Enhancing the quality of life for local residents will again be a major goal for the Andalusia City Council, based on discussions in an extended workshop meeting brainstorming with department heads as city leaders plan for the next four years.

Planning Director Andy Wiggins said the installation of new playground equipment in Robinson Park will begin in February, and will take four to six weeks to complete.

Struthers Reaction, LLC was the low bidder for the project, which will be funded in part with a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant.

Wiggins said that even though the City just completed its 2025 Candyland event, planning has already begun for next year, when all of the features traditionally housed on the City Hall campus will move to Heritage Park.

“In a new location, it will be new and different like we just started again,” Wiggins said. “It won’t be nearly as congested.”

Needs for Johnson Park also were discussed. City Recreation Board and School Board member Billy Bergfeld was among those attending the meeting, Bergfeld said one thing parents have requested is shade structures over the seating areas, which could also offer foul ball protection. Bull pens also could increase safety, he said.

Parks and Recreation Director Willie Edwards said drainage work is needed in the areas used as auxiliary fields, and possible an additional restroom and concession area. The number of students participating in youth sports has grown, he said, especially in basketball and volleyball, which was added two years ago.

Councilman Jeremy Craig also expressed a need for additional soccer fields to support a newly-formed soccer club, Andalusia United.

The Council also addressed upgrades to Cooper Pool.

“We’ve talked about an indoor aquatic center,” Mayor Earl Johnson said. “We cannot afford an indoor aquatic center.

“Those are plain facts,” he said. “To build a true indoor facility that would be attractive for hosting meets would cost between $12 million and $15 million to build and another million dollars a year to operate it. We are not going to have that kind of money.

“Now, that being said, we do want to improve our swim center,” he said.

Wiggins said the city has explored the cost of new construction vs. upgrades to the existing facility, and that needed repairs at Cooper Pool will likely total $1.2 million. The City had a geologist survey the property last spring after swim coach Darren Forry, who attended the planning meeting, alleged it was hollow underneath and dangerous for children.

“That’s an aluminum liner in the pool,” Wiggins said. “It’s not hollow underneath. When you let the water out of the aluminum, it expands and contracts, and the aluminum has nowhere to go but up. That’s why it appears to you to be buckled. The biggest problem is in the filter house. As the water circulates, the old pipes are leaking. We’re going to need to dig everything up and put new pipes back to it.”

The $1.2 million estimate also includes the construction of new restroom facilities.

The Council also discussed needs for police and fire protection, as well as future paving projects and the continued need for workforce housing.

Local Realtor Sue Wilson attended the meeting with photographs she had taken that morning of bungalow-type houses that need work.

“Therse are in lower-value neighborhoods,” she said. “All of these pictures show junk, but abatement won’t take care of the problem completely. We need an emphasis in the spring about clean up, paint up, fix up,” she said. “The City could offer incentives to help people.

“Maybe we could start the beautification awards again, emphasizing smaller neighborhoods,” she said. “They just need help. They just haven’t thought about putting things off the front porch.”

Mayor Johnson asked Wilson to lead that effort.

“I think this would be better received coming from citizens, and not the government,” he said. “People resent someone from the government making them do something.”

Wilson said owners of bungalow homes “don’t understand what they’ve got.”

“Andalusia could be a beautiful place,” she said.

The Council is expected to adopt a resolution formalizing its goals in the coming months.