By Alison James
Associate Editor
Opelika will come into greater compliance following the council’s approval to participate in the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation Initiative.
The MCDC is a relatively new initiative of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which holds the city responsible for keeping investors informed about the city’s financial condition through a number of compliance measures, including filing yearly audit information in a timely manner.
“The SEC became concerned the majority of municipalities weren’t fully compliant with this continuing disclosure requirement,” explained city attorney Guy Gunter. “Basically (the MCDC initiative) says if the cities would self-report any violations of their disclosure requirements, then they would more or less get a ‘get out of jail free card’ and wouldn’t have to pay a civil penalty.”
“Opelika has been pretty compliant,” Gunter continued. “Our only failure is … the city must file its audited statements within six months of the close of the fiscal year. The city has always filed its audited statements, but in some instance we have been a little late – anywhere from a few days to 60 day or so.”
At Gunter’s recommendation, the city approved resolutions to participate in the initiative and to lay out city policies for avoiding any future violations and self reporting any violations that have taken place.
The city also:
-approved Dec. 26, 2014, as a paid holiday for city employees.
-recognized Alfred Johnson as the Officer of the Month.
-recognized Ben Bryant and the entire OHS cross country team. The team finished as the 2014 Class 6A Individual State Cross Country Team State Runners-Up, and Bryant was the State Champion.
-recognized Nov. 29 as Small Business Saturday.
-approved requests for: the 2014 Collinwood Christmas Luminaries, Dec. 11; the CASA Superhero 5K, March 14, 2015; and a road closure for First Baptist Church, Nov. 23.
-accepted a bid for $1.2 million for the contract for the Oak Bowery Bridge Replacement.