Annexation (Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville: house, neighborhoods, high school)

[PortCity]

How do you guys feel about the current annexation attempt ?https://www.al.com/news/2019/10/mobi...tion-plan.html

[AU HSV]

If the residents desire it probably a good idea.
The mayor should probably use current population estimates for his pitch instead of
old numbers. Playing off the headline good chance Mobile will be #3 even after the annexation but will benefit
the city in either case.

[PortCity]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

If the residents desire it probably a good idea.
The mayor should probably use current population estimates for his pitch instead of
old numbers. Playing off the headline good chance Mobile will be #3 even after the annexation but will benefit
the city in either case.

I agree it would. The journalism at Al.com is horrible.I think for a brief minute Mobile will be the second and then in 2 years Huntsville will pass Mobile again and then Birmingham lol. I know growth is growth no matter what but I believe transient growth is more sustainable than annexation.I'm kind of in the middle about this.

[MardiGras251]

The 2nd biggest high school in the state is in this area. I see the demographic change out in this area. The city will eventually annex all the way to snow road, its inevitable. The shillinger road corridor has about 12000 ppl that's roughly a little under half the population of that area. If hsv adds 25000 ppl to its population that'll be impressive

[Mississippi Alabama Line]

Annexations can go a lot of different directions. As long as leadership in Mobile is strong, it can be a good thing, and promote unity. If it's bad, it'll suck resources from the new area to other areas that have much more need. When Memphis annexed the Cordova area, it went downhill badly. But there again Huntsville just annexed a huge area a few years ago and they can do no wrong up there. I guess the school system is a mess, but still.

To me, many times annexation is done for 3 reasons:

1) Obtain more votes for a particular party (bad)
2) Quick tax money grab or power play (bad)
3) Unify an area with solid city services and provide development opportunities (good)

I have no idea why this one is being done. With Airbus, seems like more people could be moving to Mobile, so maybe it's #3. I am skeptical, though. I don't see the huge amount of growth in Mobile I see in Huntsville, but it's also not in a declining state like Memphis was when it annexed.

[evlb401]

I think this is good news. Don't know how it will turn out. I know couple of people that live in the Schillinger Corridor. They have all said that they support the annexation. One of them used to be against it for years and has changed her mind. I hope it is successful. I also hope that the city continues to offer annexation to the neighborhoods that weren't included in the next annexation attempt.

There are still a lot of people out there that would rather see their house burn down because they don't have fire protection than be in the city. You can tell them all the benefits and show them how the benefits out weigh the cons and they are still against it.

Just hitting the 200,000 mark allows us to be eligible for grants that are worth more than any of the projected tax revenue that would come from the proposed annexation area.

[port25]

I don't believe the annexation will go thru, which sucks! Councilman Manzie will most likely be the deciding vote and at times he does allow Richardson and Smalls to skew his view.

[evlb401]

I don't think Manzie has the guts to do the right thing. He should vote yes, but I bet he will cave to Richardson. Annexation wont pass the council and Mobile will seriously regret this decision. Its obvious that the annexation will benefit the city in so many ways. How could anyone vote no?

[port25]

Its Mobile city council is all I can say

[evlb401]

Ridiculous. A person's race should not be an issue. The question is this.....Does the area pay for its own services and provides money back to the city? The answer is YES. How is it that hard?

We all know how Manzie is going to vote. Over the last several weeks all of his questions seemed to indicate that he was trying his best to build a case to vote no. Very hard to due given the positives are so obvious. But.... he will vote no anyway and continue to split our community along racial lines. Pathetic.