Text of State of the County Speech

Posted on: May 1st, 2014 | News and Announcements

By Connie Hudson Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It is my honor and privilege to represent the Mobile County Commission at our 2014 State of the County address. We ask you to take the time during today?s presentation to reflect on the breadth of Mobile County?s long-standing influence within our community. Our reach is broad and deep. We get the vote out. We build your infrastructure. We invest in the arts, health, emergency services, law enforcement and... so much more. But, the ever-present question: What have you done for us lately?, is one that you are justified in asking, and one that I want to answer today. But...Before going any further, I?d like to offer you a special treat, courtesy of those who perform a vital task in our community. These are the people who grow our food, right here in Mobile County, Alabama. Jim Todd, our exceptionally dedicated and talented extension agent, has brought members of our local 4-H clubs here today. These 4-H Clubs develop leadership skills in our youth, including training in areas such as Junior Master Gardeners, Horse Club, animal science, and health and nutrition. These young leaders have assembled a basket of homegrown foods for each table, along with information that includes the locations of Mobile County Farmers? Markets. One of you at each table will take home this basket today. Check the side of your chair for a red dot. If you have it, you are the lucky recipient of this basket of produce courtesy of the Mobile County Extension Service...... To all these great young people and their adult mentors, I thank you for visiting us today. Please join me, everyone, in showing our appreciation..... I?d like to take a moment now to thank the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce for providing us this forum for public conversation and reflection every year. Thank you very much for all your efforts..... It is also my pleasure to acknowledge and recognize my colleagues on the Mobile County Commission. Please stand and be recognized: District 1 Commissioner Merceria Ludgood and District 3 Commissioner Jerry Carl. I?d also like to recognize those elected officials from the different county agencies that have provided the partnership that is so essential to good governance at the county level: please stand and be recognized also- Sheriff Sam Cochran, License Commissioner Kim Hastie, Revenue Commissioner Marilyn Wood, Probate Judge Don Davis, Juvenile Court Judge Edmond Naman and County Treasurer, Phil Benson. I extend warm greetings and a welcome to the new Mayor of Mobile, Sandy Stimpson and to the members of the Mobile City Council. We look forward to a partnership aimed at securing the common good for our constituents and we already see the fruits of those labors. And finally I?d like to ask the mayors and council members of all of our other municipalities within Mobile County to please stand and be recognized ......thank you all for being here today. As I look out among all these leaders in our community and others of you in the audience who share a community leadership role, I am reminded of the insights and lessons learned during my years of public service and the fact that: Our future as a community does not reside in the hands of any one individual. It is a Team Effort! To that point, I say we at the county are very proud and committed to Team Mobile. This is the cohesive front, and the merged objectives, of all our local leadership to bring our combined strengths and talents to the service of common goals. We look to our partners in the municipalities and the state, at our Chambers of Commerce, at the Port Authority, the Airport Authority and to our business community, to work even more closely, and in finer unison, to meet even higher objectives going forward. We have the ingredients to keep it going: we have the leadership, we have a vibrant business community and we have the diversity to build a great community. As Michael Jordan said: ?Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.? So now let me say a few words about another hard working team: Team Mobile County. The Mobile County Commission is charged with the fiduciary responsibility for all county agencies and departments. We have included other county elected officials in the budgeting process and made our budgeting efforts as transparent as possible. There has been sacrifice and teamwork throughout these last, tough six years to squeeze out all possible savings while maintaining efficiencies and service levels. The result was...Mobile County closed out FY2013 with a $1.9 million dollar carryover. We remain very cautious, however, because our current budget has incorporated nearly $5 million dollars of one-time revenues in order to balance. So for the upcoming fiscal year, the county will start its budget process with a requirement for an additional $5 million in revenue sources to cover this potential funding gap. The County is actively engaged in strategies to bridge this gap. I am pleased to say that we already have initiated one program change to save money for the county. A review of our health care program last year requested by Commissioner Carl, led us to a decision to change from the County's self-funded health insurance program to the state's Local Government Health Insurance Program (LGHIP). This change is expected to produce significant savings, as much as $2 million dollars a year starting in our second year. The insurance transition required employees to make two first-month insurance premium payments and to also cover two sets of medical deductibles. To defray this hardship to our employees, the Commission voted to use a portion of the FY2013 carry-over to assist employees in paying the additional insurance premium to the new insurer. The Commission also appropriated a $500 bonus to each full-time employee to assist with the additional required deductible costs. In addition, the County Commission appropriated $350,000 of the carry-over to the Mobile County Sheriff's Office to cover the expenses at Metro Jail. As you heard in our video, and can see by the brochures at your table, Metro Jail, unfortunately, has no problem filling its rooms! As you know, saving money demands some innovation as we try to stretch each tax dollar. I am pleased to report that those innovations earned the County two awards in the last year. The Roadway Safety Foundation and the Federal Highway Administration awarded the Mobile County Public Works Engineering Department its Biennial National Safety Award. We were recognized for improving road safety by utilizing raised pavement markers... costing less than $2 each on roadways where there were serious problems with run-off-the-road car crashes. The numbers proved that the strategy worked. Based on 2009 to 2012 crash data, the crashes on 10 of our worst roadways declined from 224 to 33. More importantly, fatalities were eliminated...going from 7 to zero. This is your county, making critical improvements, on a very spare budget. (Pause) And, subsequently, we now have a model program for all counties and municipalities throughout the nation. The County also earned a regional innovation award this year for forging creative partnerships with our municipalities to finance major road-building projects. We received the Norman J. Walton Sr. Regional Award from the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission for our strategies to collaborate on one of the biggest road-building grant programs ever offered by the state of Alabama....The Transportation Improvement Program or ATRIP. By partnering with our smaller cities, we leveraged funds and generated road upgrades in our community worth more than 50 million dollars. Another county inspired program proved its worth by the publicity that we did NOT get. The January ice storm that we came to know as Winter Storm Leon helped to prove what can be accomplished by the County with a little ingenuity and lot of loyal and dedicated workers. It was clear, early on, that conditions were treacherous and that this emergency required an out-of-the-ordinary response: and that?s exactly what happened.... The county rented fertilizer spreaders from our local farmers. We then went to our asphalt companies and bought sand, which had to be heated to burn off the ice and dry out the sand. The outcome?..... A perfect layering of dry sand on the treacherous icy roads. So OUR news story was...No lives lost. No stranded families..... Thank you Mobile County Public Works and thank you to All of our first responders! Our environmental engineering department also distinguished itself last year. The department obtained a $700,000 federal grant to sponsor events helping citizens safely and properly dispose of household hazardous wastes. During the most recent event held at the Greater Gulf States Fairground in March, over 150,000 pounds of old paint and other toxic chemicals were collected and disposed of. One of our most noticeable projects of the year is likely one that you may have encountered already...... the replacement and repair of the infamous Government Plaza roof. The work is advancing - on time and within-budget- and we?re looking at the end of May for project completion.....AND notably, the contract specifies a 20-year no-leak guarantee. Mobile County has some exciting news to deliver about efforts to build up our recreational infrastructure. I am pleased to announce today the completion of Commissioner Ludgood?s project to build out a kayak and paddle trail along a three-mile stretch of our stunning Delta landscape, linking Chickasabogue Park in Eight Mile to William Brooks Park in Chickasaw. Our completed trail features beautifully designed signage in the parks and through the waterways. We hope you?ll visit our park and rent one of our canoes for this trip into the gorgeous Mobile-Tensaw Delta. The unveiling of the trailhead and dedication ceremony is set for 10:00 am tomorrow morning.....and for local media, you are invited to climb aboard a county canoe and get some of the first pictures of our awesome paddle trail. Also, the County is moving forward with project engineering work on the build-out of soccer fields to address what has become a large and growing demand for practice and tournament fields. This would be a major recreational amenity for our citizens... and provide an economic boost for our local economy as well. For the past two years, I have promoted the idea of establishing a soccer complex with a Phase II aquatic center in Mobile County. Phase I would include 10 tournament sized soccer fields, picnic and play areas, and a natural habitat walking trail certified for cross country. Not only would this give our youth the opportunity and incentive to stay active and healthy, but it would bring in families for tournaments who would stay in our hotels, and patronize our businesses. Stay tuned as we move forward on the plans to make soccer facilities in Mobile County a reality. If your recreational pleasure is baseball....our national pastime, we?re busy building you the infrastructure for that also. Commissioner Jerry Carl is championing the construction of three new baseball fields on the former Brewer Center property off of Hitt and Schillinger Roads. The one million dollar construction project is located adjacent to the Westside Park baseball fields and in conjunction with the Westside fields will expand baseball.. game, practice and tournament opportunities for our growing Mobile County population. So get ready for more baseball, as these fields are expected to be completed during the fall of this year. Also, currently under construction on the Southeast corner of the Brewer Center property is the county?s first state-of-the-art residential recycling drop-off center. The growth and migration of our population into west Mobile along with many expressions of need for better access to recycling facilities prompted my efforts to initiate this project. The Center, which should open this fall, is funded through a federal CIAP grant... AND in perfect collaboration of needs and potential, Goodwill Easter Seals of the Gulf Coast has agreed to operate and manage the Center allotting many of the jobs to their special needs clients. I am pleased to make another announcement today.... This one about the completion of the Mobile County Fire Training Tower in the City of Semmes to train firefighters from volunteer and municipal departments throughout the county. This project answers a serious local need for adequate training facilities and certification opportunities for our firefighters. The project is a collaborative effort between the county and the City of Semmes. Semmes will operate the fire tower along with a fire training facility and emergency response center which are currently being built adjacent to the Fire Tower. All of these efforts to build infrastructure positively affect our quality of life in Mobile County and make our communities a great place to live and raise a family. We know, too, that there is a concrete link between quality of life and job growth. You already know our success stories involving Airbus, TK (which has now become AM/NS Calvert and Outokumpu), Austal and our other success stories that are international in scope. But Mobile County is equally interested in creating the kind of environment to grow our small businesses that represent the backbone of our economy. Our most recent investment, for example, is Rural Sourcing Inc., or RSI, from Atlanta, a company that represents leadership in the field of Information Technology. It brings 50 jobs at an average salary of $50,000 each. That?s a two and a half million dollar annual payroll, on top of a $700,000 capital investment, plus it brings to Mobile an important player in the I.T. field. Quality of life also includes a community that can inspire its youth and adults through the arts and other cultural offerings. You can see by the brochure, the kinds of efforts we have made to support our community?s cultural life. We have major performing arts centers, important museums and innovative galleries, as well as many vibrant colleges and universities. Besides the sheer pleasures they offer, the arts are all about the creativity, innovation and search for excellence so essential to success in the world. We are proud to be a part of a county that accepts these responsibilities. Quality of life is also measured by our willingness to care for those in our community who are most vulnerable. In Mobile County we are concerned about our senior citizens. We care for abused children. We advocate for the mentally ill, and we support our veterans. As you may recall, a year ago this month the County opened the Semmes Senior Center in a renovated historical Semmes home. It has turned out to be a place of fellowship, activity, and enjoyment for hundreds of senior citizens. I am happy to announce today that Commissioner Ludgood has a senior center project underway in Mt. Vernon. She initiated efforts to obtain a federal grant to build a $300,000 senior center featuring a computer room, an exercise room, a fellowship hall and a warming kitchen. Collaborating with the Town of Mt. Vernon, lunches will be served to Seniors at the Center as well as to senior shut-ins in the community. A Christmas grand opening is anticipated. We also support efforts to care for our military veterans, and were privileged to have helped to build the Veterans transitional housing complex off Moffett Road in a partnership with Volunteers of America Southeast. The county secured a $1.4 million federal grant to help build Eagle?s Landing, a facility that will provide a range of voluntary support services to ease our veterans into permanent housing. The county supports the health services to the mentally ill, our indigent population, and to abused children. AltaPointe, our facility for the mentally ill, gets tobacco tax revenues yearly. We make regular contributions toward the health care of our indigent population and we consistently support the Child Advocacy Center. We also want to address the youth in our community who are troubled and failing to find their way. These are young men and women, in the juvenile court system, who have the potential to find their way in life with the help of caring mentors. Commissioner Carl has convened a faith-based group to work with Juvenile Court Judge Edmond Naman - the goal is to provide resources, mentoring and caring support for youthful offenders and their families in efforts to help turn the lives of juvenile offenders around. In total, these are some of the broad roles that Mobile County plays in the life of our community, both over time, and just in the last year. And... these are the reasons that Mobile matters! Thank you for your interest and participation in our community?s civic life and for your valuable time spent with us here today.