Newsletter

November 15, 2024

• The Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be held on North Court Street near UNA on November 24 at 5:00 pm.
• The Downtown Florence Alliance will host a Winter Market alongside the Florence Christmas Parade on December 12, replacing the usual First Friday event. The market will occur on Mobile Street from 5 to 9 pm, with the Christmas Parade beginning at 7 pm.

SMALL BUSINESS HIGHLIGHT - During the holiday season, shop, eat, and celebrate in Florence to make an impact. Local businesses and events will be featured on social media as a continuation of the Town & Gown Small Business Saturday initiative. The highlights will continue through the holiday season. If you are interested in your small business being featured, please email Melissa Bevis, Florence Business Development Coordinator at mbevis@florenceal.org.

The Artsy Coffee Place at 1562 Florence Boulevard is our first local business to be highlighted. This unique shop offers an amazing selection of coffee, treats, and DIY painting all in one place. You can sign up for events or book a private party. A convenient drive-thru is also available to pick up your favorite coffee and delicious treats.

Tuesday, Mayor Andy Betterton, the Florence City Council, and the Downtown Florence Alliance officially opened the brand-new Tombigbee Public Parking Deck with a lively ribbon-cutting celebration! This six-level deck, located at Pine and Tombigbee Streets, is now ready for you with 273 spaces for cars and 23 for motorcycles. With cashless payment, security cameras, and on-site assistance, the new deck is here to make parking downtown easier than ever!

Holiday shoppers, take note: the Tennessee Street Parking Deck is FREE until January 1, 2025. Let’s get downtown, park with ease, and support our amazing local businesses!

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made the Veterans Day Ceremony truly special, with special appreciation for Robert Steen and Mickey Haddock for their contributions. Your dedication brought our community together to honor the sacrifices made by our veterans.

To all our veterans – we can never thank you enough for your courage, your commitment, and the freedoms you’ve preserved. Today and every day, we honor you!

Seven young men and women representing the fourth generation descended from Florence native, Governor Emmet O'Neal, spent the day in Florence on Friday, November 8. Their visit had been carefully planned through a staff member at O'Neal Steel Company in Birmingham so they could visit and learn about several local sites with direct connections to their forebear. These included: Courtview/Rogers Hall and the Governors' House on Court Street, the Justice John McKinley Federal building on Seminary Street, Thimbleton on West Tuscaloosa Street, the O'Neal family section of the City Cemetery, and the ruins of the Forks of Cypress mansion. Each stop met with great enthusiasm from the group, so it was a grand day for both them and their local tour guides.

Please join us in welcoming our newest officers. Today, Chief Holt swore in recruit officers Kyle Wilson , David Clark, and John Turner. On November 4, 2024, Courtney McGraw was also sworn in by Chief Holt.

They will attend the Alabama Basic Police Academy in the upcoming months. Congratulations on your new careers as Florence police officers!

Congratulations to Chip Daniel and Doug Atkinson for being selected as our October 2024 City of Florence Gas and Water Department’s Employees of the Month. Chip has been employed with the Gas Department for 34 years. He currently serves as the Gas Design Assistant. Doug has been employed with the Water Department for 33 years. He currently serves as a Crew Member. Please join me in congratulating these employees on their accomplishments.

Hey Florence, you've recycled 6,343,467 pounds of recyclables from Oct. 2023-Sept. 2024! Those recyclables have already been sorted, baled, and sold to manufacturers like Essity, Constellium, and Indorama who are making new products using area employees. Thank you for doing your part. Together we make a big difference.

Where: Kennedy-Douglas Center for the Arts

When: Sunday, Nov. 17th from 2:00-4:00

Registration: In person at the KDAC or call (256) 760-6379

Cost: Free, but space is limited

Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts is pleased to present a workshop opportunity with Abraham Rowe entitled "Found Object Ikebana." Ikebana is the Japanese art of arranging flowers, a centuries-old art form in which humanity and nature are brought together. In traditional Ikebana, there are many rules and coded meanings. Join Abraham Rowe and learn the basics of the practice; let found objects from a short walk, along with seasonal blooms, branches, and weeds, guide your construction of a work of art. Explore the exercise of seeking beauty in the mundane. Learn more about creating thought, attention, and balance from discarded, ignored, or lost objects. This workshop is free, but space is limited—so register today by either stopping by in person at the KDAC or by calling (256) 760-6379.

Abraham Rowe is a photographer and artist based in Florence, Alabama. He is passionate about documenting culture in real time and collecting stories of the South through the experiences of everyday people. Some of his projects include Hidden Spaces, Folks of Florence, Found Object Ikebana, The Highway 72 Project (oddities and life along the Hwy 72 corridor of North Alabama), as well as documenting the local music and art scene.

For more information, go to www.abrahamrowephotography.com

New Business – Opening Soon

118 E. Mobile St., Ste. 109

865-360-2424

https://hikeymikey.com/

A fun little hiking shoppe designed with the “day-hiker” in mind! (Hikey Mikey is an affiliate of A/Trail, Inc.)

THE TWO WAKEFIELDS

It has long been held locally that the fine brick house at 450 North Court Street, known as Wakefield, was patterned after the original structure in Virginia by the same name, which was George Washington’s ancestral home. Because the first Wakefield was destroyed and never rebuilt at the time, historians have had to depend on artists’ renditions of it. Based on those renditions, a replica was constructed years later and is now a national monument. When photographs of that replica are placed next to a photograph of the local Wakefield, the likeness is, indeed, striking. (See the accompanying photographs.) In George Washington: A Life, the most recent biography of Washington, written by Willard Sterne Randall in 1997, the author says, in part, about Florence’s Wakefield: “What may be an exact replica of Washington’s birthplace was built in 1825 several hundred miles to the south in Florence, Alabama, while Washington’s heirs still inhabited Mount Vernon. It is a handsomely trimmed, one-and-a-half story, three-bedroom brick house. Its most striking features are crow-step gables rising on both sides and two full Doric columns and two half-columns in front, making a relatively small house appear gracious and inviting.”

--Billy Warren, City Historian (brwarren@florenceal.org)

Maintenance B (Water Plant Cypress)

• Water Department
• Full Time - $41,477.28 Annually

Police Officer

• Police Department
• Full Time - $44,330.46 - $70,840.71 Annually

The Mayor and Council members will hold the next council meeting

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

4:00 pm Work Session

5:00 pm Council Meeting

The council meetings are held at 109 South Pine Street, Florence, AL 35630.

Email: abetterton@florenceal.org
Website: florenceal.org
Location: 110 West College Street, Florence, AL, USA
Phone: (256)760-6400

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• Send your information to rmansell@florenceal.org or call Rachel Koonce with questions at 256-760-6494.