The Trotter Convention Center is getting a privacy wall on its north-facing patio on Second Avenue.
Columbus City Council unanimously approved the $46,000 wall at Monday’s meeting. During the meeting, Trotter Director Mike Anderson said he had negotiated with two contracting firms and that while construction start times would depend on them, he anticipated it starting in late October.
“The Trotter is currently pretty well booked up for the next year for a couple of venues,” Anderson said. “This is an effort to try to enhance the lower level and add more opportunities for booking. We want to look at enclosing the downstairs patio and making it a privacy area that goes with the lower-level venue.”
Anderson said there would be a six-foot tall wall with wrought-iron gates. He said the design would match the design of the already-enclosed patio on the Trotter’s upper level that faces Fifth Street.
Anderson has contracted with B&G Masonry Services for the wall and Dura Hunting Supplies, which is based out of Ethelsville, Alabama, for the metalwork.
Columbus Mayor Robert Smith told the council the $46,000 would come out of the city’s hotel/motel tax fund.
Smith elaborated on the design after the meeting.
“If you think about when you walk up to the front part (of the Trotter), to your left where that patio is, you have the wrought-iron gates there, so it’ll be similar to that,” he said. “You’ll have a couple of double gates and you’ll have some single gates, and the wall should be from four to six feet high.”
Other business
Councilmen also amended the city’s garbage ordinance.
Where before, citizens could take trash out the night before garbage collection and leave it over the next night, residents now must take trash out the day of the garbage collection and bring cans back in by 7 p.m. the same day.
Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones proposed the new ordinance, and the council passed it unanimously.
While city ordinances on the city’s website say violating trash ordinances could be penalized by up to $100 fine, Jones said the first violation would merely be a warning.
The council voted in executive session to suspend two Columbus police officers for three days without pay for violation of department policies. A city source told The Dispatch the two officers had both used profane language, one in a Facebook post and one while interacting with citizens during a call.
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