Montgomery’s Council should ignore naysayers and move the city forward

It’s weird how many people don’t want the City of Montgomery to succeed. 

Bright and early on Sunday morning, I was sent a copy of a well produced video of a former Montgomery city councilman rattling off all the reasons why everyone should resist a proposed $375 million bond issue for the city. 

Think about that for a moment. 

Some people got together, paid money to produce a video and got a former councilman to narrate their talking points – all in an effort to try and keep the city from entering into this bond. A bond that’s really not that big of a deal, and certainly one the city appears to be able to afford. 

And that’s not all. There have been other news reports mocking the proposal, a concerted effort on social media against it and a whole lot of people who have no real interest in Montgomery talking about it.

Why? 

These sorts of bond issues aren’t all that uncommon, and the projects this one would fund seem to be projects that a whole bunch of people should support. Things like hiring more law enforcement officers through higher pay and better equipment purchases, building a new arena along the riverfront and making desperately needed improvements to numerous neighborhoods around the city. 

The key component of this project is the new arena. The hiring of more law enforcement officers will likely be most important overall, but the new arena will be a centerpiece in Montgomery’s next step forward. It is projected to generate more than $70 million annually in revenue when up and running, and will likely pay the bond itself in a few years. 

But more than that, it’s a project that could again transform the downtown area and spur retail and business growth. Just as the 2000s revitalization project under former Mayor Bobby Bright did. 

Man, did people give Bright hell for that project, which included the former Riverwalk Stadium at the old train depot. The week that thing flooded after a historical rainfall event, Bright was the butt of a lot of jokes. 

But who’s laughing now? 

Montgomery’s downtown was transformed in a few years from a dark, dead place once the sun went down to its current vibrant, welcoming atmosphere. A place where thousands of people gather every night. 

That transformation didn’t happen cheaply, either. The city took on debt – a lot of it – and a whole bunch of naysayers insisted that it would never be able to repay it. Or that there would have to be cuts to services. Or tax increases. 

All the same things they’re saying now. 

The crazy thing is that Montgomery is in much better financial shape today than it was back when the city took on the initial projects and all the way through the Todd Strange development years. Strange took a lot of criticism for some of his projects too, and almost all of them were launched while the city was in much deeper debt and with a much lower tax base. 

Today, Montgomery has essentially no short-term debt obligations and its long-term obligations are at the lowest point in memory – certainly since the revitalization efforts began. It’s in its best financial shape in years, and its revenues are growing steadily and reliably. 

The fact is there’s absolutely no reason the city shouldn’t be looking at this option – an opportunity to significantly increase its police force while also positively transforming the downtown riverwalk area, bringing an onslaught of new customers to the existing businesses and significantly increasing tax revenues. It’s the sort of growth that progressive cities need. 

Just ask Huntsville. 

The City of Huntsville recently announced that it was going to raise lodging taxes in order to raise more than $200 million to revamp and expand its existing Von Braun Center. That project, like the one in Montgomery, is expected to significantly increase tourism and grow both the tax base and the city’s visibility. 

But in Huntsville, there was no one putting together video campaigns against the project. There was no concerted effort to undermine the growth. In fact, hardly anyone batted an eye at such a great idea that will move the city forward. 

You have to wonder why it’s not the same for Montgomery.