Fairhope, Alabama thefairhopetimes.blogspot.com
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| Old inscribed benches. |
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| New bench plaques installed. |
Dedication inscriptions from the old wooden benches that were removed early last year to make way for the waterfront renovation project are being replaced with metal plaques on the newly-installed composite benches, as promised.
2025 CONTROVERSY
In early 2025, several citizens expressed concerns when their loved-ones benches were being taken out.
Mayor Sullivan, whose family actually had a memorial bench there too, addressed the situation during a city council meeting in February of 2025:
"Mayor Sherry Sullivan and city staff addressed public concerns on Wednesday about replacement of benches at the Fairhope pier, saying the city will surplus the old benches, return inscribed boards to donors on request and install more durable resin benches with a substantial plaque.
"Those benches at the pier were surplus at the last meeting, which means that we can now give those away," Sullivan said during the council meeting, seeking to correct social‑media accounts that described a different plan. She said many of the wooden benches and their concrete anchors were in poor condition and that the city plans to replace them with a resin material that is more durable.
Sullivan said the city will remove the wooden boards that carry inscriptions and make those available to the original donors. She added that the new benches will feature a single, more substantial plaque rather than the small routed wooden inscriptions that residents have come to associate with the pier. "It is not the plaque that has been circulated on social media," the mayor said; she described the replacement plaque as a more substantial, longer‑lasting piece that will include memorial inscriptions."
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