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President's Message
- Spring Issue 2005
Progress has been made, but journey far from over
We have come a long way in our efforts to shift decision-making to the local level. With about one-third of this year's regular session remaining, a bill granting county commissions "nuisance abatement" powers is awaiting final passage in the House.
And although that doesn't sound like all that much, it certainly is a step forward in Alabama. But with all that positive movement, something happened just the other day to make me realize that the journey is, however, very far from complete.
While we have been very proud of the efforts county officials have made by being in Montgomery as part of our County Commission Days and the crowd at County Day at the Legislature, there are some members of the Legislature who still believe decisions should be made in the Capitol city and not "back home." There aren't as many of those legislators as a few years ago, but they are still around.
If you want some evidence, you don't have to look any further than what we would all consider a very simple piece of legislation sponsored this year by Rep. Steve McMillan from Baldwin County. The legislation was introduced at the request of his local county commission and the Association. It is aimed at allowing county commissions to adopt rules and regulations for the "preservation, protection, and use of any county property."
Our colleagues around the county would be astonished that in the year 2005 it is necessary to authorize the county commission to adopt rules to protect the property the county commission owns. But in Alabama, that certainly is the case.
Many of you probably remember about five years ago when the Alabama Supreme Court issued an order requiring each county commission to adopt a security plan for the courthouse. The court's ability to take such a drastic step was founded, at least in part, in the lack of local decision-making authority in Alabama law.
This bill by Rep. McMillan is one of those that outside observers would expect to pass with little or no debate. After all, you can read elsewhere in this magazine an account of the passage of a new open meetings law without any significant debate on the floor of either the House or Senate. If something that significant can pass without discussion, certainly the House wouldn't focus much time on an issue as simple and basic as allowing county commissions to adopt rules for the use of "property used as a public park or recreational area, public boat launches".
You would have been very, very wrong.
When this bill reached the floor on a Thursday morning in March, many members of the Alabama House reacted as though county commissions were being given the power to establish new forms of government, tax the air we breathe or to regulate whether you can "super size" your combo at the neighborhood fast food joint. The debate was mean-spirited, personal and combative.
More than one member of the House took the opportunity to "bash" his county commission, while pledging not to give any additional powers to the governing body that meets right in there in the local courthouse. And perhaps the most vocal "basher" was a former county commissioner now serving in the Alabama House.
As the debate wore on, several legislators felt it necessary to "exempt" their county from this statute - saying in essence that they did not want the local county commission to be able to adopt "rules and regulations" for the use of county property. As we pointed out in the beginning, the march toward local decision making may not have made as much progress as we had thought.
In the final analysis, at least six amendments were added to the bill stating that Jefferson, Calhoun, Talladega, Cullman, Mobile, Pickens, Tuscaloosa, Madison and Montgomery counties would not be able to adopt rules for the use of county-owned property. The amendments were sponsored by Reps. Oliver Robinson, Lea Fite, Neal Morrison, Spencer Collier, Alan Layson and Albert Hall.
Other legislators were poised to remove their counties from the bill, but the legislation was rescued by another amendment - this one saying the bill would not take affect in ANY county unless a local bill was also passed.
My role as Association President isn't to second-guess the members of the Legislature who saw fit to prohibit their counties from adopting rules for the use of county property. But rather, I need to make sure that county officials do not adopt the false assumption that everything is rosy in Montgomery.
Certainly we have made some progress, but the journey isn't over and we have a number of major challenges still ahead of us. If you don't believe that, just as Rep. McMillan about his experiences on the House floor one Thursday in March.
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