By Rebekah Martin
Associate Editor
At last week’s regular meeting, the Opelika City Council unanimously voted to amend the tax abatements for Golden State Foods, Lex Opelika and Wells Fargo Equipment Finance that were originally approved last year.
“Golden State Foods will be a lessee, and will operate a food processing plant as proposed in Opelika. Lex Opelika will acquire the land and construct the building improvements on the facility and then lease it to Golden State Foods, and Wells Fargo Equipment Finance will acquire the manufacturing equipment and other personal property and lease that personal property … back to Golden State Foods,” city attorney Guy Gunter said. “The total investment from all three entities will be $65.2 million – this is an increase of about $8 million over what had previously been approved.”
In other business the council:
-sponsored the upcoming Barbasol Championship Tournament to be held July 14-17 at Robert Trent Jones’s Grand National in the amount of $133,333.33.
-approved an appropriation of $1,500 for the Parks and Recreation department to send the Alabama Dixie Boys to their tournament game.
-awarded a bid to CDW Government , Inc. for VMware Licensing and Maintenance for the Information Technology department in the amount of 32,465.79
-awarded a bid to Fisher Scientific Co., LLC in the amount of $37,698.75 for five air packs with kits for the Opelika Fire Department.