Council overrides mayor's veto, hires legal representation for BWWB suit
The ongoing bickering between Birmingham Mayor William Bell and the members of the City Council, including Council President Johnathan Austin, was once again on display at City Hall at its Aug. 23 meeting.
The council voted to override Bell’s veto of a resolution the members passed on Aug. 9 to hire a local law firm to represent the city and the council in a legal challenge to a 2015 state law that dilutes the city’s power in the membership of the Birmingham Water Works Board.
The law — sponsored in the Alabama Legislature by Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills — expands the board to include members from Blount and Shelby counties and makes other changes to the way the body operates.
The city and council would be joining the BWWB in its lawsuit, which — as it stands — names the mayor and council as defendants.
According to Bell, the reason for his veto is simply that it is the mayor who should hire counsel to represent the city as a whole.
“The veto does not prevent the council from having legal representation to represent the council if it wishes,” Bell said. “But under state law only the mayor can hire an attorney to represent the city.”
If the council made a slight change in the wording of its resolution, Bell said he would have no objection to the resolution.
But Austin had already framed today’s vote on the veto very differently.
“The vote today is whether we want to fight to allow our citizens to retain 100 percent of their assets that they have paid for,” he said as discussion of the veto began.
He also said that the administration’s original legal answer to the lawsuit had been “very ambiguous.”
“The mayor doesn’t agree with the action we’ve taken; that’s why he vetoed it,” Austin said.
Councilwoman Kim Rafferty – who abstained on Aug. 9 when the original resolution to hire Bainbridge, Mims, Rogers & Smith passed 6-1 – agreed with Bell, stating that “the mayor is charged with hiring legal counsel to represent the city” per Alabama’s Mayor-Council Act. She said that deleting the words “the City” from the resolution would allow her to vote in favor of it.
Rafferty further suggested that the council’s clumsy legal framing of the issue made them look bad and could contribute to concerns by the state that the city cannot manage the asset.
Austin reacted angrily, “Don’t cast the council in that light,” he said, before calling for a vote to override the veto.
The override passed, with Rafferty and Councilman Jay Roberson voting no.
This council meeting also included a unanimous vote to fund a new Kingston fire station.