Bluff Park, Alabama Forum

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General Category >> General Board >> Important Info for BP Residents
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Message started by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 11/17/13 at 2:50pm

Title: Important Info for BP Residents
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 11/17/13 at 2:50pm

Please take some time to read this if you're a resident of Bluff Park:

The Bluff Park community in Hoover is a very unique area. Our residential base is comprised of more demographics than any other part of Hoover. In addition to that, Bluff Park also boasts the highest voter turnout of any Hoover community. Most of our residents are also homeowners, and a home is in the single largest investment most of us will make in our lifetime.

It is for these reasons that the study that Hoover City Councilor Gene Smith released on Friday regarding the impact that the removal of school buses by Hoover City Schools impacts us directly, and in a very negative way, regardless of whether or not we have children in the Hoover City Schools.

The study can be downloaded here: http://media.al.com/spotnews/other/Hoover%20school%20bus%20impact%20study.pdf.pdf

The study is 66 pages long and is incredibly concise. If you want to skip all of the details and cut right to the chase, go to page 66.

This page shows a graph of Home Prices, Home Sales, Retail Sales, Employment, New Home Starts, both projected with bus transportation and without it. The "without it" side paints a grim picture. Hoover will suffer. Home values will drop. Retail sales will fall.

Bottom line, our home's value, our investment, the "nest egg" for some", will drop. Why? Two reasons:

1. Poor fiscal management on the part of the Hoover Board of Education and the Superintendent of Hoover City Schools
2. Lack of investment by the Hoover City Council and the Mayor's Office into our schools system ($51.9M dollars that used to go to our schools from the city has not been done since 2007).

Tomorrow the Hoover City Council will have a Regular Council Meeting at 6:00pm. It will be held in the Council Chambers at City Hall (across from the library). Mr. Smith will present his report and will have a representative of the company that did the study present to answer questions.

If you are a homeowner in Bluff Park, you need to be at that meeting. You need to ask the City Council and the mayor as to why they have not funded the schools as they had in the past. If they answer that the schools are not being fiscally responsible, then ask them why they keep appointing members to the Board of Education that allow the superintendent to pass deficit budgets, and why they keep appointing members to the Board of Education who keep allowing irresponsible spending to take place.

If we lose the buses, all of us who own homes LOSE. And if we don't tell the people responsible for making these decisions that we are not pleased with what they are doing, then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Once again, in cased you missed it: LOSING THE BUSES AFFECTS YOU DIRECTLY AND NEGATIVELY

We expect to see a packed house at the council meeting tomorrow. We expect to see the Bluff Park area represented well.

If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to info@bluffparkal.org

Title: Re: Important Info for BP Residents
Post by Bluff Park Forum Admin on 11/18/13 at 11:02pm

Tonight's turnout at the City Council by residents was above average.

For those of you that didn't attend, you need to be made aware of what transpired at one of the most bizarre meetings held.

After twenty minutes of presentations to various Cub Scout, Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups, the city council began their regular agenda.

There were 11 items that Council President Jack Wright went over rather expeditiously.

The main reason that most people were there for was the presentation of the study that Councilor Gene Smith commissioned in response to the elimination of the school buses by the Hoover Board of Education. The study, which cost $30,000 and paid for by Mr. Smith with his own money was titled "Gene Smith * School Transportation * Hoover, Alabama | Real Estate, Economic, and Socioeconomic Impacts Overview"

The study was going to be presented during the Comments/Questions portion of the meeting. Before that began, though, the city attorney read a 1966 Alabama Supreme Court decision that put into question whether or not this report, which dealt with school board business, could be discussed at a council meeting. The Board of Education, although appointed by the city council, is not overseen by the city council, but by the State Board of Education. City councils are prohibited by law to interfere with school board business. The attorney felt that discussion by the council during a council meeting would create a problem due to the current Department of Justice investigation into the bus matter. He felt that IF the council discussed it, they would become part of the pending litigation. He said that up to three members could stay after the meeting (four would make it a quorum) and talk as "private citizens". Mr. Wright then adjourned the meeting without any further discussion.

The following council members stayed to listed to the report: Gene Smith and John Lyda. The rest of the council left.