Birmingham City Council members bicker about travel expenses ‘on taxpayer’s dime’

Some Birmingham City Council members found something to argue about today at City Hall despite a relatively light agenda with few items up for discussion.

Disagreement broke out when councilors considered a series of resolutions to pay for the travel expenses of some council members and other city officials.

Councilwoman Valerie Abbott raised an objection to the city paying Council Pro Tem Steven Hoyt $2,447 for his costs in attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.

Abbott said that she had “a real problem” with an official attending a partisan political event on taxpayer funds.

“It’s not the public’s problem,” she said.

Hoyt defended the practice. “This is not the first time that the council had paid for a councilor to go to a convention,” he said, adding that Councilman Jay Roberson attended the DNC in Charlotte in 2012 and was reimbursed.

The council would ultimately vote to approve the expenses

Hoyt and Councilwoman Sheila Tyson – who also attended the DNC, though there was no expenses request for her – noted that delegates worked long hours, attending numerous workshops and panel discussions and receiving valuable training in such areas as social justice and voting rights.

“I learned a lot about how the overall government process is in D.C.,” Tyson said.

Abbott was unmoved. “My point is these are political conventions,” she said.

“I think it’s a pretty big bill,” Abbott said, adding that members who attend such events for either party should attend at their own expense.

Councilwoman Lashunda Scales defended the expenditure, especially because she noted that Mayor William Bell was in Philadelphia during the DNC to once again tout the Magic City as a possible site for the event. “I thought it was great to have two members there,” she said.

Bell said that he attended the DNC, but not as a delegate and “not on the taxpayer dime.” His request for city travel expenses that week stemmed from his attendance at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors that was held in Philadelphia the week of the convention, according to Bell.

The mayors also met in Cleveland, Ohio, during the Republican convention, according to Bell.

Abbott questioned whether a piece of Alabama code, 17-17-5, cited by the city’s legal staff to support reimbursing councilors for attendance at political conventions actually does so.

“It sounds like we’re violating state law,” she said, reading the statute out loud, including a portion that states that no official at any level in the state can use public money for “political activities.”

Hoyt said that he travels very little, overall, in part due to a full-time job and other responsibilities, and argued that it is unfair to “single out’ certain people, and that “some [member]) travel a lot.” He mentioned travel by Kim Rafferty, who was requesting about $2,200 for her costs in attending a budgeting conference in Denver in August.

The Pro Tem also questioned the value of paying to send Councilman Jay Roberson on a trip to Jamaica. Roberson reacted testily, telling Hoyt, "Stop calling my name.” He also defended his Jamaica trip as part of an ongoing effort to bring in some direct flights to Birmingham from that country and to further a business deal that could help the city.

The resolution to pay for Rafferty’s and Hoyt’s travel costs passed 6-2, with Abbott and Roberson voting against it.

The council then voted 7-1 – with Roberson the only dissenter – to reimburse Hoyt and two council assistants a total of about $3,700 to make a site visit in mid-September to the Full Blast Recreation Center, a multi-purpose facility in Battle Creek, Mich.