A finance committee of the Mobile City Council spent part of this week hashing out the fine points of a multi-year infrastructure overhaul, and not every council member liked what they saw in the latest draft.
The city is paying an outside consulting firm up to $600,000 to help carry out a $63 million capital improvement plan expected to stretch into 2018 — the largest infrastructure investment the city has made in years. Council members previously voted to direct proceeds from a penny sales tax toward sidewalks, road repairs and other basic infrastructure needs, but Tuesday’s meeting focused on a thornier question: which projects should be funded citywide rather than charged to an individual council district.
Councilman Levon Manzie, whose district includes several of the city’s museums and Ladd-Peebles Stadium, argued that upkeep costs for shared civic assets should be spread across all districts rather than falling on his alone. He pointed to a draft plan that listed funding for a citywide trail system, park signage, security cameras and soccer field upgrades as multi-district projects, and said stadiums and museums used by the whole community deserve the same treatment.
Not everyone agreed with how far that logic should extend. Councilman John Williams countered that stormwater drainage improvements benefiting multiple districts could just as easily be classified as shared costs, noting that runoff from several districts flows through his own. Councilwoman Bess Rich raised concerns about revisiting how the city financed earlier signature projects, including bonds issued for the GulfQuest National Maritime Museum and the Alabama Cruise Terminal, warning that neglecting maintenance on big-ticket investments would only create bigger problems down the line.
Councilman Fred Richardson suggested tapping money from a pending settlement with BP tied to the 2010 Gulf oil spill to help close funding gaps. City officials confirmed a tentative agreement for roughly $7.1 million to recoup lost tax revenue from the spill, though attorney fees are expected to take about a third of that total before the city sees the rest. Mayor Sandy Stimpson said in an interview that no final decision had been made on how the settlement money would be spent, but that he hoped it could touch every district and department, given the harm the spill caused citywide.
Council members and consultants are expected to continue refining the capital plan in additional public meetings before a final version comes up for a vote.