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: William Carroll
Mobile
Mobile Council Members Press Mayor With Questions on Youth Curfew
Three Mobile city councilors met with Mayor Sam Jones over his crime package and delivered a long list of pointed questions about the proposed youth curfew and a saggy-pants ordinance.
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
Gregory Signals Yes: Mobile Councilwoman Agrees to One-Cent Sales Tax in Deal With Jones
Councilwoman Gina Gregory announced she would supply the fifth vote for a temporary one-cent sales tax increase, in exchange for a written commitment to an efficiency study and a list of cost concessions.
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
Mobile’s $18.5 Million Hole: Every Option on the Table, and None of Them Painless
Facing an $18.5 million shortfall, Mobile officials weighed pay cuts, a sales tax increase, a garbage collection fee and layoffs. Each carried a political price nobody wanted to pay.
Local News
Acquitted Ex-Judge Herman Thomas Weighs a Run Against Vivian Figures
Months after his acquittal, former judge Herman Thomas was among several prominent figures weighing a challenge to state Sen. Vivian Figures, whose family had testified for the prosecution at his trial.
Local News
Inside the 2005 Mobile Mayor’s Race: A Campaign as Its Operatives Saw It
A trove of correspondence from operatives in Mobile’s 2005 mayoral campaign shows how insiders read the polls, the TV buys and the racial arithmetic of the race that elected Sam Jones.
Local News
Mobile Notebook: A Scarce Mayor, a Promised Rebuttal and a District Meeting in Leinkauf
Mayor Sam Jones’s absence from City Hall was raising eyebrows, the camp of former judge Herman Thomas promised a reply to recent allegations, and Councilman William Carroll called a district meeting.