City officials answer community questions during luncheon

After a brief introduction of the members of the 2016-2020 city council, the floor was opened to questions about the community during the November Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Many of the questions came from local students involved in leadership opportunities at The Altamont School and through Leadership Mountain Brook, and their questions addressed the potential challenges that the city faces.

One of the first questions, asked by Leadership Mountain Brook, is an ongoing issue: parking. While it is an obvious problem, there are few solutions that may help the city while maintaining the aesthetics that many residents look for. "You have to think about what the tradeoff is to make parking available all the time," said Councilman Philip Black. Any parking garage that would be built in the area would cost about $20,000, and a large lot would be a lot of additional pavement.

"It is a challenge, but the city council is very thoughtful in terms of how they address parking in order to make sure that the existing merchants are well protected," added Mayor Stewart Welch. 

In keeping with maintaining all parking as is, the city of Mountain Brook does not have any major developments planned for the future. Most of the construction would be redevelopments anyway, said Black, because there isn't a lot of room to expand beyond what there already is. City Manager Sam Gaston confirmed that there has been little to no population growth within the city over the past few years. The city holds approximately 21,000 people, and even if it was completely built out, the possible number of residents would only be about 22,500. 

But it is this population of Mountain Brook that also helps run the city. 

To fund all of the city's needs, residents pay a variety of taxes including ad valorem on their car tags and a sales tax of about 3 percent. As of Nov. 1, the sales tax was carried over on to all internet sales as well. Because this was added, Councilman Lloyd Shelton said it's important that residents use their Mountain Brook "zip plus four" for all shipping so that the city is able to collect that tax and use it to fund city functions and city schools. 

Other questions asked by students addressed possible elementary school crowding, zoning, the mayor's initiative to involve younger residents, the use of UBER and the Tree City USA title. 

Fire Chief Chris Mullins also reminded residents that Jefferson County is in a stage four drought. If the area doesn't see rain through December, then the county will enter stage five of the drought, something that has not previously been done.

"Just don't burn anything," Mullins said. "Please."

The next Chamber of Commerce luncheon will take place on Jan. 24 at the Grand Bohemian. During the event, community members will honor Tynes Award winner Western Market and Jemison Award winner Hatton Smith. Those who want to attend the luncheon are encouraged to purchase tickets as soon as possible because they do sell out quickly.