I'll turn it over to you once I start.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is Wednesday, June 3rd.

I call to order the special adjourned meeting of the Birmingham City Council, and we'll have our invocation led by Dr.

Greg Stanley.

I'll give you that title.

Will y'all please stand?

Good afternoon, Council.

We'll bow his and on Bahars precious and turn off the Lord.

We ask that you would reign over this divine meeting on today.

That Lord, these council members that steward the business of this city, that you would give them gravity of heart and resolution and their spirit to do what is needed for this city.

We ask so God for your divine providence and that Lord, you will watch over us as Lord, we do the business of the city of Birmingham.

And God now we ask for your divine guidance in Jesus' name we pray.

Thank God and amen.

Amen.

Thank you so much.

Good.

Councilmember Gunn.

Councilmember Gunn.

Councilmember O'Quinn.

Here.

Councilmember Smithman.

Councilmember Vossler.

Council President Pro Tim Tate.

Council President Alexander.

Here.

Thank you very much.

At this time, we will have our public hearing on proposed 2026-2027 fiscal year city budget.

And notice of the adoption of said resolution was given uh publication in Alabama Messenger, a newspaper of general circulation and said city.

Uh doing city printing on May 27th, 2026.

At this time, the council will receive any written or oral comments and suggestions with respect to the expenditure of said general fund and proposed capital budgets.

At this time, uh only MA Williams.

Only good evening, council.

I'm here on behalf of the West Side Legacy Protection Fund.

My name is Ono Yemi Williams, and I'm part of the Westside United and Legacy Homeowners of Greymont, Eden Ridge, and East Thomas.

We are here because the council is preparing to vote on a $650 million city budget that leaves the glaring systematic hole right in the heart of the historic West Side.

While the city celebrates the $50 million choice, HUD Choice Neighborhood Grant, federal rules have marooned the surrounding blocks.

Babarred our resident blocks from receiving a single dollar for home repairs.

Eno Ridge and East Thomas have been made completely invisible.

While our blocks get zero, look who is cashing in on our historic footprint.

The private developers of our community are legally positioned to capture up to 38 million in pure corporate development fees off of this project.

UAB is treating our community as an open classroom for academic and health tracking metrics, happily collecting data from our doorsteps while ignoring our leaking roofs.

Almost a half a billion dollars is slated to be invested on the west side of Birmingham.

And our residents are basically going to be pushed out.

Worse, we're dealing with political shell games right here at City Hall.

On May 22nd, our article regarding funding under a council slip smitherman piece listed Smithfield communities to generate positive headlines.

But when we trace down the actual dollars, the funding for the rehab of our homes were given to a district we're not living in.

That's the textbook Bait and Switch.

This is all happening while the U.S.

Coast Guard has executed a 126.5 million dollar purchase of the Bergman Ham Southern campus, bringing thousands of personnel into our radius.

Out of state corporate speculators have already started circling us, leaving these type of documents on our doorsteps, attempting to buy and purchase the homes of the residents that are living there.

We're asking that the council make a line item of a 7.5 million redevelopment for the legacy homeowners of Great Mont, Eden Ridge, and East State Thomas, so that we can remain in our homes to fight despite the taxation that's going to come to our community as a result of the developments being made in the community.

This is classic gentrification, and it's in the modern day language.

And we're the ones who are facing losing our homes and the legacy of our community.

So again, we're asking that a line item of parallel funding be placed into the city budget.

Five million dollars of a loan that was loaned to Birmingham Southern has been returned to the city.

We're asking for 2.5 million dollars of CBD flexible grant dollars be made available to residents, not based off of being at the poverty line, but being legacy homeowners of the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Rob Burton.

How are y'all doing this evening?

Doing well.

Good.

I'm glad to hear it.

Um again, my name is Rob Burton.

I live at 1907 Fifth Street South in Glen Iris.

I am the South Side Community President.

Uh and amongst other hats, I am also currently serving as a committee member on the CAB's budget committee.

Um I also want to thank, and there's a lot of neighborhood officers here amongst other residents.

Um I'm love to see that.

Glad everybody came out.

Um, and I also want to thank the council um for giving myself and Mr.

Smith an opportunity to speak with y'all two weeks ago to present the CAB resolution that was passed a few weeks ago.

Um, as we've already spoken about that, I don't want to go too in depth into that today.

Um, but uh I also wanted to thank the council.

I reckon I got an email about this public hearing um on Monday that was sent out with your weekly, like here are the meetings of the week, and I appreciate y'all sending that out.

Mr.

Burns, sorry to interrupt, but do want to make sure you're aware that you are on a time limit.

Yes, sir.

Um so I want to recognize though that despite that email that y'all sent out.

Um, I am also going to state a lack of concern about the publicity that we sent out about this meeting as a whole from the city.

That includes the fact that as neighborhood officers, we received emails from the city, both from the community resource service department and from other divisions of the city over the last two weeks.

Many included information about the budget, and none of those emails included information about this public hearing.

Those are obviously not in your purview, you don't, those are not your employees, but I do have a concern about the fact that that information was not sent out.

Um it makes it hard for residents to give public input.

I also recognize that y'all's job as counselors are very difficult when it comes to the budget.

That includes the fact that a few years ago, the mayor council act stripped y'all of your ability to make line item changes to the budget.

And it also means that currently y'all are not receiving information about the budget request packets, uh, which is a annual problem I hear, and I know is one that the council counselors have brought up over the last couple weeks.

Uh as such, I just want to say that I believe that the council and the CAB and neighborhood officers can work together to create a really positive and and close relationship to advocate for the information that both the council and residents need in order to review the budget and to ensure that the council has the information that y'all need to do the job that I know you need to do and want to do.

And I believe that the CAB would be a good entity to play that go-between.

Uh because as I mentioned two weeks ago, the CPP, the Citizens Participation Plan, explicitly mentions that the C part of the CAB's job is to give advice on financial documents, including this city annual budget.

Um I will end this by simply saying that I would love to talk with counselors either individually or as a body as a whole more.

Uh I believe if so, that would probably be best done with the full CAB budget committee, as well as other members of the CAB leadership.

And so I would love to hear from y'all to include continuing those conversations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Burton.

Tremaine Macintosh.

Good evening, council.

So I'm here to speak about as a neighborhood president of Wyattham and Human Right Commissioner for District 9.

We have got great support from our councilwoman on all the projects that we do in our neighborhood.

And I'm here to address you out about the going from the 2,000 to the 10,000 dollar budget.

Um as our neighborhood, we make it players for our future, and we plan on making great progress in our neighborhood.

We need more funds to be able to do some of the projects we're doing as we talk about our pocket parts, uh, our benches, our kids.

We donate funds every year to our schools, to our football team, and stuff like that.

But with $2,000, you know that don't go far.

We donate a thousand to the school one year, we donate a thousand to the uh to the uh football team.

That money is gone.

Then we have no so, which is 4500, then we have these other projects going on that we don't have the money to go beyond the things that we want to do.

And the city of Birmingham being one of the only cities in the state that actually has a neighborhood fund where people is in charge of their own flowers and able to do things for their neighborhood.

I think it's in our best interest to go back to the 10,000 so we can move forward and give the residents the power they need without always having to come to the council.

So I'm here in front of you today to ask you how to vote to amend our stuff back to the 10,000 that it used to be because we need it.

We got different projects like we need we need benches at our parks.

We shouldn't have to go through the park board and all these other things if we already have neighborhood funds.

We we do do our fund days and other community events, and we want to be able to continue doing this in the future, seeing that it's not as many young people in here.

I thought it was my duty as one of the young officers to be able to come and represent the youth.

Because we are the future, and we got to make sure this future is being passed to the people below us.

So I'm thinking, I'm hoping that we can get this thing amended back to what it was so that we can move forward for a better future for our city.

And that's all.

Thank you, Mr.

McIntosh.

Uh, we have your request for $10,000 for uh neighborhood funding added to the list.

Uh Ms.

Dora Sims.

Uh Mr.

Chair, may I um just address briefly?

Yes, counselor.

So um I want to thank you for your service, especially as a former neighborhood president.

Um I know what you all do is a thankless job, and it's a volunteer job.

So you guys are what helps make the neighborhoods thrive, especially when the job is done right.

But about a year or two ago, we actually asked for the balance of every neighborhood in Birmingham.

And we have neighborhoods who have close almost $50,000 in their bank accounts that's not being used.

So that's part of the reason why you saw a decrease, because even though you guys are doing your due diligence and using your money, you know, we have other neighborhoods who are sitting on the funding.

Now, maybe that's something we can help you all, maybe with like our state representatives, et cetera.

Maybe they can give to your fund to give you more money, and then you guys can do it that way.

But there are other avenues, I don't mind talking with you.

Um, but that's part of the reason why you saw, I think this is for a lot of us are on the council, why they decreased it.

So it's Mr.

Sims.

Good afternoon.

Dora Sims with um West community and the Bushills neighborhood.

And of course, today I'm wearing a hat here to speak on behalf of the biggest thing we've always talked about, neighborhoods USA, NUSA.

Now, Noosa is really one of the best things that ever really, in my opinion, uh came to be where it fosters neighborhood, networking together, bringing ideas and sharing uh ideas and things we can do to bring back to our neighborhoods to make a difference.

And I know Birmingham has done a lot of things with that because I know I've involved in it for since 1995 when they came here the first time.

And so I've been engaged with it since then, and then nine years ago, well, almost now, I ran for the board because I wanted to get more involved with NUSA, and of course we are still working on a lot of things uh with Noosa.

And so I I just wanted to speak about the fact that I know a few years ago, the CP plan before the death of uh Evan.

Ellen was sort of chairing that, and uh we had done some um line items in that uh CP plan.

But somehow it ended up, I think in the law department, and I I'm glad to see now that from what the CAB has done through I think what Rob presented, they put it in there again as a line item because Hamlin, those of us who represent the 99 neighborhoods in NUSA, it at one time we were supported by our neighborhood.

But neighborhood's funding has sort of gotten low.

So what happened for me during the last six, seven years being on the board, I basically had to solve a network and uh pay my own expenses uh to be able to be there to represent the city in those 99 neighborhoods.

Because it is very important that we do have a representative at the table that we should have too.

But when Ellen passed, we really have not um brought another person from Birmingham on board.

I was sort of working diligent to get Ellen on there when uh at that time I think uh Dr.

Jones was on there, and then he did not remain.

So I saw the potential and making sure that we had those two board persons on board.

But uh when Ellen passed, we just have not gone back to Bridge Village that and hopefully we'll get someone else on there because I only have another couple of years on that board, and I'm gonna have to roll off.

Once you have that nine consecutive years, you got to roll off.

But we need to have someone ready to step in my place to continue this on for the sake of Birmingham because Birmingham is the one city that provides the biggest number of delegates there that supports it.

We just this year had the virtual at Memphis, those of us who are on the board were required to come to Memphis, and it was uh where we had the podcast and things, and it is running on YouTube.

So if you guys get a chance to check it out on YouTube, I sort of came in on the outreach and everything, because I was sort of working behind the scene, but when I got there and saw the necessity of it, I sort of uh chimed in with the lady out of the Bahamas and everything with that.

It's a great organization.

I hope that you all will uh consider making it a line item so the neighborhoods don't have to well say, let's say I'm in Bush Hill.

So if Bush Hills was the only one supporting me, whereas I'm representing this 99 neighborhoods, so it should not be just for Bush Hill, it should be for all the neighborhoods.

So I would love to ask you guys if you are serious to think about that, because everybody may not be as committed as I am.

So when I roll up, I don't know uh if you want to really be able to go in their pockets and do what I've done and network to get those funding, but it's important that we have someone at the table.

It is one of the best organizations around.

I know you all heard a lot of negative things about it, but it is great, it's great networking with the various cities, and that's what I was just here tonight to just talk about uh support of having neighborhood USA representation and a line item to pay for the expenses of those who are on that board.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Sims.

Uh, to our public information team, do we have anyone sign up online to speak?

No hands raised right now.

No, we do not.

Wait.

Is there anyone here that did not sign up that wants to speak?

All right, if you didn't sign up, come up, we will give you two minutes for each of you.

Thank you, thank you.

Counsel.

I did not sign up, but I uh I wanted to address what Ms.

Smillerman said about the part of the reason that you lowered they lowered our neighborhood funds to 2,000 because others had 50,000, and I agree with you about they shouldn't have 50,000.

Sorry, uh, could you say your name on pose?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Donald Smith.

I just wanted to address that.

I agree that some neighborhoods have abundance of funds, but I don't agree that all of us that utilize our funds for the betterment of our neighborhood to buy benches that I did because we had all kinds of broke up benches sticking our neighbors' legs.

So I I produced those.

I was new, and I didn't know I might could have got it from somewhere else, but I just did what I saw needed.

Now the people that's got 50 and 80 or whatever the amount of money, those people need to utilize those funds.

And I don't know how we do that, but they need to be encouraged to utilize their funds because it's for the neighborhood, right?

So they that's what I think need to be done for that concern.

But I don't think that those of us that's trying to do for our neighborhoods.

We have fun days.

We do do give up to the library, we get to the high school.

That $2,000 is gone.

So I in my opinion, we should try to encourage those that's not utilizing their funds.

Because that's what it's for, right?

But I don't think that we that has utilized our funds for the good of all neighbors and elders and children.

We need we need more funding.

Whatever that number is.

You know, I don't know, but that's my opinion about that.

So please consider that.

Yes, sir, Mrs.

Beth.

I've uh we've got it on, but I'm gonna add that as well.

Additional funding for uh neighborhoods.

Uh yes, sir.

All right, thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Uh President Harding of the Cod afternoon, Council.

Um Council Woods, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Um, I want to briefly talk to that.

Um the meetings at 5 30, and the speaker's list was taken up prior to 5 30 arrival.

So if you're getting the opportunity myself coming from work, it's very difficult to get from work to City Hall, get parked, get in the building, and get on the speaker's list prior to 5 30.

So if you could take that in consideration, but I'm gonna speak to you on behalf of the CAB, as you all may know.

I represent represent the CAB as the C B vice president.

I'm also a community president for the East Pennsylvania community and the neighborhood president for Echo Holland's neighborhood.

And with that being said, I've attended multiple of these budget hearings over the course of a number of years, both in the capacity of a neighborhood officer as well as a citizen with no title.

So I understand the position you all are in as it relates to the changes and what you can and cannot do as you hear the requests that are presented to you today.

What I would ask is um I think Councillor Smithman has some suggestions that you all um and I'll offer the opportunity to just come speak to the CAB and let's have that discussion and talk about it.

I know I submitted the resolution that the CAB collectively as a whole decided as it relates to the allocation of neighborhood funding, and I know that's a concern, but there's some very valid points, and there was actually a very good uh idea that came up in the course of that discussion as we were debating what we were gonna present to you all in the form of a resolution from the CAB.

So I would I ask simply ask that you come to us or allow us the opportunity to come to you all, uh whether that be collectively or in small groups with the committee and myself as vice president of the CAB.

I'm the only executive officer as you all know of the CAB.

Um, so some of my committee members have come and spoke as it relates to the budget, but I'll just talk to you really quickly about some of the concerns I have.

Um I've attended recently here uh the park survey meetings.

I didn't get a chance to attend in my own neighborhood due to a scheduling conflict, but there are line items as it relates to the park.

I'm gonna speak to railroad parks specifically.

It's a great part, but they have a line item in the budget specifically dedicated to that park over the course of about eight to twelve years, it is insistently increased.

Now, in East Pennsylvania, we have a recenter that could use 250,000.

I'm sure there are other rec centers across the city that could use a portion of that allocation and get some actual capital projects done.

With that being said, I was attempting to also um get a look at the capital projects budget because there were some projects that relate to Lawson Road that have still not been completed yet that are tied to ARPA funding.

So and that capital project's budget is not available on the website that you all have for the uh budget as a whole, and I'm I say you all, but I mean the city as a whole.

Um, but I welcome the opportunity for you all to come to the CAB and speak to us or give us the opportunity to speak to you to kind of talk about some of the concerns or questions you may have because I think there's a happy medium in there if you give us the opportunity to have to sit down and have a conversation with you.

And I do appreciate your time today, so you all have a good day.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Uh all right, so I know we have uh at least one person online.

Uh so if y'all could patch them through.

Could you uh introduce yourself, please?

Yeah.

Uh from Rome.

Uh my concerns uh is the uh significant decrease in revenue.

Uh specifically the uh issues, taxes.

Uh I would like to use it for the decline in 2025, businesses in 2025, so uh what we move with the restaurants and cause of terrorists, uh have we uh some have some about federal legislators largely about the laws uh so that the advocate to try and get help for Congress uh presidential administration to try and put the farms or what decrease the cost of the random wear attack are the final levels uh decreases or changes of the actual budget.

Um so I would I want to go to the highway.

I also uh I see that there has been increases in the budget to the unhoused services that can be to buy this reduction of services, but no increase to mental health services.

And um I think that's health services go hand and hand that uh I would like to see an increase in the budget to uh real health final.

Um maybe even out contract or outsource that uh that service out as opposed to the unhoused uh and violent consumption services that we outsource from California and also I I want to see us increase and interesting items and media uh line item.

And uh uh I want to see uh increase the parking range specifically for uh uh the coolers on the east side.

We have no food for our children on the east side of town.

Now we told for the meeting that uh we may uh see the grace of park food opening, but when I got the visitor who's open, pardon is not on it.

So I would like to uh see how getting either grace of park pool open or the pits that have one or the other.

Um and again like the uh uh from uh the president from uh stand for me.

Uh uh, I didn't get a chance to look at the capital budget either, but I want to I need to see that capital budget because it's a big capital project that need to be included.

And I know that the uh the project that were on there is supposed to end in 2026.

So we uh we need to give a new project on that.

So I would like to see that that capital uh that counterprojects but the city's website, and that's what I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss West.

Uh just a minute, Mr.

Gunn.

I think we got one more online.

Hello.

Uh good evening.

If you could please introduce yourself.

Uh yes, my name is Sarah.

Oh, I got Maybory, Jericho Maybory.

Yes.

All right.

Go ahead, I'm sorry.

So after the end of the link around everything's allocated, I don't think there are places that some of the ones that use for the environmental um environmental business or environmentally um things to be particularly the Lord site of uh Birmingham.

We have hours of the tax degree that is in the morning and equals houses.

Okay.

I'm having a top one.

All right.

Thank you, Miss Mapry.

We have recorded your request.

All right, thank you.

President Gunn.

Just like to say good evening to the council.

I'm Johnny Gunn, President of the Bell Uh Neighborhood Association.

Also President of the Five Points West Community.

Appreciate you all letting me come up and say a few words.

I just like to say that uh I agree with uh most of everything that has been said in person and then on the call.

I also I just like to you know make put special emphasis on on the western side of Birmingham, especially the West End, five points west area.

As everyone knows that the western part of the city of Birmingham is lacking.

It's been lacking for a long time.

There is uh in the also um part of the CAB.

We adopted a resolution uh at the last CAB meeting, and it was presented to the council and the council and the mayor.

So uh I'm pretty sure that you all have that, and there was uh that was primarily for uh up the allocation for the uh for the neighborhoods and uh put in a line item for the noosa delegates uh news and new subwood basically what it was all about so I'm sure you all have that, but we were talking about the increase in the funding for the neighborhoods and putting in some funding for the noosa.

We had a reduction in the funding since then we all know that things is escalated, prices of everything is gone up.

So that's that's one of the reasons why we feel like that, you know, we need a little bit more increase in our funding to uh somewhat compensate for the economy, you know, everything's going up and more expensive and what have you.

So I just want to just reiterate some of the things that had already been said that uh the speaking on behalf of the Western part of Birmingham.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, sir, and appreciate everyone being here today.

If anyone listening or anyone here has additional thoughts, you can email those in.

Definitely encourage you to uh share them with me.

Uh Clinton dot woods at Birmingham A L dot G-O-V.

Uh getting this feedback is important.

We said the budget is key, but um we boil down to trying to solve the problems of the community and what people want to see.

Um and so always consistently feel free to share your feedback.

Uh until we got one more online person.

So please introduce yourself.

Say it again, please.

All right, go ahead, Miss May.

I never remember that.

And I think the right point is right about each other.

And you come in.

It very much needed.

If we can get the done with that, I think we share that a lot of governments wonder how that way.

I think that's probably anyone.

Y'all.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am, we've been definitely have some funding for uh street pavement.

We can look into those specific streets you're mentioning.

All right.

Thank you, Miss May.

Oh, yeah, definitely encourage anyone, can feel free to email in additional thoughts if you have them.

And we do appreciate you participating.

Uh in the uh public hearing.

If you brought a concern today, send me an email and we'll make sure we'll send you some feedback on that.

And um, yeah, we didn't we didn't have you on the sign up list, but we are allowing an additional two minutes, so feel free to come forward.

Good evening, counselor Madeline Green, Osmore Valley.

I wasn't gonna speak, I just primarily came to just listen because I've never been to a budget uh hearing.

And so, but I wanted to make a statement in terms of when people talk about uh some of the neighborhoods have like $50,000 or you know, huge budgets, a lot of times they don't have any presidents, they don't have any officers.

So who's gonna help them spend that money?

Now that's not the case for every neighborhood, but in some of the neighborhoods, I looked over all the 99 neighborhoods today, and I was able to see who had officers, officers, especially a president, you know, and so a lot of times when you don't have that, the secretary doesn't know what to do, you know, with the money.

So they need the guidance of the CRRs.

So I would make that recommendation in terms of that part, uh, looking into the ones that have excessive money that probably at one point, I think it was some time ago, uh, back in the day when counselor Abbott was here, and I think she used to ask the city as some of the counselors if they had some money that could probably, and I don't know how she put it, could be used in her neighborhood.

And so some kind of way that was back when they had the the uh monitor.

I used to watch uh city council with my mom, had the monitor on top of the television, and so she was able to get funds to help with her neighborhood.

Maybe bet maybe that's something that we can do also because Oxmore Valley, we have eleven thousand dollars.

We can't do anything with that being that we want to do, so therefore the eleven thousand dollars is gonna sit in there until the little two thousand dollars keep creeping up.

So I also suggest that you look into it in terms of giving the neighborhoods a little bit more money, you know.

I don't know how much you would consider, but I think those neighborhoods that are really doing things with the money, uh, you can look into that, possibly talking with those and see what type of projects that we want to do, and maybe you can assist with it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Green.

My name is Tori Brown.

I am um I work in the Winona and Oxmore Valley neighborhood.

And I was just this is also my first uh budget meeting.

I just came to listen.

But as I was listening, the ideas that came to the front of my mind were the transparency and the project approval process and the priority list, project accountability assessments for stewardship of the funds that are being allocated to each of these neighborhoods and having quarterly budget reviews so that if they're not using them, you can actually put it to where it's actually being exercised and actually encouraging those that are seeing the money work for their neighborhoods so that if they're not doing anything with it, they're like, well, if we don't spend this money by the end of first quarter, we're gonna lose it to the next neighborhood, and they're doing better over there so that they come ready and motivated to be good stewards of the funds that are being provided to them and not just sitting there and wait, wasting.

Also, when you have investors that come in, like um in the West End area over at Legion Fields, if they're gonna get that much money from the government to support them to do that, they should at least have some type of responsibility to give money back with no negotiation.

It's like no, if you're gonna come in here, you're gonna spend 50 billion, you need to give us at least something back for the people that are there just for being there, and because they're they're going to benefit from that.

And then the quarterly task priority list.

So once you get people motivated and they start spending the money and you start doing what they're supposed to do with the money, now you have a priority list where you can actually keep the funding coming, and then you can justify it every year for those federal funds and state funds that are coming in.

Um as far as potholes and repair, that's just an ongoing.

So we can all go out and find potholes and roads that need to be repaired in every neighborhood.

But that is a across the board for all neighborhoods, and that's all I have for my thoughts.

Thank you, Ms.

Brown.

Uh come on, yes, ma'am.

Come on, you'll be our last speaker.

Good evening.

My name is Cynthia Morton, and I work with the rising West Princeton neighborhood.

Our neighborhood is on the move.

We have lots of senior citizens in our neighborhood, but we only have 11,000 in our budget.

We want to do some things, but we can't because we don't have the funding.

And when I look up here and it says the people are the city.

We're the people.

We're the people.

And I don't think we should have to get on our knees and beg for funding for our neighborhoods.

We need the funding.

We're one of the few uh neighborhoods who own their own community center.

We have the rising West Princeton Community Center.

We have a corporation.

We don't have any money.

We need to have our floors done.

We need to have fencing done.

We need to have quite a few things, but we don't have the funding.

We can't do very much with 11,000 in our budget.

Um I know that Rob asks for 10, but you know, y'all can meet us some kind of way.

But we are the city, the people.

Don't just have that up there and don't help us out.

You're the city.

You know, so we need some help getting some things done.

I work quite a bit during the day trying to get things done.

I'm on the computer all day trying to talk to this department, that department.

Uh, we need some curves, some uh sidewalks in some of our areas.

I live in the Rigwood area, Rickwood Ball Park.

That's a historical community.

Our community community should look better.

We ought to be able to get some funding.

So, on behalf of Riven West Princeton, I would like for you all to take a look and um at your budget, and we need funding.

But thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Miss Morton.

One more speaker.

Come on, Mr.

Robert.

Good evening, council, clerk, all the staff.

My name is Robert Walker.

I'm the president of Wahoma neighborhood, also president of East Lake Millennium.

And I'd like to go along with uh what the Western president was talking about.

Our neighborhood, Wahoma neighborhood, is a very small neighborhood, not as large as a lot of these other ones, but we still have a lot of plans that we want for our neighborhood.

One one of the things that we want, we don't have a school that we can support.

We have very few churches that uh that we we can deal with, but what we do have is our neighborhood park.

And that's what we've been wanting to do.

We want to create, uh take down our uh our playground and bring uh playground back together that's accessible for handicapped children.

That's one of the things that we want to make ourselves known for, that we have a playground exclusively for having to handicap children and children that's not handicapped.

But you can't do that with $2,000 every year.

We have a little bit of money, we do, but but when you go to these different people, uh we're talking about the state of Alabama, we're talking about the county and all of that, even with the city.

The first thing that they'll say is how much money you got.

Now, my counsel is Daryl Quinn, and he's pretty generous fellow.

But when we're talking about redoing the playground, he's not gonna finance that by himself.

So we got to have some money to do that.

Had we been getting $10,000 a year for the last five years or so, that project wouldn't have been over with by now.

And a lot of other things would have been done, like uh the speed bumps that we want to uh we we want to buy and and put out there.

A lot of a lot of my uh neighborhood people want to talk about cameras uh because we have a bad situation with with dumping and and prostitution and all of that sort of thing.

We can't even have a good discussion about that until we have money to discuss that.

So the $10,000, it's not just sitting there in the bank because trust me, if if we had $10,000 and we had to sit and let it sit someplace, we'll be sitting at City Hall.

It'll be sitting someplace else where we can make a little bit more money.

But uh that is what I wanted to tell you, and uh just be mindful of the fact that we do have projects uh that we want to uh that that we want to do, but it's gonna take money to do it.

And you got to save your money, you got to have money in order to go to these different people to uh get these projects done.

Don't think we're just letting it sit down.

That's not what we're doing.

We just need enough money to do what we need done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Walker.

Uh, and again, thank you everybody for participating and sharing their feedback.

Uh if you if you have a question or need a copy of the budget or something, feel free to email me.

Again, that is Clinton.woods at Birmingham A L dot G-O-V.

And at this time I will hand it back over to President Uh Alexander.

Thank you, Councilor Woods.

I want to thank the residents and citizens that have come before us this evening and given us your comments and requests as it relates to the 2027 proposed budget.

Um, as has already been stated by our budget and finance chair, the information has been recorded.

We will utilize this as a ways of um communicating back to the administration and utilize this information on our own as we go through the budget and review the budget.

Uh, we still have an opportunity for anyone who was not here today, and or if you were here, and uh decided not to give any information or had an opportunity to uh share your views.

Uh you can go to the website and offer that information to us.

So I appreciate you again for being here today, and thank you for your participation.

So at this time I call for a motion the second to adjourn.

So move.

Thank you.

All right, meeting adjourned.

Thank you.