A "Ground Breaking" Project, Welcome Sand Mountain Park & Amphitheater to Albertville

"Tit for TAP"

In June, 2014, the City of Albertville was fortunate to receive a Transportation Alternatives Program, or, TAP, grant from the Alabama Department of of Transportation (ALDOT) for a downtown revitalization and streetscape project. The city's hope was that improvements made as part of the TAP project would make a once blighted area of downtown an attractive place for new businesses and restaurants to locate; and help those already in business, downtown, thrive. Per ALDOT's final approval of the master plan in 2016, work began with the state, as two state highways run through downtown Albertville. The Municipal Utilities Board (MUB-Albertville), to include AT&T, Charter Cable, and Farmers Telecommunications all played major roles in initial phases of work as all had infrastructure running through the downtown corridor. One of the key scopes of work for this particular project was burying the utilities that once ran overhead, in order to eventually remove the old traffic lights and masts, while equipping downtown with decorative arm masts, lighting, and traffic signals.

TAP Master Plan

As of today, the TAP project has come nearly full circle with the last piece of the puzzle in its completion being the impending paving of AL Highway 75, at least through downtown, to enhance the work that's been done thus far. The TAP Program allows cities to construct on and off road facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other non-motorized forms of transportation to include sidewalks, pedestrian lighting, and landscaping to achieve compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. All of this has now been done, at this point, with the last piece of the puzzle in TAP's completion being striping the downtown streets. Striping is great, but what happens when you have two state highways running through your downtown and neither have been paved in over 20 years? How good could it possibly look on decrepit, poor maintained roadway?

Before TAP

Paving costs, on average, $70,000 a mile in 2019. Albertville City is approximately 26 square miles in size; that's 26 square miles of road the city is responsible for paving and maintaining until the end of time. When it comes to State Highways 431, 75, and 205, all of which are main thoroughfares and run right through Albertville, we rely, desperately, on the state's help in maintaining their roadways. Our entire industrial and retail base sits on Highway 431, with our entire downtown business community sitting on Highways 205 and 75. Most importantly, these are the means of travel to and from home, work, school, shopping, and entertainment destinations for our 25,000 plus citizens each day. Yet, they've been neglected for years and years.

Albertville Regional Airport is almost completely landlocked by Highway 75 which runs directly around it. Out of our industry base of over 50 major industries within our city limits, more than half of them rely on the airport, which served a large part in them locating in Albertville in the first place. For our city, it's proven to be an economic development powerhouse, but, we're running out of room. Due to the land mass currently surrounding the airport and with nowhere for it to "go" with Highway 75 encompassing it, expansion opportunities have been extremely limited. As part of what was originally a smaller plan from the state to move forward with paving Highway 75, a few years ago, our local legislative delegation began working with city officials, airport officials, Congressman Robert Aderholt, and Governor Bentley, at the time, to bring forth a plan to not only pave 75, but reroute it away from the airport. This would have allowed the city to no longer have to turn away major defense companies out of Huntsville who have looked at Albertville Regional to subsidize their corporate locations and bring auxiliary headquarters here. The vast workforce opportunities this would bring to our area would be an absolute game changer for Albertville and Marshall County, alike.

Unfortunately, due to a supposed lack in state funds budgeted for capital infrastructure improvements, this project was significantly delayed, and eventually placed on what seems to be a forever "back burner." Consider the TAP project I mentioned earlier in this post; this scope of work was made possibly by a grant we received in 2014! Now, five years later, we've finally gotten somewhere. This project has been at the mercy of ALDOT, civil engineers, and corporate conglomerates for FIVE years. When I say "corporate conglomerates" I'm speaking of companies like AT&T and Charter Cable who argued for years over not wanting to share conduit and who would run their own, and who wouldn't, during the utility burial phases of the project. It's been absolutely mind blowing. Many times city officials and project managers asked ourselves, "is it REALLY worth it?". or, "should we have just used our own funds to complete the project and gotten it done on our own timeline?"

Main Street, Downtown Albertville

Nothing moves quick in government. Period. However, all of the above brings me to my final point: I, along with Mayor Tracy Honea, and City of Albertville Officials, support Governor Ivey's recently imposed gas tax. Working for the city, I've seen first hand how a municipality's budget runs just like that of a "glorified" household's. Was there money, we've already been taxed and paid for that was supposed to be earmarked and set aside at the state for infrastructure capital improvements? Probably. Was it misappropriated somewhere down the line? Maybe so. Who knows? However, the sad truth and reality is that prior administrations have neglected the cities and counties, their constituents, in Alabama for so long, that the ship has got to be righted one way or the other. Now is the time.

Downtown after TAP Improvements

For Albertville, with three state highways running through our city limits, the suffering has been long, and hard. As a taxpaying citizen and a resident, homeowner, and employee of the City of Albertville in the State of Alabama, I am 100% on board with paying the increased gas tax if it means what my local legislators and state officials have told us it will mean for our city. Now, it's our job to utilize proper checks and balances measures and do our due diligence, to our community, by ensuring that the monies we have been promised are allocated to us, and in a timely manner. However, as citizens, especially as citizens that want to see our cities and state progress, we have to be willing to do our part, and understand the part we play in the vitality of our communities and their economies.

Sales tax makes up the huge majority of a city's budget, with property tax making up the next highest percentage. We want to live in the county so we don't have to pay city taxes, but we want to call city hall and ask for reimbursement of car damage when we plow over a pothole on a city street when we have to come in to town. e can't drive to Huntsville and Birmingham to shop every weekend instead of supporting our local restaurants and retailers and complain when the money isn't there for our city streets to be paved. Albertville has experienced this also with Wal-Mart being flanked on both ends of our city, just beyond our boards. We are nearly three times the size of our surrounding cities, but our population keeps their roads paved and cities flourishing shopping outside of Albertville. We've seen a great deal of improvement in this over recent years in opening over 300,000 square feet of new retail space in the city in the last three years, but, we still feel the brunt of two Wal-Mart's performing at over $40 million in sales tax annually, outside of our city. To me, the gas tax is quite similar. As citizens, we can't expect to have it all and contribute minimally.

We haven't seen an increase in our tax on gasoline since 1992. Let's give it a try. I believe the benefits will far outweigh the negatives in the long run. Last but not least, give back to your communities! Shop local, eat local, and for goodness' sake, FILL YOUR TANK BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE CITY OR COUNTY YOU LIVE IN. This is especially important, now, more than ever.