As dueling committees, a $29 million disputed deficit and shifting council alliances collided, Mobile’s budget saga looked to many residents like a greased-pig chase with the numbers impossible to pin down.
Tag: Fred Richardson
Local News
Hudson Captures GOP Nod for County Commission, Rivals Fall in Line
Connie Hudson secured the Republican nomination for the open District 2 seat on the Mobile County Commission and quickly won the backing of her former runoff opponent and the county sheriff ahead of the fall election.
Local News
Council Votes 5-2 for Sales Tax Increase, Ending Six Weeks of Political Theater
Mobile’s council approved a one-cent sales tax increase on a 5-2 vote. An analysis of how Mayor Sam Jones got what he wanted, what Gina Gregory extracted in return, and what might have been.
Local News
Sales Tax Hike Falls 3-3-1 as Mobile Council Rejects Jones, and Layoffs Loom
Buried under hundreds of angry emails and calls, Mayor Sam Jones’s penny sales tax died in a 3-3-1 vote on Tax Day. As many as 300 city jobs are now in question.
Local News
Counting to Five: The Sales Tax Vote Rests on One Council Member
Mayor Sam Jones has made his case for a penny sales tax. The measure was laid over Tuesday, and the arithmetic on a seven-member council now points to a single undecided vote.
Local News
Bluff or Bye-Bye? A Tampa Rumor Puts Mobile’s Senior Bowl on the Bargaining Table
A Tampa newspaper report that the Senior Bowl might leave Mobile set off a firestorm. With the Ladd-Peebles lease expired and city funding denied twice, the timing looked less like an exit than leverage.
Local News
Line by Line, Copeland Picked Apart the Gulf Coast Classic’s $188,000 Deficit
The council president questioned the promotion budget, the ticket printing, the mayor’s luncheon and a step show with no revenue, and disputed the attendance count for a football game the city helped pay for.
Mobile
Be It Resolved: Mobile’s Politicians and Press Wrote New Year’s Resolutions for Each Other
Reporters, anchors, lobbyists and officials were invited to make resolutions on one another’s behalf for 2009. The result was a candid, occasionally barbed portrait of Mobile at the end of a very long year.
Local News
Edwards, Gore and a Border Fence: Mobile Democrats and Republicans Size Up 2008
A second round of Mobile-area figures weighed the 2008 field, from a license commissioner drawn to John Edwards and Joe Biden to a trio of Republicans backing California congressman Duncan Hunter.
Mobile
Gov. Riley Appoints Juan Chastang to the Mobile County Commission
Gov. Bob Riley named Mobile teacher and Republican Juan Chastang to the county commission, filling the three years remaining on Sam Jones’ term after Jones became Mobile’s first African-American mayor.