Alex City council president says decision needed on proposed development

“The developer has dealt with eight city council members, three mayors, two memorandums of understanding and had numerous individual meetings with stakeholders,” Alexander City City Council president Buffy Colvin said. “The developer has also used their own time, effort, energy and money to get to this point. If anyone has bullied the council, it is not the developer. I’ve met about this project since 2017.”

Colvin was elected to the council in 2016 and reelected in 2020. Colvin said it was time to put the issue to a vote after years of talks in executive sessions.

“During my tenure on the council, we have taken at most two months on making a decision to not reappoint a person, yes less than a month to decide if someone will lose their job,” Colvin said. “With that being said we are still in a back-and-forth motion on what we should do with this proposal five years later. We have gone back and forth with this developer and each time they have always come back with what we have asked for. I made this decision so that we could move forward either with this developer or someone else.”

Colvin said Tuesday’s meeting will give the public a chance to voice their opinions on spending public funds before the council votes on the matter. The meeting is something required by law to expend public funds, in this case sales tax funds.

Colvin said the agreement does not put the city at risk.

“We will be voting on an agreement that the city will give the developer $7.5 million plus 5% a year in tax incentives for up to 10 years,” Colvin said. “If they reach that $7.5 milion in five years, then we are done. If they don’t reach that $7.5 million in 10 years, we are still done. Alexander City is not taking on any liability nor are we giving up any land in this deal. The risk that is being taken is on the developer, not on the city.”

Colvin said the mayor and council have different roles in governing the city while looking to improve the lives of citizens.

“The best way to sum up the roles of the mayor and council, is that the mayor is the chief executive officer of the city and is charged with the duty of supervision of the day to day affairs of the city under the policies authorized by the council,” Colvin said. “The council has authority over the finances and property of the municipality. The council authorizes contracts, establishes policies, passes ordinances, sets tax levels, determines what sorts of services the municipality will offer and has authority over all other legislative aspects of municipal government. As a city councilmember I work for the citizens of Alexander City.”

The Alexander City City Council will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday to hear from citizens on the issue of retail development and vote on it afterwards.