City Council Roundup: Dollars for transit, personnel for new department

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The Birmingham City Council, at its regular meeting for Tuesday, April 2, reallocated some transit funding, provided personnel for a new city department and granted a tax break for a developer who seeks to bring another project to the booming Parkside District.

The council dealt with these items, and most of its other business, as part of its consent agenda:

  • Members voted to amend the general fund budget for the 2019 fiscal year and transfer $5 million from future transit projects and appropriate it to the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority. The item was submitted by Mayor Randall Woodfin and the council's Budget and Finance Committee, and recommended by the city's Director of Finance.
  • The council also voted to free up nearly half a million dollars for various street paving projects in the city. Members voted to amend the capital fund budget for the 2019 fiscal year and transfer $240,000 from Higdon Road resurfacing and $248,000 from Fourth Street Hooper City resurfacing and appropriate that $488,000 for other projects.
  • Members also voted to appropriate about $1,392,000 to provide personnel for the city’s new Communications Department by transferring communications staffers from other departments. They voted to amend the general fund budget for the 2019 fiscal year and transfer money from the following sources: $332,411 from personnel services for the Birmingham Fire & Rescue Service (22 positions), about $117,190 from personnel services at Information Management Services (9 positions) and about $942,045 from personnel services at the Birmingham Police Department (70 positions).
  • The council also granted a two-year abatement of noneducational municipal ad valorem taxes by Jefferson County to Birmingham Parkside Residences LLC, which seeks to develop a 3.4 acre brownfield site in the Parkside District. The property is located on First Avenue South between 12th and 13th streets south, according to a staffer from the city's Office of Economic Development. The project is to involve two multifamily residential structures with 268 apartments, as well as a parking deck. The city is offering the abatement based on two Alabama state laws, the Alabama Land Recycling and Economic Redevelopment Act and the Brownfield Development Tax Abatement Act, according to the text of the resolution. The item was recommended by the the mayor and the council’s Committee of the Whole.