Barber Motorsports Museum makes record book
Published 5:00 pm Thursday, May 8, 2014
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Don Erwin, Vice President of Corporate Development for Barber Companies presented a plaque to the Leeds City Council Monday night declaring Barber Motorsports Museum the Guinness Book of World Records largest motorcycle museum in the world.
Currently the museum houses approximately 1,400 motorcycles.
“Barber has been out here 11 year now,” said Erwin. “We’ve been working on this since last October talking with Guinness. We feel when the museum and park prospers Leeds prospers as well.”
Other items discussed:
*Leeds Jane Culbreth Library Director Mondretta Williams announced the Friends of the Library will be putting on a Scholastic Book Fair starting Monday, May 12th – Monday, May 19th.
Books can be purchased for a discount during the book fair and a portion of the proceeds benefit the Leeds library.
Williams also added the library will be closed this Friday, May 9th and Saturday, May 10th in order to finish installing the library’s new HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system.
“We’ll be back open and ready for the book fair on Monday,” said Williams.
*Sherry Johnson, representing Oliver Crossing subdivision, addressed the council asking for a bike and hiking trail to be established in Oliver Crossing in order to overcome issues of speeding.
“We have over 12 children that live near Oliver Road and Covington and they love being outside,” said Johnson. “We have major issues with drivers running stop signs and speeding. We need something to help slow down traffic.”
Councilman for District 4 (where Oliver Crossing is located) Craig Wadsworth said there are 300-500 homes in this particular subdivision and believes a trail would be a preventive measure rather than being reactionary later.
“This would be a great thing to do for our community,” said Wadsworth.
Mayor David Miller agreed.
“What Mrs. Johnson is looking for is a formal crosswalk. I’ve asked our city engineer to take a look into designing a nature trail.”
*Renderings for the new Leeds Primary School have been submitted for state approval and the site package has been developed the most cost effective way according to In Site Engineering professional engineer and member of the primary school construction review committee Ben Watson.
“The school board and architects have done what they need to do to get this moving forward,” said Watson.
District 1 city councilman Kenneth Washington asked about sinkholes and Watson replied, “The geo tech has poked holes in there and has not found any. They went through a strong level of detail and did not discover any in their investigation.”
Leeds Primary School is slated to open December 2015.
* The council voted yes in regards to participating in the sales tax holiday starting Friday, August 1st. For a complete list of all tax exempt items visit: https://www.revenue.alabama.gov/salestax/SalesTaxHol.cfm.
* In regards to the park rules with the incoming Splash Pad the council voted to allow Leeds residents (also accepting family members and guests who accompany a Leeds citizen) to enjoy the Splash Pad.
Several neighboring areas have had people bused in and their areas actual residents haven’t been able to enjoy the activity their tax dollars have paid for so the Leeds City Council voted to keep its Splash Pad for the people of Leeds.
“Your taxpayer dollars have paid for it,” said Miller. “We want y’all to enjoy it.”
Remember—non-residents are welcome as long as a Leeds resident is with them.
As for other Splash Pad rules, there is no smoking on any Leeds city property and is working with the city’s legal council to develop rules on the electronic cigarettes.
As of May 5th, 2014 there isn’t room for grills to be brought into the Splash Pad area. The mayor and council would like to see this happen later down the road and will look into amending the grills prohibited rule later in the Splash Pad season.
Leeds City Council meets the first and third Monday of each month at 6 p.m. in the Leeds Civic Center located at 1000 Park Drive.
