Kingston can wait: Birmingham Council again delays money for fire station

The residents of the Kingston neighborhood will have to wait at least a little longer before the Birmingham City Council approves funds to build a new fire station in their area.

Despite angry, emotional pleas from activists and residents at Tuesday’s Council meeting, members did not approve $3 million in funding for Fire Station No. 8.

Instead, the Council voted to refer the proposal — which has been on their meeting agenda for seven weeks — to the budget and finance committee for further discussion.

“We want, we need, we demand our fire station,” said one resident, who praised Mayor William Bell for finding the funding. She also had a pointed message for the Council, which she accused of playing politics with the issue. “The ball is in your park,” she said.

Councilman Marcus Lundy made the motion to refer the matter to committee. The motion passed 6-2. The “no” votes were cast by Councilwoman Valerie Abbott and Councilman William Parker, whose district includes Kingston.

Residents have been asking for the new station since the old one closed in May, leading to potentially life-threatening longer response times for emergency calls in Kingston, Inglenook and East Birmingham.

Following suit

The Council voted to hire a local law firm — Bainbridge, Mims, Rogers & Smith — to represent the City of Birmingham and the City Council in a legal challenge to a state law passed in 2015 that dilutes the power of the city 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 stood originally — named the Mayor and Council as defendants.

The move to hire the law firm passed 6-1, with Councilwoman Kim Rafferty abstaining.

Discussion of the resolution included sniping between Council President Johnathan F. Austin — who submitted the measure — and Bell.

“The Council wants to retain the water works board,” Austin said. “The Mayor wants to give it away.”

“That is incorrect,” said Bell, who denied saying that.

“Actions speak louder than words,” Austin said.

“Nor have I taken any action in this lawsuit to do what you say,” Bell replied.

Rafferty later asked the Mayor for clarification of the administration’s position on the lawsuit, but Bell gestured instead to Thomas Bentley, the deputy city attorney. “We can answer that, but it should be in an executive session,” Bentley said.

“It is imperative that we do all that we can to fight for the citizens of Birmingham to ensure that they do not lose control over the largest asset in our city,” Austin said in a news release on Aug. 2.

Not so fast 

In other BWWB-related business, the Council chose not to approve a 30-year franchise agreement between the City and the utility — an item presented to members by Councilman Jay Roberson, head of the utilities committee.

Instead, President Pro Tem Stephen Hoyt — after lengthy discussion by members — made a motion to send the matter back for further discussion by the entire council, which will meet as the committee of the whole. The motion passed 7-1 with one abstention. A committee of the whole is a device in which a legislative body sits as a single committee with all assembly members being members. 

Under terms of the proposed agreement, the utility is given the right to operate within the city limits and, in return, pays Birmingham 3 percent of its gross receipts.

Roberson said that the city signed similar agreements with the water works in 1951 and 1981. However, according to Roberson and BWWB CEO Mac Underwood, the city and the utility have operated without such an agreement — one required by the Alabama code — for a number of years.

But Underwood said it was rather urgent that the water board finally sign an agreement with the city due to its attempt beginning this week to refinance about $456 million in debt and save about $66 million over the next 20-plus years.

The BWWB and its bond-issuance advisers have a conference call scheduled with a ratings service today, according to Underwood.

“We hope to have the bonds priced by Aug. 23, so we need an agreement by then,” he said.

Some council members, primarily Hoyt and Lashunda Scales, raised objections. They both complained that members should have been told about the need for the agreement and the impending bond issue earlier than this week.

“I don’t like to be pushed to a decision,” Scales said.

Scales questioned how the city, while technically being sued by the utility, could enter into an agreement with it on another matter.

Hoyt and Scales are also among the members who want the city to once again take full control of the water works.

“I want us to get our water works back,” Scales said. “Our citizens have spoken. They want it back.”

Hoyt said the agreement “makes no sense.” He asked, rhetorically, “How do we have a franchise agreement with an entity we own? We are the franchisee.”

Rafferty replied that the city has similar agreements regarding the airport, which it owns, and the BJCTA, of which it owns 50 percent. There are “precedents,” she said, of Birmingham entering into agreements “with an entity that manages an asset of the city.”

Underwood, to Hoyt’s point, stressed that the water works “is really a completely separate entity” from the city.

Roberson enumerated 15 or so area cities, including Homewood and Mountain Brook, which have similar 30-year agreements with the BWWB.

Even in the absence of an agreement, the utility has continued to pay the city its franchise fee, which amounted to about $1.9 million last year, according to Roberson.

“This is a revenue generator for the city,” he said.

No lease

The Council voted 5-0 with two abstentions to reject a proposal by Bell that Birmingham lease 358,000 square feet of space in the old Social Security building north of the BJCC for use as municipal court and as the city’s police and fire department headquarters.  

According to the language of the resolution, the lease would be for 20 years, and the rent would be about $12 per square foot, or about $4.4 million per year. There would be additional rent to include an annual operations and maintenance charge.

During the meeting, Rafferty said she supports “the consolidation concept” but was unclear regarding aspects of the administration’s plan, including how the city would pay for the lease, how existing fire and police headquarters would be used and how space would be used in the new building.

Bell argued that his administration has supplied the Council with specific information about the proposed move from, among others, fire, police and court officials. “We responded in writing to every question,” he said.

“This Council is going to continue to ask hard questions upfront regarding projects and initiatives with long-term effects on our residents,” Austin said in a news release after the meeting. “The Council is committed to cutting out wasteful spending and misuse of taxpayer dollars which includes this lease agreement.”

The proposed move to the office building, located on 12th Avenue North, is not a new one. It was proposed in 2014 but became controversial when it was reported, by such outlets as AL.com, that the building’s owner — Franklin Haney of Chattanooga, Tennessee — had made large donations to Bell and several council members.

Fuss budgets

The city still has not finalized its Fiscal Year 2017 budget, largely due to the sour relationship between the Mayor and Council.

Austin placed a resolution on the agenda Tuesday that would have directed Bell to submit for a vote on the budget ordinances that were recommended by the Council on June 23.

However, several members, including Lundy, Roberson and Abbott, wanted more time to consult with Bell, citing — among other factors — some progress made when the mayor attended a Council budget and finance committee meeting on Monday.

“I think we’ve put the cart before the horse,” Roberson said. “I think we should sit down with our mayor.”

The Council voted 9-0 to approve Abbott’s motion to delay Austin’s resolution for a week.

Prior the vote, the members seeking more time received a tongue lashing from Scales and Hoyt, who said that they had not previously shown enough interest in the budget process. According to Scales, those members had not attended any of a series of budget workshops.

“I don’t know why we keep delaying… We’re late every year with the budget,” she said.