that Northport, Alabama, would be better off without its City Administrator? Does it matter that the former City Administrator Scott Collins rode off into the sunset to work as a City Manager in a small Tennessee town in his new Audi? After all, four of Northport’s Council Members voted to award  him with a generous severance package and health insurance.

The FSB post The Good Ship Northport gave details about how Northport officials had “been jumping off the good ship Northport.”

It included an account of how its Finance Director Kenneth McKeown had been given the “bum’s rush”:

On February 9, 2017, in a federal court Northport Attorney Bruce Henderson was reported to have said that McKeown had “acted inappropriately during a February 2016 training trip he took with a woman who worked for him in the finance department.” McKeown now works as Biloxi, Mississippi’s administrator. It would be reasonable to assume that either people in Biloxi are not concerned about the sexual harassment charges or McKeown is not guilty.

The Tuscaloosa News reported that, “McKeown testified Thursday that he did nothing wrong and that his behavior on the trip could only be considered inappropriate ‘if somebody was trying to make something out of it.’ He told [U.S. District Judge] Coogler he was placed on leave less than 24 hours after discovering an expense account that a support technician told him only Collins could access.”

The game of musical chairs that was played in Northport in filling its City Administrator position after the departure of Scott Collins seemed to go on forever.

A FSB post on July, 23, 2016 concerned the “use of reserve funds by the City of Northport to pay general operating expenses” included former Mayor Bobby Herndon’s theory about Collin’s resignation:

Mayor Bobby Herndon said that former City Administrator Scott Collins had moved money from a reserve fund and replaced it, an act that should have resulted in only a slap on the wrist by the Civil Service Board. Herndon said that Collins’ resignation is in some way associated with this common practice of shifting funds and accused Council members of “sneaky snake moves.”

The use of reserve funds may have been used to pay bills in the past. But under the leadership of Mayor Bobby Herndon and former City Administrator Collins and with the advice of the LeCroy auditing firm it was thought by some to have become a standard practice.

Included in the post was a reference to a 2011 Tuscaloosa News article by Adam Jones that reported that Scott Collins had requested that emergency reserve accounts be created:

Collins asked the council to consider setting up in city code an emergency reserve account for both the city’s main operations and its water and sewer operations. He suggested the savings account for both be about 10 percent, or about $2 million for the general budget and $1 million for the water and sewer budget.

In August, Collins said he was able to transfer $1 million into a general fund reserve account and $300,000 into a water and sewer fund reserve. It can be used to start the reserve funds and fully fund them by the end of 2012, he said.

Former Mayor Donna Aaron, at a 2017 Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama‘s Northport Community Engagement Dinner addressed the city’s debt:

Aaron said the focus was on passing a lean budget, paying off the city’s substantial debt, and ending the practice of borrowing from the city’s water and sewer fund to make payroll, among other key concerns.

An article by Tuscaloosa News reporter Jason Morton in April, 2021 provided a history of Northport’s search for a City Administrator:

Morton wrote:

In the search that dates back almost two years, the Northport City Council voted unanimously on March 23 to hire [former Tuscaloosa City Attorney Glenda]Webb as its permanent, full-time administrator.

It’s now held by interim city administrator and former Tuscaloosa County probate judge Hardy McCollum, who agreed to assume the position in a temporary capacity in August 2019.

That’s when then-City Administrator Bruce Higginbotham stepped down after less than two years on the job. Higginbotham was hired in September 2017 to take over after  a series of interim city administrators following the resignation of Scott Collins in April 2016. Collins stepped down abruptly and left no one to oversee the day-to-day operations of the city.

Collins himself was hired to fill the position that had been vacant since longtime city administrator Charles Swann was ousted from the job during a reorganization of city personnel in July 2007. At that time, then-Mayor Harvey Fretwell said the position was not needed and he would perform the duties of both the mayor and the administrator.

City Administrator Glenda Webb was reputedly on a vacation when the Northport City Council recently voted on the possible sale of its community center.

Discussion of the Community Center sale, as reported by WVUA 23 News Student Reporter Chaney Scott, took place under heated conditions.

Chaney Scott reported that District 2 Council Member Woodrow Washington took exception to the irate crowd of citizens that packed Northport’s city hall:

Washington said that in this town of around 30,000, people want to sell this property where children who come to play have to use the bathroom in a playground porta potty.

“They just aren’t as vocal as the 300-plus citizens who came to our Monday meeting,” Washington said. “Out of 30,000 people, there’s somebody saying to sell, they’re just not coming up to us saying “Sell! Sell! Sell!”

When Scott Collins had been the City Administrator in 2009, there had been talk at first of curtailing the community center’s use.

According to a staff editorial in the Tuscaloosa News:

Northport City Council would be wise to pause long enough to fully consider the suggestion of City Administrator Scott Collins to stop leasing the Northport Civic Center for private events outside normal business hours.

The city is lucky to have such a facility. Many cities, including Tuscaloosa, would like to have a place to host conferences and events. Our area has too few venues for banquets, meetings and exhibitions.

Collins also floated the idea in 2015 about leasing the heritage museum site for retail development, as reported in The Tuscaloosa News by Ed Enoch:

“We are very, very early in any discussions,” Collins said.

However, Collins said the discussions, so far, include a lease of the property and shared access to the museum footprint through an existing entrance for the community center on Park Street. As part of the proposal, the museum would move to a new location on another city-owned property, he said.

Resident Amy LeePard presented the council with a draft proposal to protect the park space around the community center and museum from future commercial development by dedicating it for use as a city-owned community park and greenspace.

Jody Jobson warned that the residents didn’t want see anything built on park property.

The park has been a fixture in the lives of longtime residents of the city, Jobson argued.

“Now a national chain wants to come in and, because of tax dollars, they want to sway you to do it,” Jobson said.

Reportedly the site was being considered by a Krispy Creme donut franchise.

A Facebook page “Save the Northport Community Center Park” helped spread a petition in opposition to any change in the center’s status.

Eventually the idea was dropped.

Today, plans for the community center property involve its sale to the Beeker Property Group.

In October, 2018, Stephen Dethrage reported in The Tuscaloosa News that the Northport City Council had voted to tentatively accept a $3.5 million proposal from Beeker group to purchase its civic center. Ultimately plans for the sale were dropped. District 5 Council Member Jeff Hogg said that after the “due diligence period, the city and the developer determined the larger project wasn’t feasible.”

Whether Beeker group will be allowed to follow through on its new plans to buy the community center property will likely depend on what the “silent majority” of Northport citizens want. Council member Woodrow Washington seems to think that selling the property is a popular idea opposed only by a vocal minority.

But, in any event, the circus must go on in Northport. The clown car is jam packed after all.