After being ready Monday to approve an architect for the construction of a new municipal building, the Athens City Council abruptly changed course Wednesday, saying they would wait one to three years for the project.

The plan started to come undone at Monday night’s council meeting when in a work session before the regular meeting Councilman Harold Wales asked that an agenda item to approve an architect be tabled for further consideration because he had received a telephone call that caused him some concern about Council President Ronnie Marks’ recommendation of the Decatur firm of Godwin Barnett.

“I would like to delay this for two weeks until I can check something out,” said Wales.

Marks said the firm would not have been “invited to the table” if it hadn’t checked out.

“We invited four to the table and I think all of them did excellent presentations,” said Marks. “If they were not good we wouldn’t have invited them. This is not an easy decision, but if we are to move forward with this then we need to get started.”

On August 24, the council met in a work session with the architectural firms of Krebs Architecture of Birmingham; Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood of Birmingham and Huntville; CMH Architects of Birmingham, and Godwin Barnett.

Both Councilwomen Milly Caudle and Mignon Bowers said they were ready to put the motion on the floor, but Councilman Jimmy Gill said he also wanted to know more about the firm.

“I don’t think it would hurt to wait two weeks,” said Gill.

“I don’t want to wait two weeks,” said Marks. “We will get inundated with questions we should have already had answers to. It will not prove anything to wait two weeks.”

Caudle said she had also received a phone call from the same person who called Wales.

“In my mind, the questions have been answered,” said Caudle.

“I’m disappointed that as a council we didn’t have our minds made up in the last two weeks,” said Bowers.

However, Marks relented and called a special meeting for 9 a.m. Wednesday to answer any remaining questions that Wales and Gill had.

After the meeting, local attorney John Plunk told The News Courier that he was the one who made the calls to the council members. He said that, according to the Alabama Board of Architects the two principals in the firm of Godwin Barnett, John Godwin and Sam Barnett, were not registered architects.

On the board’s Web site under the “License Verification” link, neither Godwin’s nor Barnett’s names are listed.