According to the Mobile Press Register, The Mobile City Council voted 6-1 this morning to take out more than $80 million in bonds to refinance old debt and help pay for the construction of GulfQuest, an interactive maritime museum on the downtown waterfront. What no petition drive?
Pensacola has Marty Donovan and Charlie Fairchild. Mobile does not. Do you think Mobile would be interested in a trade? We’ll take Mike Dow, their former strong mayor, and give them Donovan and Fairchild.
What Pensacola makes hard, others do so much easier.
Popularity: 27% [?]
edit anomaly
Mobile is Alabama’s anomoly
http://creekin.net/c7349-n203-mobile-alabama.html
The elected government of Mobile is comprised of a Mayor and a seven Member City Council, which in theory operate on a weak Mayor/strong Council format. Municipal Elections are held every 4 years, and are non-partsan.
There are others.
Mobile wouldn’t put up with the crooked city managers.
They also dont allow their cronies to feast off municipal financing.
They put people like that in jail. Just look at their sister city of Birmingham,
all the crooked wheeler dealers went to jail for playing with public assets for personal benefit.
Then again, why would we try to duplicate an $80 million dollar martime museum only to compete with Mobile?
Wouldn’t that be like Mobile building a Navy Aviation Museum only to be forced to compete with ours?
I mean, it looks like they got the jump on us, so why dont we make adjustments to prevent duplication and refocus our ideas to take into consideration the obvious competition? Isn’t that smart business?
Hard to compare little Pensacola with these statistics:
Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), a region of 399,843 residents which is composed solely of Mobile County and is the second largest MSA in the state.[3] Mobile is included in the Mobile-Daphne-Fairhope Combined Statistical Area with a total population of 540,258, the second largest combined statistical area in the state.[5]
Since 1985 the government of Mobile has consisted of a mayor and a seven member city council.[99] The mayor is elected at-large and the council members are elected from each of the seven city council districts. A supermajority of five votes is required to conduct council business.
This form of city government was chosen by the voters after the previous form of government, which used three city commissioners who were elected at-large, was ruled to substantially dilute the African American vote in the 1975 case Bolden v. City of Mobile.[100] Municipal elections are held every four years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile,_Alabama#Government
O rly? They don’t have a city manager. Mayor appoints staff, doesn’t get to vote with council.
What have you been reading? Links please!
Joe,
I have googled it. Everything I read says they have a weak mayor-strong council.
Hmmmmm:
Yes! Jeez! They switched to mayor-council government in 1985. Have you heard of Google?
Rick,
Does Mobile have a strong mayor????
The voters had their say on the proposed plan of the time. That has changed, correct?
Anonaly:
The CMP would not be off-limits under the new charter. The taxes exclusion applies to holding a referendum vote on the actual millage rate. Budget pertains to referendum on a specific budget item.
As far as your first paragraph on the stadium being the source of ire, in 2006 Marty Donovan and Charlie Fairchild told the voters that the referendum vote was necessary because they believed the process was flawed and the voters deserved to have a say. Some elements of Save Our City tried to make the stadium an issue; others Quint Studer and yet others wanted nothing but another city park. All agreed the referendum would settle the issue. The voters approved the Community Maritime Park. The voters had their say.
Also Rick and others, I don’t think most voting citizens have a problem with the Maritime museum due to the fact that we’re not directly paying for it through the CRA or City General Fund. Most of the ire from this project is the stadium. Would you disagree?
I am also curious about one thing with the charter. I know that the only off-limit areas in petitioning are taxes and budget. Would the CMP project fall under this? If so then that is a little bit scary to have this ability taken away.
There is no information that it is a strong mayor form of government, but this is what he has on his resume. Now THIS is a candidate:
Past president of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama
Former member of the National Association of Counties Board of Directors
National Association of Counties Election Reform Steering Committee
Co-Chair of Renewal 90 Educational Initiative
Served on Steering Committee – 1988 Education Funding Referendum Initiative
Served on Steering Committee – 1992 Education Funding Referendum Initiative
Served on Steering Committee – 2000 Education Funding Referendum Initiative
Former member of the Alabama Sentencing Commission
Judge, Alabama Court of the Judiciary
Former member Judicial Inquiry Commission
Past member of the Alabama Port Authority
Former member of the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors
Former board member of the United Way of Southwest Alabama and Past Campaign Chairman
Founder of the Mobile County Community Development Partnership
Founder, Prichard Federal Credit Union
Former Chairperson of Envision Mobile/Baldwin
Underage Drinking Task Force
Member, 100 Black Men, Mobile Chapter
Chaired 1998 United Way Campaign, raising $7 million
Macedonia Baptist Church, Director of Christian Education, Sunday School Superintendent
-Taken from the Mobile Government site.
They dont have to pay off every public official to do business either.
The ones around here have friends and cronies that you have to use or things dont get done.
Our city managers would be doing 20-life in Mobile!
So do they have a strong mayor?
Maybe we can borrow some of their population and
some of their free service ideas.
No charge for home trash service there. It’s included in the tax bill.
And no extra charge to replace a failing stinking sewer plant that was ignored for years by the city then sold to another quasi government ECUA.
They plan too!!
Mike,
Mobile does things too easy. They actually approve ideas, fund them and build them. What a concept!
Would Quint and Mort like to move there?
Stadium is move in ready and the area surrounding it it needs revitalization desperately!!
I’ve been an RN for 24 yrs. My mother, aunt and sister died from
complications of breast cancer. All three developed breast cancer
in their 40′s. The breast cancers that occur before a woman enters
menopause are much more aggressive. Younger women have large amounts
of estrogen in their bodies. Estrogen can cause breast cancer to
grow rapidly and spread to other parts of the body.I’d like to read
the research done that supports the new guidelines regarding early
mammograms.
Tell us now, what civic/political/economic characteristics do Mobile and Pensacola share?
$again:
Mobile already had a stadium.
James:
So you like strong mayor but not the initiative component?
Will Marty and Charlie let us?
It won’t matter if we have a strong mayor because under the new charter it will take fewer registered voters to stop any bond or other action by the city council.
So does Mobile have a strong mayor?
Can you also trade Mobile our baseball stadium for their first “built in the first phase, first class maritime museum”?