A coalition of environmental advocates and historic-neighborhood residents pressed the Mobile City Council in July 2014 to bypass the city’s Planning Commission and adopt ordinances regulating oil storage tanks, arguing that Mayor Sandy Stimpson had reshaped the commission in favor of industry.
The push came days after six of the 12 members of the Planning Commission were thanked by the Urban Development Department’s staff, on Thursday, July 17, 2014, for their service. Two of those departing members had served since the 1990s.
A coalition raises concerns
The criticism was outlined in a news release from a group calling itself the Coalition of Concerned Citizens. While the release did not carry the endorsement of any single established organization such as the Sierra Club or the Tar Sands Oil Mobile group, its members were drawn from several of those interests.
“We don’t feel that Sandy Stimpson used any kind of an open or transparent process to choose these people,” said Thayer Dodd, a representative with the Tar Sands Oil Mobile group. “In some cities, people can apply for open positions. That was not part of this process. What he has ended up with is an unbalanced, pro-industry Planning Commission.”
The coalition also argued that the reshaped commission lacked members affiliated with a local educational or health care institution, which it described as two of the largest industries in Mobile by statistics.
The mayor defends his appointments
Stimpson defended the replacements and described the new commission as well balanced between industry and environmental interests. As mayor, he had the authority to appoint all but one of the commission members, while the Mobile City Council held a representative seat on the panel.
The commission’s responsibilities included ruling on development projects, weighing zoning requests and proposing ordinance changes. Stimpson said he wanted the commission to take a broader approach, particularly as his administration prepared to undertake a long-term plan for the city.
He said the commission would appoint two new members to a subcommittee studying the results of an earlier ad hoc committee’s review of oil storage tanks. That three-member panel had been left short two members — Scott Webster and Tracie Roberson — who were among those replaced.
Oil storage tanks at the center
The dispute unfolded against a backdrop of concern over industrial development near residential and historic areas. The ad hoc committee’s work, completed in April, followed a proposal by American Tank and Vessel Inc. of Mobile for a 32-tank project near the historic Africatown community.
Company chief executive Williams Cutts said American Tank and Vessel had not applied for a permit to build an oil storage facility and had not begun constructing one. He said the property on Paper Mill Road had been covered with broken slabs and foundations left from its former use as a paper mill site, and that clearing the debris was a necessary first step for any development. The company, he said, was waiting for the city to decide whether to amend the zoning ordinance.
The debate traced back further still. In December, the council had pushed for a moratorium on new oil storage tank facilities after Arc Terminals pursued an oil unloading terminal with the Canadian National Railway near the GM&O building. The moratorium did not pass, but the council adopted a temporary requirement directing new oil storage tank proposals to come before the council rather than the Planning Commission, which normally reviewed such developments first.
What the coalition wanted
Dodd said the coalition wanted the council to take control of the issue and adopt ordinances mirroring the ad hoc committee’s recommendations, eliminating the need for the commission’s subcommittee to weigh in. She said she feared industry groups might press local officials to weaken a recommended 1,500-foot setback between new oil storage tanks and residential neighborhoods, and a recommendation that no new tanks be built below a 14-foot flood elevation.
Councilman Levon Manzie, who served on the commission, said he was not certain the council could act on the recommendations without the Planning Commission’s review, and had asked the council’s attorney to research the question. Council attorney Jim Rossler said he was not aware of the concerns. The members who were thanked and replaced included Terry Plauche, Victoria Rivizzigno, Scott Webster, Tracie Lee-Roberson, Bill DeMouy, Roosevelt Turner and James Wingfield.