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Council approves $6M to build City Hall

Brenda Poe, Editor; Huntsville Item



Huntsville City Council met Tuesday without livestream broadcasting the meeting, due to the cybersecurity incident on Oct. 21 still affecting their network. The Council meeting was run by Mayor Pro Tem Russell Humphrey, in the absence of Mayor Andy Brauninger, approved the issuance of $4 million in bonds and approved the use of $1 million from both the general and utility funds.

The $20 million bonds issued for the City Hall and Service Center, known as Proposition 2 of the 2016 voter approved bonds, were approved by Council in August 2020. According to Finance Director Steve Ritter, various circumstances such as COVID-19 pandemic and the second commissioned redesign of city hall, raised those costs above the previously approved $20 million of the voter approved $24 million bond. 

“The City has $4 million available from the debt that was approved to issue towards these projects,” Ritter said. “That debt will be issued in February and received in March and not start paying on that debt until 2024.”

The City Finance Committee reviewed this proposal in October. 

Council member Vicki McKenzie asked if the use of general and utility funds would affect the recommended percentage of funds the city has. Ritter explained that the use of the unallocated reserve funds would cause the city’s General Fund to dip below the 25% reserve requirement, which is $7.7 million. He added that sales tax in the past few years have been good and anticipates the $350,000 will be built back up within a year. Respectively, the utility fund would drop approximately $450,000, but remain above its required $6,750,000 balance.

Council member Jon Strong said this issue has weighed heavily on his heart. 

“When I first saw this, my immediate thought was absolutely not,” Strong said. 

“We owe it to our electorate to get this project done and I am a very descending yes on this item. We cannot make this a habit going forward.”

The item was approved by a vote of 7-1, with Councilmember Dee Howard Mullins voting against the item.

In other business, Council approved authorizing the City Manager to sign a contract for new time and attendance software and time clocks at $44,985 for implementation and annual maintenance fees of $17,094. Both items were budgeted in the approved 2022-23 budget.

Council also adopted Ordinance 2022-30 and 2022-31 amending the Development Code and Code of Ordinances in reference to development review and approval procedures and building and building regulations, respectively.

The Council voted unanimously to hire an outside law firm to represent the city in litigation against Netflix, Hulu, Disney and other video service providers by Resolution 2022-29.