Tag: Birmingham City Council
Birmingham City Council Declines to Nominate Full Slate of Candidates to Board Overseeing Property Taxes
UPDATED —The Birmingham City Council has passed on the option to submit a full slate of nominees to the Jefferson County Board of Equalization, the body that oversees property tax appraisals in the city and countywide.
At its Tuesday meeting, councilors voted to nominate only one candidate, incumbent board member Karen Wadlington, to continue service on the board. Alabama law allows the council to nominate up to three candidates for each vacancy on the three-member board. The terms of two of the board’s three members have now expired, according to a county spokesperson, which allowed the City Council six total nominations. Read more.
$50 Million HUD Grant Expected to “Transform” West Birmingham Neighborhoods
In a setting that felt more like a tent revival than a press conference, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge announced Wednesday that Birmingham had landed a $50 million community redevelopment grant. Read more.
Read the Details: Birmingham OKs Rezoning in West Birmingham Ahead of Possible Redevelopment Plan
Birmingham will fund a ‘violence intervention’ program. Can it get to the heart of the problem?
Michelle Farley remembers Rico. He was a member of the Youth Action Committee at One Roof, the Birmingham homelessness services organization where Farley serves as executive director.
In 2019, Rico was shot, according to Farley, and remained hospitalized for weeks. He was then released, she said, “with no more resources for conflict resolution or violence prevention than when he entered.”
Just a few weeks later, Rico was shot for a second time. He didn’t make it.
On Tuesday, the Birmingham City Council approved a pilot program to provide services to those impacted by gun violence in the Magic City. Read more.
‘This just can’t go on’: Birmingham City Councilors Somber a Day After Firefighter’s Death
As Birmingham’s city councilors met Tuesday, the mood was somber.
Just a day earlier, Jordan Melton, a Birmingham firefighter, had died as a result of injuries he suffered when he and his colleague, Jamal Jones, were shot inside Station 9 on July 12.
As council members gathered in Boutwell Auditorium for their regularly scheduled meeting, a shirt was draped in solidarity across the tables at the front of the room. It was a show of solidarity: “Birmingham Fire & Rescue,” it said across its front.
“On behalf of Mayor Woodfin, I want to express that our hearts are with the Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service and the Melton family as they continue to mourn Monday’s passing of firefighter Jordan Melton after he was shot last week at Station 9 in Norwood,” Cedric Sparks, the mayor’s chief of staff, said at the meeting. Read more.
Birmingham Council Approves $5 Million to Build Birmingham Amphitheater, Discusses 20-Year Contract With Live Nation to Manage It
Birmingham taxpayers will provide $5 million toward the construction of a proposed 9,000-seat open-air amphitheater on 25th Street North, adjacent to the site of the former Carraway Hospital.
In its meeting Tuesday, the Birmingham City Council voted 7-1 to approve the amphitheater funding. Councilor Valerie Abbott voted against the measure, and Councilor Carol Clarke abstained. Tuesday’s discussion also revealed new details about the management of the planned venue, including an overview of a planned 20-year Live Nation contract to promote and operate the amphitheater. Read more.
Mayor-Council Act, Which Tilted Power Toward Mayor, Still Under Fire 7 Years After Adoption
The Birmingham City Council approved Mayor Randall Woodfin’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year last week. It was the culmination of the city’s most contentious budgeting process in years. Since Woodfin took office in 2017, almost all of his budgets have passed without any alterations from the council, thanks mostly to state legislation from 2016 that took away their ability to do so.
The Mayor-Council Act is the state law governing the separation of powers between the branches of Birmingham’s municipal government, but some argue that changes to the bill approved the year before Woodfin took office have shifted that balance of power too heavily toward the executive. Read more.
Bham Budget Passed After Compromise With Councilors; Concerns Remain About the Power of the Mayor’s Office
Birmingham’s most contentious budgeting process in years ended Tuesday with the City Council’s unanimous approval of Mayor Randall Woodfin’s $554.8 million FY 2024 budget.
Having extracted a rare compromise from the mayor’s office — nearly half a million dollars redirected from street paving to code enforcement — councilors adopted a conciliatory tone.
“I think all of us came away feeling better than we felt before,” said District 3 Councilor Valerie Abbott. Earlier she had complained, “We’re doing all the glitzy things that are so cool. Well, I’m sorry, I’m tired of cool. I would just like for some things to get done.”
Councilor Hunter Williams clarified Tuesday that he wasn’t talking about the current mayor when he said last week that state legislators had created “a little king,” but he still worried that the current system under a different mayor could result in no checks and balances in city government. Read more.
Birmingham OKs Rezoning in West Birmingham Ahead of Possible Redevelopment Plan
Eight West Birmingham properties have been rezoned to make way for a federally funded “transformation plan” in the city’s Graymont, Smithfield and College Hills neighborhoods.
The properties rezoned by the City Council Tuesday include the Smithfield Library, the Smithfield Court Housing Community, the former Hill Elementary School and the former Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity headquarters, all of which were redesignated as either “mixed-use medium” or “multiple-dwelling districts” on Tuesday.
The rezoning is intended to support the city’s bid for a Choice Neighborhood Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city has been announced as a finalist for the $50 million grant, which would be used to redevelop much of the area surrounding Legion Field. Read more.
Ride Free on the Birmingham Bus Rapid Transit System! (At Least for Now)
The Birmingham Bus Rapid Transit system, also known as Birmingham Xpress, will be free for riders for at least the next few months — though exactly how long remains up in the air. A $300,000 payment approved Tuesday by the Birmingham City Council will cover the cost of eliminating BRT fares while the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority develops a new mobile payment application to encompass all of its services. Read more.
Residents Complain About Predatory Towing Downtown, Say It Will Stall Economic Development if Not Fixed
Matt Lyons said he’s not in favor of putting towing companies out of business.
“When your car’s broken down on the side of the road,” he said, “the tow company is your best friend. That being said, what I’m against is predatory towing, which takes advantage of the citizens of Birmingham only to enrich the owners of companies like Parking Enforcement Systems.”
Lyons was among a number of people who paraded to a podium Wednesday night at Boutwell Auditorium to talk about predatory towing practices in Birmingham. He recounted having paid for 3-hour parking as he attended a meeting, returning 30 minutes late to find that his car had been towed away.
“I think it’s very bad for the image of Birmingham,” he said.
City officials attended the meeting and told the crowd there are several measures are being considered to mitigate the towing issue. One calls for a 15-minute grace period before a car could be towed, Julie Barnard of the city attorney’s office said. Others included adding warnings on parking apps to check that entered information was entered correctly, and requiring towing companies to release towed vehicles to owners who have proof they paid for parking. Read more.
