Perry County’s effort to move its central voting center from one former National Guard armory to another has sparked confusion at the courthouse and a dispute over a legal notice now running in this newspaper.
At its Jan. 13 meeting, the Perry County Commission voted 3–2 to establish a new voting place at the former National Guard Armory building on Magnolia Drive. Commission Vice Chairman Carlton Lewis and Commissioners Brett Harrison and Tony Long supported the move. Commission Chairman Albert Turner and Commissioner Barbara Howze voted against it.
The change would shift the county’s central voting center away from the older armory facility on Highway 14. Legislation adopted by the commission last year designated that “old” armory as the central polling place for county voters. Commissioners who backed the new measure cited the deteriorating condition of the Highway 14 building and said they believed it was no longer safe for public use. Recent photographs of the structure show visible disrepair.
After the January vote, The Times-Standard-Herald received a legal notice from Commissioner Harrison to be published for four consecutive weeks, giving public notice of the proposed legislation to move to the Magnolia Drive site.
Following the vote, Chairman Turner posted on social media that the county had secured significant funding commitmentsin the form of appropriations from U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell’s office to help pay for repairs to the older armory building, raising questions about whether the polling place should be relocated at all.
The dispute escalated Tuesday, when Bev Gordon of the Perry County Commission office contacted the newspaper and requested that the notice be pulled. Gordon said the notice had not been placed through proper channels and told the paper that the county would not pay any invoice related to its publication.
Later the same day, Vice Chairman Lewis called The Times-Standard-Herald and instructed that the notice continue to run as ordered by the commission’s public vote in January.
The newspaper sought guidance from Alabama Press Association attorney Evans Bailey of the firm Rushton Stakely. Based on that advice, the Times-Standard-Herald is continuing to publish the notice for the remaining two weeks of its four-week run, reflecting the commission’s recorded action while county officials sort out how to proceed with the competing directives.
