Mayor’s Minute By Stewart Welch III - November 2022

As you are likely aware, we had an excellent turnout for the recent City Council elections. About 41% of eligible residents voted, the highest turnout in our history and higher than the 2020 presidential election (39%).

Some of what we learned is the desire for greater communications and, as a result, we are implementing the following changes:

► Easy access to council agendas. Residents would like a quick reference for what is happening at the City Council. The easiest way for you to quickly follow what the City Council is up to is to review the council agendas. The agenda is posted on the city website on Friday before the Monday council meetings. We can deliver both the pre-meeting agenda and formal meeting agenda directly and automatically to your smartphone if you sign up for our text message system. You can sign up by texting MOUNTAIN BROOK to 91896 using your cell phone. Of course, you are welcome to attend our council meetings in person. They are held the second and fourth Monday of each month. A quick scan of the agendas will give you a sense of what the council is working on, and there is ‘deep dive’ material for topics of greater interest to you.

► Easy access to our official city newsletter. Our city newsletter, The Reporter, goes to all residents’ mailboxes four times per year and is a wealth of information about what is going on around our city. Mountain Brook Schools will be contributing to the Reporter to assist in effectively communicating with those residents who are not part of the school system community. The newsletter comes out in February, May, August and November. We have been told that many of our younger residents prefer digital reading versus a paper newsletter. We post the newsletter to our website, mtnbrook.org and will begin delivering a direct link via our text message service (per my first bullet point).

► Email access to council members and the mayor. We have added photos and email addresses so you can easily reach out to council members with your questions and comments. Visit mtnbrook.org, click on GOVERNMENT; then CITY COUNCIL or MAYOR.

Our city personnel and council members all work very hard with the common goal of making Mountain Brook a great place to live, play and raise a family. We believe in continuous improvement and always appreciate helpful suggestions from our residents.