A dispute over how Mobile should spend its next round of federal housing money ended in agreement this week, as the Mobile City Council voted unanimously to approve a roughly $3.3 million funding application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The vote came after a tense stretch in which a council member’s push to redirect money toward neighborhood projects threatened to blow through a HUD filing deadline. District 2 Councilman Levon Manzie had asked that about $120,000 originally set aside for a rental rehabilitation pilot program instead go toward building a walking and fitness trail in the Plateau and Africatown area. He had also sought to shift roughly $50,000 toward repairing sidewalks along Mobile Street between Nall Street and Springhill Avenue.
Those requests initially stalled the city’s annual action plan, the document that governs how Mobile spends Community Development Block Grant funds, HOME Investment Partnership money and Emergency Solutions Grants. Amending the plan on the floor would have triggered a fresh 30-day public comment period, which city staff warned could cause Mobile to miss HUD’s April 10 deadline for the 2015 funding cycle and jeopardize the entire allocation.
City housing officials met with Manzie and members of Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s administration over the following week to work through the disagreement. The city’s community planning and housing development department agreed to look for other funding avenues to address Manzie’s priorities outside the action plan itself, while also discussing ways to give council members earlier input on future HUD spending plans.
Manzie said he was satisfied with the outcome, telling fellow council members that the “constructive dialogue” gave him confidence the walking trail and sidewalk projects he championed would move forward within the current fiscal year using other resources. He thanked the mayor’s office and housing staff for hearing out concerns about how funding decisions affect low- and moderate-income residents, and argued that elected council members are best positioned to represent constituents’ needs when spending decisions are made.
Beyond the HUD vote, the council took up a handful of other routine matters. Members postponed for two weeks a proposed ordinance that would regulate distribution of handbills and other unsolicited printed materials around the city. They also approved a slate of right-of-way mowing contracts with four separate landscaping contractors, adopted an updated electrical code for the city, and authorized the mayor to apply for a $1.5 million federal Fire Prevention and Safety Grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The council’s willingness to hash out the housing dispute behind closed doors, rather than let it derail the funding application altogether, reflects the ongoing balancing act between neighborhood-level priorities and the bureaucratic deadlines that come with federal grant dollars in Mobile.