CSNbbs

http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/ne...rward.html

Amendment 14 passed easily Tuesday, and state and local officials leaders are confident the Alabama Supreme Court will make a favorable decision on the budget isolation resolution, or BIR, issue surrounding the amendment.

Amendment 14 stemmed from a court challenge of a Jefferson County sales tax issue, with a judge ruling that a procedure often used by the Alabama House of Representatives violated the Alabama Constitution.

Many Birmingham business leaders supported the amendment and pointed to hundreds of bills that could have been open to civil court challenge had the amendment not passed. However, some local government leaders were opposed to the amendment, including Birmingham City Council president Johnathan Austin and Rep. John Rogers.

The amendment's passage effectively opens the door for several high profile projects in Birmingham, including the proposed stadium at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center.

Jefferson County Commission President Jimmie Stephens said he feels the Supreme Court will consider the large percentage of votes the amendment received when deciding on the BIR issue.

“We are grateful to the citizens of Jefferson County for their support of Amendment 14 that effectively decided the BIR question,” Stephens said. “The benefits to the community by refinancing the school warrants was messaged to the people of Jefferson County who voted 71.5 percent in favor of Amendment 14."

Still, an Alabama Supreme Court decision looms in the distance, rendering the dispute still alive to some extent.

"The Alabama Supreme Court still has to officially rule on the BIR question, but we do not see any issues affecting concurrence with the people’s will," Stephens said. "There are still three other questions in the Roger’s lawsuit that will need to be decided. The Supreme Court has been fully briefed on these questions and we have requested a ruling on all of them. Either the Supreme Court or the trial court will have to address the three remaining issues before we are in a position to proceed with the refinancing of the school warrant debt.”

State senator Cam Ward said the civil law suits in Chilton County and Jefferson County that sparked the amendment were "frivolous" and said he hopes the passage of Amendment 14 will help the state move forward from this issue.

“Now that the people have so overwhelmingly ratified Amendment 14, the BIR questions in both the Jefferson County school warrants case and the Chilton County hospital case have been addressed by the people,” Ward said. “ I would hope that the Alabama Supreme Court would go ahead and rule on the other outstanding issues in the Jefferson County case so that we can finally put this frivolous lawsuit to bed. Then, the original intent of the law we passed in 2015 can begin to provide the benefits to the community as intended.”

I thought the amendment's passage corrected the legal deficiencies, thus making the Supreme Court's ruling moot. What are these other 3 issues in the Rogers lawsuits they're referencing?

Outside of those other 3 issues, the core intent of amendment 14 is the law regardless of what the court rules, correct?

From a new BBJ article:

Debt refinancing would free up about $60 million per year, some of which could fund a stadium project.

The stadium was recently included in a potential new master plan for the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The estimated cost is $174 million.

The plan has been presented to the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center Authority Board of Directors, but there is currently no timetable for the project, due in part to the uncertainty over the court's ruling.

Once that is resolved, the big questions remaining to be answered include which entities – public and private – will fund the project and how much each will chip in.

What is this "public and private funding" alluded to in that statement? I would question if the City of B'ham will be on board if the BJCC stadium endangers the future of the MPF by funding or location conflict. It sounds like the Amendment #14 passage might be like the frog climbing out of a well -- one jump forward but two jumps sliding back.

So it sounds like the approval of ammendment 14 is only the first hurdle, although it may have been the biggest. Color me a pessimist but anytime we have to rely on any branch of our state government I completely expect them to impede future progresss.

This does not sound comforting. I thought we were pretty much home free, but it sounds like we still have three significant hurdles to overcome:

1. Hope for a positive Supreme Court ruling
2. Get the City of Birmingham to chip in
3. Hope we still have a football team by the time the project is finished

I hope that tennis court rendering is of no influence on the final design.

#Stadium certificates.

#UAB Women's Darts Team 2017

#FireRayWatts

#CarolGarrison

#VoteNoOn13