Is the Birmingham City Council gearing up for another showdown with Mayor Bernard Kincaid? The mayor has voiced support for appropriating the entire three percent of a council-endorsed hotel lodging tax toward expansion of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC). Councilors, however, wanted to earmark a third of lodging tax revenues for the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau for marketing purposes.

At the suggestion of Council President Pro Tem Carole Smitherman, the council is now considering a third option: a three-way split that would direct $1 million of the expected $3 million lodging tax windfall to the council for city projects. The council could later redirect its one-third portion back to BJCC expansion once funding is fully secured.

Councilor Joel Montgomery remains the lone council member adamantly opposed to using tax dollars to expand the BJCC to a multi-purpose facility. Montgomery prefers that the city focus its spending on cleaning up the city, which he believes will attract business and boost the city’s population. “It’s where you want to put your priorities,” said the councilor at the July 30 council meeting. “Why can’t we do the same thing to clean up our neighborhoods and improve schools?” Montgomery asked. “It’s not rocket science.” Montgomery said that he had recently immersed himself in domed stadium feasibility studies, including a report from Harvard University, and had found no justification for any such construction. Montgomery says that he can’t believe that a Harvard professor would agree with “somebody as dumb as me.” He added that there are not enough conventions to go around to justify the $440 million expansion plan.

Insisting that the lodging tax will “rev up our economy,” Councilor Smitherman calls expansion of the BJCC “a revenue-raising venture which helps us fund education.” Smitherman said that the city’s location in a valley limits the type of business the city can bring in due to ozone problems. “The lodging tax gives us a new Birmingham,” she said. “So be it if the city of Birmingham is the entertainment district for the region. So be it if we are the banking facility for the state of Alabama and the Southwest [sic]. The more we promote where we live to other places, [the more] people want to come to our valley to see what we’re doing and how we live. We have a special place here and it’s up to us to promote it.” Smitherman added that a million dollars is not much to spend on promotion.

“We have to spend money to make money,” said Councilor Bert Miller “Sometimes we outsmart ourselves. Let’s start using common sense. It’s so simple for our city. Birmingham is just a great big city waiting to explode around the nation. Once we build this thing people are gonna come from everywhere.” Miller urged “city-bashers” to move elsewhere and even offered to pay for a “Ryder truck” to help local malcontents relocate. For the record, approximately 20,000 residents have left Birmingham since 1990. &