Title
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF FOLEY OPPOSING ANY ACTION BY THE ALABAMA LEGISLATURE THAT WOULD RESTRICT OR REMOVE
MUNICIPAL POLICE OR PLANNING JURISDICTIONS
Summary
Description of Topic: (who, what, where, when, why and how much)
Body
WHEREAS, there are currently pending before the Alabama Legislature bills, specifically SB23 by Sen. Elliot, which would restrict or remove municipal authority to exercise police and planning jurisdictions; and
WHEREAS the City of Foley and other municipalities enforce municipal Police and/or Planning Jurisdictions to insure the public health, safety, and welfare in these areas and to assist in the planning of future growth for economic development; and
WHEREAS, the City of Foley provides services such as Fire Services: This bill would pull Fire Service by Municipal Fire Departments back to the city limit of the municipality. Unlike Police, Counties do not have a paid professional fire service like they have for policing via their Sherriff departments. Much of unincorporated county areas are protected via a combination of volunteer departments, backed up by mutual aid agreements with adjacent paid municipal fire departments. Volunteer fire departments have no legislatively defined fire areas and many are struggling to maintain the sufficient level of volunteer commitment to properly respond in the areas that they currently have. Anticipating that Volunteer Departments will pick up these vacated areas is no guarantee, and even if they do, the level of protection would drop for these residents. Therefore, this bill will likely leave areas within unincorporated Baldwin County with either no fire service at all, or a much diminished response. ISO PPC ratings (Fire Protection Class defined to areas) will change for those areas when Municipalities draw back from servicing them and ending mutual aid agreements, creating situations where their insurance rates will be much higher and/or areas where there may be no insurance available. Aside from the increased safety risk this bill will create, our County has already gone through an insurance crisis after the Hurricanes, and this bill risks creating another crisis.
Subdivision Review: The lack of county zoning around many cities, including the City of Foley, would result in a loss of higher standards for new infrastructure and new structures than what is currently enforced via the joint review. Removing city review would allow very high density with lower quality infrastructure that we believe will cause future issues with both Cities and Counties. The lack of zoning combined with the lower standards will cause an even higher growth rate than what we are experiencing today. Without the interaction that occurs today in the ETJ by the City and County through our combined and aligned efforts, adjacent roadway and storm water infrastructures may not be able to handle the increased growth which would result in a lower quality of living. Currently Municipalities and the County work together to review subdivision plans that are in the ETJ. This coordinated effort allows for the logical transition of areas in unincorporated Baldwin County that wish to annex into a city by ensuring that developments are built with infrastructure that meets the requirement of the city and that are aligned with the capacity of the adjacent infrastructure already in place. Planners, Engineers, and Fire Personnel review these plans to ensure that they are built in a fashion that will allow annexation, should they desire. Without this joint review, there will be many subdivisions that want to come into a city who will be unable to do so due to their infrastructure not meeting municipal requirements. The end effect will be that nearby subdivisions will have no choice but to stay in the unincorporated county, increasing maintenance costs to the County for road maintenance within the subdivision, policing, sanitation, fire, and other services. In addition, County Planning Departments and Planning Commissions will be required to take on all of this additional work load themselves, while cities would be left with no knowledge of adjacent growth that affects everything from Municipal roadway planning, to upcoming recreation growth needs, to growth effects on schools.
Revenue: This bill, over time, would actually save municipalities money because we collect much less revenue in the PJ than what the services cost. But it would be at the expense of service, safety, coordination, and additional costs to residents in the PJ. It would also be at the expense of Counties that will find themselves responding to increased policing services along with pressure from unincorporated residents to create programs and services that most Counties do not offer today and would no longer be available from their closest city. In Foley, we do not use municipal residency to determine availability of our many services. Those services include but are not limited to, youth recreation league programs (largest in the County), Library services (most members in the county, and the largest youth summer reading program in the County), Senior Center and Senior programs, a multitude of maintained parks including a dog park, a skate park, a kids park, a water front park, two municipal pools, and the 400+ acre Graham Creek Preserve, etc. None of these services are limited to city residents. If we lose what little revenue that we receive from the PJ, it will force City Councils across the State to consider the hard choice of not offering these services to people outside of their City. Should that occur, Counties will face pressure to staff and construct facilities to offer those services to unincorporated residents, and
WHEREAS, loss of these services could cause significant harm to citizens and businesses in the police jurisdiction, including potential increases in business and home owner’s insurance as a result of increased ISO ratings and possible delayed response times for public safety; and
WHEREAS, loss of these services to citizens by the City of Foley will result in either increased costs to the county to assume responsibility for those services or force citizens to do without those services if the county cannot afford to assume them.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE CITY OF FOLEY, ALABAMA, that the City Council hereby urges the Alabama State Legislature to oppose Senate Bill 23, and any other bills that would restrict or remove municipal police or planning jurisdiction authority.