Three mayoral candidates face off in debate

With the Birmingham municipal election less than two weeks away, three mayoral candidates took the stage today to participate in a mayoral debate. The debate, held on the third floor of the Harbert Center downtown, was presented by the Birmingham Business Journal and WBHM.

Moderator Gigi Douban, news director for WBHM, said the three candidates on stage were selected based on polling data, and both WBHM and the BBJ will continue coverage of all 12 candidates. You can find Iron City Ink’s coverage of all 12 candidates here.

Candidates Mayor William Bell, Chris Woods and Randall Woodfin addressed questions from the audience of the debate as well as questions submitted via social media. Topics covered included transparency, the economy, business and schools.

Crime rates

The first topic of discussion was violence in the Greater Birmingham Area. An audience member submitted the question, noting the shooting death of a 2-year-old last week. The submitted question asked each candidate to discuss how he would curb violent crime in the area.

All three candidates noted some sort of social measure to reduce crime. Woodfin said alleviating poverty is an important step toward reducing crime; Woods noted the importance of education and early childhood development; and Bell said more should be done to help individuals reenter the workforce after they leave jail and that the administration should help put tools in citizens’ hands.

Woods and Bell also said there is a need to fully staff the Birmingham Police Department.

Transparency

A question about fiscal transparency was directed at Woods, asking how he would try to increase transparency if elected.

Woods stated multiple times that tax payer money should not be spent the way it has been used under Bell’s administration, specifically mentioning travel expenses, and that the mayor should be “open and truthful” with the public about how his administration is spending money.

He also questioned the amount of money that was spent on Regions Field. During his rebuttal, Bell said Regions Field has brought development and revitalization to the area. Creating a city you can be proud of takes bold choices, Bell said, and that is what large projects take.

Woodfin was also allowed to respond to the question, and he said the way government money is spent should be available to citizens at all times, and should be reported to neighborhoods. The city has a problem with transparency, he said, and the current administration is not going to give it to Birmingham residents.

He also said the problem with transparency factors into finances.

“The city of Birmingham doesn’t have a ‘We don’t have enough money problem,’ ” Woodfin said. “It has a ‘How is our money being spent?’ problem.”

Finances

Woodfin repeated the above statement when all candidates were asked to discuss one aspect of the government that is inefficient, and to say how they would fix the issue.

The mayor’s office, Woodfin said, is an example of inefficiency. The mayor’s office has too many employees — 52 administrative assistants and 101 people on the budget — and that money could be spent better elsewhere, Woodfin said.

“Let’s look at departments around the city. Some are overstaffed, some are understaffed and some are too top-heavy,” Woodfin said, noting that the police department is too top heavy. He said that there should be more beat officers patrolling, and less administrative positions.

Bell rebutted some of Woodfin’s claims, noting that many of the 52 administrative assistants are actually employees of the Crossplex.

“They try and paint the picture that I’ve got all these people sitting in my office, working, doing nothing, but that’s not true. We are running the most efficient government possible,” Bell said.

Technological updates, including a new “OpenGov” application, allow citizens to easily access city records, Bell said. This includes financial documents, which can be seen without having to submit a request.

Utilizing technology, Bell said, is something that can make departments more efficient.

“As your mayor, I will look for more ways to make your government better, more efficient and to do the types of things you expect me to do moving this city forward,” Bell said.

Woods, who is a building contractor, said he would like to see fixes for the permitting process as well as in the police department. Building permits, he said, can take months to obtain. As for the police department, he said those issues arise from a lack of funding — something he, as mayor, would make a priority.

“There’s no greater priority to me than the safety and education of our children and equipping our police department,” Woods said.

Candidates also discussed the importance of a healthy working relationship between the city council and mayor, which Woods and Woodfin said is nonexistent in Bell’s administration. This topic was previously discussed at a mayoral debate on July 14.

Birmingham schools

The topic of Birmingham City Schools arose when each candidate was asked to address his history and explain how it would relate to their role and effectiveness as mayor.

Woodfin answered the question first, and said he has been committed to the city for at least 14 years and included his work on the school board. While he was not elected to the school board on his first run, he worked on the finance and policy committees, and he observed as the school system board  “progressively got worse,” including when the state took over and the system was put on an accreditation program.

“Like you, I watched the fights at the school board. All of this happened before I came on,” Woodfin said, adding that when he became board president, the school system was taken out of state takeover and finances in reserve were increased.

The school system’s number one problem is stability, Woodfin continued, and he said he would work with the school board to increase stability.

When Bell spoke, he refuted Woodfin’s statement that the state took over the school board outside of his leadership. He also said the city helped with financial arrangements to take property off of the school board’s books “so they would no longer have to spend those funds to maintain those properties.” He also said the mayor and council gave the school board money for those properties so that they could stabilize reserves, something that led to the state leaving the school system.

In a rebuttal, Woodfin said the state took over the school board in 2012, while he was elected to the school board in 2013. He also said out of the city’s large budget, it does not give enough to Birmingham City Schools.

“Check your priorities. The current administration has never been committed to education in this city,” Woodfin said.

Regional cooperation

As the largest city in the state with a growing metropolitan area, candidates were asked to address cooperation and agreements with surrounding cities. This topic first arose in a discussion of changes to the BJCC and building a new stadium in the city.

The city is committed to a new stadium, Bell said, but cannot do it alone. They have been in discussions with Jefferson County, UAB, ESPN and private entities about this project, something that he said is important for financing such large projects.

“The BJCC can’t build that stadium by itself,” Bell said. “They have to have the full financial cooperation and the full financial support of a number of a varied number of entities in order to make it happen.”

Regional partners should contribute to projects like this one, Woods said, because the entire region will benefit from the project. The BJCC is in need of additional square footage, he said, but he would need to see a financial audit before he supports a large-scale project.

“I cannot come up here committed to any major projects that is tax payers money, and we need to know, ‘Are we healthy financially? Can we really do this?” Woods said.

The stadium project is something that has been discussed for several years, Woodfin said, but has never come to fruition. He said this is because Bell is unable to talk to and work with the city council.

“If you have a mayor and council who can’t agree … that’s part of the reason this hasn’t happened yet,” he said.

He also said while he’s not opposed to a stadium, the construction of a stadium should not be put before the neighborhoods of Birmingham.

The discussion of regional cooperation continued later in the debate, when candidates were asked what regional cooperation looks like to them.

Woodfin, who answered first, said Birmingham needs to “crawl before we can walk,” meaning it needed to fix issues in its own government before it tries to work with other municipalities.

Regional cooperation also depends on workforce development and jobs, Woodfin said. Birmingham suffers from a lack of jobs, he said, and the region needs to commit to industry recruitment and job growth.

When discussion regional cooperation, Bell brought up his discussions with Center Point, Trussville and Irondale, “so that we all can grow and prosper together.” He also discussed conversations with other mayors, to discuss mutual problems.

“There’s one thing that keeps us from bridging the gap, to having true metro government. That’s our board of education, our school system. For social reasons, for financial reasons, for scholastic reasons,” Bell said.

Woods said he is up for working with other cities in the region, but said that “in the past, Birmingham has been the cash cow.” Everyone will need to come together and pay their fair share, Woods said, something that he would make happen if elected.

“We should be sharing services, and our school system isn’t holding us back. Our mayor has been holding us back, and I’m an educator. I’ll show you better than I can tell you,” Woods said, echoing Woodfin’s comment that changes need to be made in Birmingham’s government before other things can change.

In relation to another question, all three candidates said they would be willing to sign an agreement that cities would not “poach” businesses through incentives.

WBHM also livestreamed the debate, and a full video can be found on the station's Facebook page.