A Daphne city councilman has stepped down just hours after his colleagues voted down a land deal tied to a proposed technology and office park, capping months of tension over the future of one of the city’s most closely watched economic development proposals.
Councilman Joe Davis III announced his resignation from the District 7 seat following the City Council’s regular meeting Monday, in which members voted 4-3 against the pre-zoning and annexation of a 75-acre parcel at the southwest corner of Champions Way and State Highway 181. Approval would have paved the way for the first phase of the proposed Daphne Innovation and Science Complex, known locally as DISC.
Council President Tommie Conaway and council members Randy Fry, Pat Rudicell and John Lake voted against the measure, while Davis joined council members Ron Scott and Robin LeJeune in supporting it. The council had delayed the vote once before, at a previous meeting, before taking it up again Monday night.
The proposal called for the city’s Industrial Development Board to draw on $426,768.26 in previously unused BP settlement funds toward an initial 30-acre purchase, with the IDB covering the remaining $325,231.74 of the $725,000 acquisition from its own account. Infrastructure improvements tied to the project were projected to cost nearly $1.7 million.
Davis, who served as the council’s liaison to the Industrial Development Board, had been one of the project’s most outspoken supporters, arguing that DISC would bring Class A office space and higher-paying, white-collar jobs to the city.
“This was the most pivotal vote the city has had in a long time and I think the vote of some council members was very short sighted,” Davis said. “I think some people on the council had only their re-election in mind when they cast a vote.”
Davis said disagreements over how the project would be funded, along with pointed criticism from some council members who characterized the arrangement as “corporate welfare,” had created rifts on the council that he did not believe could be mended.
“After that I don’t have any credibility with them, and they don’t have any credibility with me,” he said. “I wish the city very well, but this was very disappointing. It is time for me to move on.”
Davis was appointed to the council in 2013 to fill the District 7 seat vacated by Dane Haygood, who moved into the mayor’s office following the death of former Mayor Bailey Yelding. Davis said he believed his background serving on industrial development boards and in the local business community factored into that appointment.
He pointed to the council’s February 2014 decision to raise the city’s lodging tax and reallocate a portion of those funds — including additional money for the Industrial Development Board — as a signal, at the time, that the city was prepared to let the IDB take on a larger role in attracting new development.
“I thought we were ready to attract some real opportunities to the city, but the council didn’t see the big picture,” Davis said.
Fry, who voted against the annexation, said his opposition centered on the planned unit development zoning designation attached to the DISC proposal, a tool he said the council has limited experience working with.
“There is just too much flexibility in the PUD, and that is one of the unknowns out there,” Fry said. “I’m a business person and I’m usually pro-business in my voting, but sometimes when you don’t have all the information in a deal it is best to walk away.”
Fry added that unresolved questions about financing, along with what he described as a “hard sell” from Davis, the IDB and Mayor Haygood, also factored into his vote.
“There are some very good people on the IDB and in the planning department, this vote was not personal for me in any way,” Fry said.
With Davis’s resignation, the city now has 60 days to fill the District 7 vacancy. Fry said Daphne plans to advertise the opening this week, and residents interested in the seat can submit a resume through the city clerk’s office at Daphne City Hall. If the seat remains unfilled after 60 days, the appointment would fall to Gov. Robert Bentley.