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This is a reasonable response from the Jefferson County Commission. Fairfield either going have make some tough decisions including relinquishing certain services, cease of status quo, or relinquish their municipal charter altogether. Fairfield keeps coming back for more funding when they cannot afford to operate. Collaborate with Midfield, Brighton, Lipscomb on some type of municipal shared services agreement or dissolve. It's simple and pragmatic for the benefit of the residents with that area. Jefferson County needs to reduce the number of municipal governments from 35 to 20 as the county starts to evolve into a cohesive, major urbanized area with steady population growth.
In truth, it's an approach that even the wealthier suburbs will be forced to consider in the years ahead. With Amazon and other online retailers begin to take away sales tax revenue, cities are going to have fiscal challenges. In truth, with a metrowide emergency services department, we can enjoy some economies of scale and, quite frankly, improved overall services. When you have to pay for umpteen dispatchers, umpteen jails, and a host of other unneeded duplication of services, it soaks up a lot of tax revenue without achieving desired results.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,484,386 times
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Originally Posted by MinivanDriver
In truth, it's an approach that even the wealthier suburbs will be forced to consider in the years ahead. With Amazon and other online retailers begin to take away sales tax revenue, cities are going to have fiscal challenges. In truth, with a metrowide emergency services department, we can enjoy some economies of scale and, quite frankly, improved overall services. When you have to pay for umpteen dispatchers, umpteen jails, and a host of other unneeded duplication of services, it soaks up a lot of tax revenue without achieving desired results.
It's true. Most major metropolitan areas have shifted towards that very model of shared services. This metro is likely well on its way because fiscal constraints of municipal operations will yield these decisions. No one is telling all of the jurisdictions to dissolve, but some of those such as Fairfield, Lipscomb, Brighton, Brookside, Cardiff, Center Point will likely merge with one another, merge with another jurisdiction like Birmingham, or dissolution of municipal operations in the future.
Upon assessing things from a far for several months, from the loss of Lloyd Nolan Hospital, Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penney, Parisian, Winn-Dixie, K-Mart, and basically the integrity of long-term sustainability of Western Hills Mall, disbanding of the police force, and not the likely shutdown of its water service from the BWWB and bus routes from BJCTA. It seems like it time for the beleaguer municipality to disband and dissolve its charter and petition to be annexed into Birmingham.
It would fit in with the dynamics of the City of Birmingham so it wouldn't be much of a disruption to the urban design or characteristics of the western portion of the city. With the city seeing a revitalization and resurgence of activity both economic and demographically I believe the city services would be able to handle this addition. Also the City's resources would be able to aid in this portion's revitalization of the region's urban core.
This quote is from over 2 years ago and the situation for Fairfield has continued to worsen and I don't see a way out for Fairfield at this point unless they get a massive Amazon or DC Blox level influx of capital as soon as yesterday. The city services suffering and having great difficulty making payroll is most alarming and as far as I can see this is a no brainer. Farifield, Brighton and Lipscomb should be looking to dissolve and annex into Birmingham and get back to a good quality of service and life.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cherokee48
This quote is from over 2 years ago and the situation for Fairfield has continued to worsen and I don't see a way out for Fairfield at this point unless they get a massive Amazon or DC Blox level influx of capital as soon as yesterday. The city services suffering and having great difficulty making payroll is most alarming and as far as I can see this is a no brainer. Farifield, Brighton and Lipscomb should be looking to dissolve and annex into Birmingham and get back to a good quality of service and life.
Amen! I still support the annexation of these very areas into the City of Birmingham since the urban design, housing stock, and municipal services would be to support. Birmingham is in a much better financial position to support additional residents and areas. Also it would be also increase the city population of Birmingham by approximately 16,000 residents. Jurisdictional boundaries do not matter much in such a heavily populated area.
Towns don't necessarily have to merge to share services. Madison County still has a sheriff (I've never understood the need for duplication of law enforcement agencies, but that's another discussion). A few years ago, Huntsville and Madison County built a metro jail. Presumably the city of Madison and other county entities use it also. It was infamously overrun with costs, but that had nothing to do with the merger, but everything to do with mismanagement and poor construction.
Birmingham and the surrounding towns could consolidate some services without having to merge governments. Fairfield might be a burden Birmingham tax payers don't want.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
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Originally Posted by RocketDawg
Towns don't necessarily have to merge to share services. Madison County still has a sheriff (I've never understood the need for duplication of law enforcement agencies, but that's another discussion). A few years ago, Huntsville and Madison County built a metro jail. Presumably the city of Madison and other county entities use it also. It was infamously overrun with costs, but that had nothing to do with the merger, but everything to do with mismanagement and poor construction.
Birmingham and the surrounding towns could consolidate some services without having to merge governments. Fairfield might be a burden Birmingham tax payers don't want.
Alabama Constitution makes shared services agreements very confusing for interpretation due to the lack of a statewide home rule statute. The examples of a shared "metro" jail is more of a shared facility than actual shared services agreement. The only way most jurisdictions can share services within the current state laws on the books are a merger or consolidation of governmental entities. Jefferson County can "contract" municipal (level) services to other local entities since it has a specific home rule statute for its county, but that is more of an exception than the rule.
Miles College have expressed interest in getting annexed into Birmingham proper because of the lack of and poor services provided by Fairfield. Birmingham has reciprocated the interest of getting Miles College within its city limits. There are many mutual benefits for the annexation of parts of Fairfield or the entire jurisdiction into Birmingham and Miles College is one of them.
Amen! I still support the annexation of these very areas into the City of Birmingham since the urban design, housing stock, and municipal services would be to support. Birmingham is in a much better financial position to support additional residents and areas. Also it would be also increase the city population of Birmingham by approximately 16,000 residents. Jurisdictional boundaries do not matter much in such a heavily populated area.
I absolutely think that this will be best for Fairfield and the area at large. Speaking of the jurisdictional boundaries not mattering much it is contiguous with Birmingham(Ensley) and has the housing stock and similar street grid design that would make this annexation very doable. Fact is Fairfield and most of the suburbs function as B'ham neighborhoods with their own police departments and schools already so streamlining services and adding territory that is that close is not far fetched. A boost to the city population is a very nice bonus too but I think the city would best benefit by having another institution of higher learning(Miles College) in city limits and Birmingham is in much better position to support Miles than Fairfield at this point.
Alabama Constitution makes shared services agreements very confusing for interpretation due to the lack of a statewide home rule statute. The examples of a shared "metro" jail is more of a shared facility than actual shared services agreement. The only way most jurisdictions can share services within the current state laws on the books are a merger or consolidation of governmental entities. Jefferson County can "contract" municipal (level) services to other local entities since it has a specific home rule statute for its county, but that is more of an exception than the rule.
Miles College have expressed interest in getting annexed into Birmingham proper because of the lack of and poor services provided by Fairfield. Birmingham has reciprocated the interest of getting Miles College within its city limits. There are many mutual benefits for the annexation of parts of Fairfield or the entire jurisdiction into Birmingham and Miles College is one of them.
True, it's a shared facility. But it's an $80M shared facility. What if Madison County had opted to build its own, and every other entity. It would cost a lot more and be less efficient. There's no doubt it's saving money in the long run, even if it did cost twice what it should have.
No doubt about some of the archaic laws regarding home rule (and a zillion other things) in Alabama. The entire constitution is waaaay outdated. Too many toes to step on to change things any time soon I suspect.
I'll bet if you asked a hundred people around the state where Miles College is, they would say "Birmingham", if they had heard of it at all.
But as far as consolidation goes, it should be up to the people of Birmingham and Jefferson County, not me or any others in the state. It's not going to affect us one way or the other (maybe fewer pots for state tax money to go into?), except maybe the impetus to follow suit. I'm for consolidating government as much as possible.
Miles College have expressed interest in getting annexed into Birmingham proper because of the lack of and poor services provided by Fairfield. Birmingham has reciprocated the interest of getting Miles College within its city limits. There are many mutual benefits for the annexation of parts of Fairfield or the entire jurisdiction into Birmingham and Miles College is one of them.
I'd heard this mentioned years ago and with Fairfield clawing just to survive the day it makes sense. Fairfield can't aggressively support this institution and understandably so. Miles in the Birmingham metro with a cash strapped Fairfield govt. is one thing Miles in Birmingham looks totally different in 10 years time and I don't doubt it could become a preeminent HBCU in Alabama and the region and that means more students and more revenue. The more I think about it a 16k boost in population while not a super huge deal would definitely be a big deal. That kind of boost alone would put to bed the whole largest city in Alabama discussion for good and put the city on it's way to talking about moving up to 240 or 250k.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketDawg
But as far as consolidation goes, it should be up to the people of Birmingham and Jefferson County, not me or any others in the state. It's not going to affect us one way or the other (maybe fewer pots for state tax money to go into?), except maybe the impetus to follow suit. I'm for consolidating government as much as possible.
I'm pretty sure annexation would have to be voted on by any and all parties involved. Fairfield would have to dissolve it's charter and Birmingham would have to vote to annex, that said I think that a vote to annex would pass and would not be such a battle. As Jero pointed out this area of town is already thoroughly integrated into the city's westside urban layout, and culture. Fairfield and Ensley literally share a border or rather a couple of borders at least and that proximity and familiarity makes it much more likely to be accepted and maybe even welcomed by Birmingham voters. Police and fire response times would decrease, public works maintenance would improve for the Fairfield residents, and I suspect that in Birmingham's orbit Fairfield would not be a net loss as it is now and would contribute to the tax base in a way the can't as an independent city. There have been several studies and think pieces about successful cities and metros floating around lately and the key component that was focused on was more regional consolidation and cooperation. Failing cities/metros are very fragmented and uncooperative within themselves and highly functional cities/metros were consolidated and had a lot of cooperation.Consolidating the western sector of the metro is a big step in that direction and frankly the area of the metro that stands to benefit the most from a consolidation.
I'd heard this mentioned years ago and with Fairfield clawing just to survive the day it makes sense. Fairfield can't aggressively support this institution and understandably so. Miles in the Birmingham metro with a cash strapped Fairfield govt. is one thing Miles in Birmingham looks totally different in 10 years time and I don't doubt it could become a preeminent HBCU in Alabama and the region and that means more students and more revenue. The more I think about it a 16k boost in population while not a super huge deal would definitely be a big deal. That kind of boost alone would put to bed the whole largest city in Alabama discussion for good and put the city on it's way to talking about moving up to 240 or 250k.
I don't think anybody in their right mind would say with a straight face that Birmingham is not the largest city in the state, regardless of the number of people within the city limits. It'll stay that way for a long while too, even if the central city rots away. Arguments to the contrary are either tongue-in-cheek or insane. However, it's not the only city of importance in the state.
Which is larger: San Francisco or San Jose? Well, San Jose has had more people larger for quite some time, but it's also about 4 times the area. Things have to be taken in context. Many think Atlanta has 6,000,000 when in reality, Atlanta itself is fewer than 500K.
Back to the original question though. Do the Fairfield residents seem to be in favor of annexation? Would their taxes go up? Residents of a town tend to not favor in general, many times because of an irrational fear. Might even be something as basic as they don't want to lose their postal address.
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