Birmingham bound on bonds, JeffCo tightens taxing budget and the Legislature twiddles thumbs.
All eyes will be on Birmingham City Hall this morning to see whether the city council approves a $142 million package of bonds and revenue warrants proposed by Mayor Bernard Kincaid as Phase II of a bond issue to finance capital projects and infrastructure improvements. Kincaid has assembled his own bond team, but at least two city councilors, Roderick Royal and Steven Hoyt, have argued that the city should give the deal to Grigsby & Associates, a San Francisco minority-owned firm, which has run crosswise of federal law enforcement. In the late 1990s, the principal of that firm, Calvin Grigsby, was indicted twice in Miami, Fla., on federal charges of kickbacks and misuse of public dollars. Grigsby was acquitted in both cases. Read more on the power struggle and Grigsby’s history in last week’s War on Dumb. More money, no money — after the jump. At Jefferson County, the commission still struggles to win support from the Alabama Legislature to renew the occupational tax. The tax is set to expire in 2008, and some have argued that a bill passed in 1999 already repealed the tax. The entirety of the commission seems to support renewing the tax (an unusual moment of cooperation there these days), and Commission President Bettye Fine Collins has said the county could go bankrupt without it. Meanwhile, the Republican majority on the commission continues with some draconian cuts, eliminating as much as $25 million from the county budget since the election last fall.
And in Montgomery, it’s a game of wait-n-see as to whether the Alabama Legislature does anything at all. A partisan slowdown in the Alabama Senate has brought the wheels of state government to a virtual halt, with the exception last week of passing a package of incentives for steel manufacturer ThyssenKrupp to build a plant near Mobile. Oh, and they passed themselves a 62 percent raise — can’t forget about that. The steel maker is expected to announce this week whether it intends to build the plant here or in Louisiana. Meanwhile, the Alabama House, where representatives are still talking to each other, is expected today to consider a $1 billion bond deal to finance new school construction throughout the state.
Updates to follow later today.
— Kyle Whitmire
May 8th, 2007 at 11:04 am
And the big question: did Joel Montgomery show up for the city council meeting?