Anniston council makes board appointments

The Anniston City Council has made five appointments to two city boards filling out one and giving the other a quorum for the first time.

 The council appointed four people to the Longleaf Botanical Gardens board and one person to the Commercial Development Authority board. With the appointments, the recently created Longleaf board now has its nine seats filled. Meanwhile, the authority board now has three of five seats filled, giving it a quorum for the first time since its creation a year ago.

The council created the Longleaf board in September along with the Anniston Museum of Natural History board. Earlier this month, the council appointed eight members to the museum board and five to the Longleaf board.

Those appointed to the Longleaf board Monday include Robert Downing, Sarah Sloan, Juliette Doster and Arthur Toole.

In March, the city took control of the Museum of Natural History, the Berman Museum of World History and the gardens and put them all in a new city department. City leaders made the change at the request of the Museum Complex Board, a single entity that had overseen the three facilities. The complex board made its request to help improve all three facilities' operations and clarify the legality of certain aspects of their functions. The museums were set up years ago as city-owned nonprofit groups, which led to some confusion with regard to purchasing and other aspects of daily operations.

The council set up the new boards in such a way that they'd be independent from the city and would be responsible for guiding each facility’s operations and exhibits, fundraising and the spending of money. The city provides money to the museums annually for basic operations.