Should the City Stay in that Awful Building

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
AM radio station and Auncle Henry. We wish everybody out
there are merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Happy
Holidays to you, and I'm the I love Hillary Clinton guy.

(00:22):
Merry Christmas. Message deleted.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
And now live from Mobile, Alabama as the stomach churns,
starring Uncle Henry, coming to you through electro voice microphone.
Joining Henry will be callers, emailers, radio and Internet listeners

(01:00):
without further ado, in the style of that great country
music legend Minnie Pearl, Here's.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much for that
wonderful introduction, and thank you for lift stink to v
Uncle Henry's show here on News Radio seventy ten WNTM.
Back after a little bit of vacation. Glad to be
back here on news Radio seven ten WNTM. Glad that

(01:37):
my key still works and I still have a job.
And in this hour of the Uncle Henry Show, we have,
by the way, video today on Facebook. Video today on
Facebook for a change normally I'm live on YouTube today,
back on the Uncle Henry Show page on Facebook due
to some technical some type of technical video issues. But

(02:00):
here we are together on a Tuesday. Today was a
Mobile City council meeting day and very interest. This is
one of the more fascinating stories in many, many years,
the city and the county disagreeing over how much money
the city should pay to be inside of that horrible building,

(02:23):
government Plaza. This is I did not expect. I just
didn't anticipate this. See, I've very carefully tried to have
no sources. Yes, many people in my line of work
like to have sources everywhere and know what's going on
behind the scenes. But I stopped doing that many years
ago because I found out that when I knew what

(02:44):
was happening behind the scenes with governmental entities, I usually
liked the people involved less and less when I found
out what was really going on back there, and so
I decided I didn't want I don't want to know.
I don't want the behind the scenes. Just see me.
Just let me be like an average citizen and learn
things publicly when everybody else learns them. So I just

(03:08):
I had no idea that this stuff was going on
with the county and the city over Government Plaza and
how much rent the city is paying for that horrible building.
I did not anticipate that there would be an argument
over the amount of money, And I certainly did not
anticipate what I saw at the council meeting today, which

(03:30):
I saw a few council members acted like they just
could not wait to get out of government plaza. Now,
maybe that's all negotiating. Maybe that's brilliant negotiating, going out
publicly and saying we don't like this place. Now, nobody
said that. But I'm going to play some of these
comments for you and you can decide on your own.
But maybe it's all negotiation. But I heard some council

(03:54):
people today that sounded like they were itching to move
the city offices from downtown Mobile to somewhere else. And
I don't know enough about the costs of the commercial
real estate right now and all that kind of stuff
to know how great a deal that would be, if
there's a better deal out there for the City of Mobile.

(04:16):
But I agree with a lot of what I heard today,
which is the taxpayer deserves the city taxpayer deserves to
find out if there's a better deal out there. Meanwhile,
after the city council meeting today and talking about this
dispute over how much rent the city should pay the county,

(04:39):
the county released a statement about all of this. I'm
not going to read all of it to you. I'll
get to some of it though here in a little while.
The gist of their statement was, in essence, they're claiming
that the city is getting a bargain. The city's thinking
they're paying too much, the rent's gone up too much.

(05:01):
The county is put making the case that you're getting
a bargain here. So I have no clue which way
this is going, but it'll be fun to find out,
won't it. All Right here we are, let's see city
council meeting. Let me share with you a little bit
from the young Mayor Spirou, our brand new mayor. Here

(05:23):
is the young Mayor Spiro talking about the dispute between
the city and the county over how much the city
is having to pay to lease space in that horrible
government plaza.

Speaker 4 (05:41):
As you may have heard, there are some negotiations ongoing
to reach a fair rental agreement with the County Commission
as to our offices here in this building. In June,
the Commission notified us that our lease would be terminated
and our rent was going to be raised by nearly
ninety percent, essentially doubling it from one hundred and twenty

(06:03):
five thousand, upwards of two hundred and forty thousand per month,
which is a lot of money. We immediately objected to
that increase at the time, and we are continuing discussions.
I've spent time with all of the commissioners. This issue
had not been raised to me prior to yesterday's comments

(06:23):
during a meeting. I've directed our staff immediately to pay
the rent that we were paying under the previous agreement.
We had to get an agreement to do that. I
can't just pay out the city's money without having an
agreed amount that is being paid out for a specific purpose.
But I promise you that we're going to continue to
explore all options.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Explore all options.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Anytime that I, as your mayor and directing anyone to
spend your tax dollars, I want to make sure it's
fiscally sound, that it's in the city's best interest, and
so there are no options that we will leave off
the table. We will explore all those options, not just
to be a better steward of the dollars of this city,
but to better serve the citizens of this city. It's

(07:08):
imperative that our city and our county Commission continue to
work together on finding a solution to this, and I
believe we can find a solution that serves all parties.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
All right, So that is what the mayor had to
say at today's council meeting about this dispute over the lease. Now,
as I mentioned to you, the county put out a
press release today that claims that the city is really
getting a deal. In fact, they're claiming that they are,

(07:37):
that the county has been for years, that the city's
been underpaying for quite some time, and that the county
has been subsidizing this city's occupancy of Government Plaza. That
it's as they are negotiating, both sides are acting like

(07:59):
they will the other side would. They're acting like they
want this to break up. But again, this may be
just nice negotiating tactics. But yeah, the county is claiming
it's a bargain. Look, I've got to go to a break.
I've got more from today's Mobile City council meeting to
share with you on the Uncle Henry Show, including comments

(08:20):
from Mobile City Council members where they sound like they're
itching to leave that and more as the Uncle Henry
Show proceeds forward. Here on News Radio seventy ten WNTM.

(09:15):
Uncle Henry's Show News Radio seventy ten WNTM. It's five twenty.
You can see live video of me struggling to host
this show on Facebook today. Look on the Uncle Henry
Show Facebook page. I'll be back on YouTube eventually when
I can figure out how to do that now. Today

(09:37):
Mobile City Council meeting, one of the interesting topics, at
least for me, was the dispute between the county and
the city over the rent that the City of Mobile
is paying the county to be in that awful government plaza,
and the city is saying that their rent is going

(09:57):
up something like ninety percent, and there the city fathers
and the city mothers. The elected officials today indicated that
they wanted to look at other options, see if there
were other places to take the city. Now. Again, I
don't know if this is just negotiating or not. The
county put out a press release today explaining that in

(10:18):
their mind this is kind of a bargain for this.
They didn't use the word bargain, that's my characterization of
the press release. They're just explaining the county saying that
they've been undercharging the city. That's not a word that.
Let's see, let me use the exact wording here. Let's

(10:41):
see the county. In their statement, the county says, in
twenty twenty, the county commissioned an independent cost allocation study
on Government Plaza. That study determined that the true cost
to operate and maintain the building was fifteen dollars and
eleven cents per square foot when the current five year
lease when the city took effect in twenty twenty one,

(11:03):
the county agreed to charge the city only eleven dollars
and twenty three cents per square foot for the first year,
which is below that calculated cost, and by the end
of fiscal year twenty twenty one, actual costs were already
two years higher than what the city was paying. The
county says the county was subsidizing the city's occupancy of

(11:26):
Government Applaza by over five hundred thousand dollars, they go
on to The county goes on to say, over the
life of the five year lease, this has resulted in
the county subsidizing more than five million dollars in rental
costs for the city to occupy all this space. Now,
the city i don't know that they would buy into

(11:47):
this or not, but you're hearing the county is claiming
that they haven't charged enough, and the city feels like
they're being charged way too much. So I already shared
with you what young Mayor Spiro said. The mayor says
he is going to work on a good deal for
the city and he's looking at all options. Now, there

(12:09):
are council members that wanted to weigh in on this,
and that kind of that surprised me. Let's listen in
the order that they spoke. Here is District six, Josh Woods,
Josh Woo, Jock.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
I mean, I did did want to come ind the mayor.
I know obviously the comments are made regarding the tenant
status of the City of Mobile. I'm I do want
to commend you. I definitely like the ideas that you
have as far as the potential for looking other places.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Likes the idea of the potential for looking at other places.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
You know, District six, we're we're out, we're out west,
and you know, a lot of times to do business
with the City of Mobile takes an effort or extra effort,
so you know, definitely exploring what what the city looks
like as far.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
It is, it is how convenient is it for the
average City of Mobile taxpayer to have all these government
entities right down there close to the waterfront. How convenient
is it for the average City of Mobile taxpayer.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
Whereas where we where we call home to offices and apartments.
I think that's a very fair thing to take a
look at. And I do want to say a misnomer
that I did see just across social media, because we
know everything on social media is true, a misnomer that
the city withheld paying the county for ren do the
financial state of the city, that that's absolutely absurd. That

(13:49):
was a you know, from my understanding, that was the
potential to bring people to the table. People are at
the table now. I'm so glad that we could bring
bring people there and also bring the table. But I'm
definitely appreciate you, uh looking at that on me.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Now we're almost done with Josh Woods. Josh I'm pausing
here just to let you know he's about to tell
us that he is a council member Mobile City Council
and Josh Woods, his office in Government Plaza does have
a leak, so they are paying rent on Leakey offices.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
Again, the citymobiles in great financial state thanks to stewardship
of councils and mayors before before us. So I did
just want to touch touch base of that. Thank you
again for exploring options or being willing to explore options
to take a look and definitely as we walk through
this or as you walk through this on the District's
six council office, and I'm still got that leak.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
So District six council office still has a leak.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
I don't know how much of a ceilingtile costs, but
that that could be a cost savings for the county
if they just fixed the refs.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Thank you all right, So there's so the roof to see.
I thought the roof had been resolved after years and
years and years and years and years of it leaking,
of it leaking before it even opened up, before they
even took possession of that building, it was leaking. It's
still leaking. Is there no better? Is there? Just curious?

(15:20):
Isn't there a more convenient place for city offices than
down there? For the average citizen, for the average mobile taxpayer,
how convenient is it for them if they have to
go and interact with the city government to go all
the way down there. So those were the comments from

(15:41):
Councilman Josh Woods, Jock wool and after he talked, then
Ben Reynolds jumped in on this.

Speaker 6 (15:52):
President. I was disappointing to see on the County Commission
meeting that they sort of aired this negotiation out and hey,
it's you know, the city likely should have been paying
one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars or whatever the
old payment amount was. I think they probably should have
been paying that amount. But to accept this ninety percent
increase in rent with your biggest tenant, I think there's

(16:15):
other options out there for us, actually better options I
think could be out there for us. I think that's
probably not the best way to go about it. So
I've asked that the city not enter into any long
term deal with the county. I've also asked that we
explore other options to move our city operation closer to

(16:36):
the city center. I think we'll all benefit from that.
Also ask for the city to take inventory of the
amount of space we're using here in Government Plaza see
if there's an opportunity to consolidate our current use of
this building. And I understand the County has substantial operating
costs for this building. Understand that just because those operational

(17:00):
costs hire does not mean that this real estate is
the best real estate for the citizens of Mobile. And
so I look forward to the discussion. I know we
got a great new leader in the Mayor's office who's
going to be digging into it along with his team,
and hopefully we'll get this thing resolved sooner that rather
than later. Thank you, mister President. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Count some runolds, all right, So that's Josh Woods and
Ben Reynolds. Both sound like they're on board with moving
the city offices somewhere, or at least on board with
helping with these negotiations. It is the Uncle Henry Show

(17:59):
here on News Radio seven ten WNTM. You can also
hear me on FF Radio. I'm on ninety five KSJ
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Today's Hottest Country on ninety five KSJ. Listen to me
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(18:22):
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win them tickets Tomorrow be listening to ninety five KSJ
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(18:43):
right around ten fifteen, right around ten to fifteen tomorrow
morning on ninety five KSJ. And if you want more
info in the Drake White concert, you can go to
soul Kitchenmobile dot com. That's Soulekitchenmobile dot com. Now, if
you had just tuned in due to your lack initiative
or your lack of interest, been covering today's Mobile City
Council meeting, a lengthy talk about the dispute between the

(19:10):
city and the county over how much rent the City
of Mobile is paying for that horrible building government plaza.
The city revealing that the county has gone up on
their rent by like ninety percent. City doesn't want to
pay that increased rent. Meanwhile, the county came out with

(19:30):
a press release today claiming that this that the city
really isn't paying what they should, that they're having to subsidize.
They use the word subsidize the county, saying the subsidize
in the city by having them ain there in government plaza.
So you had Mayor Spiro saying that he was going
to continue to negotiate and look at all options. And

(19:53):
after he made that statement, other council people were jumping
in saying, hey, we're all in favor of you looking
at the other options. We heard Josh Woods talk about it,
we heard District four councilmen Ben Reynolds talk about it.
Now a little bit more on this for you. Here

(20:13):
are some brief comments from Corey Pen Mobile City Councilman
Corey Pen on this topic.

Speaker 7 (20:23):
President, I just want to join in with my colleagues
speaking about the our lease agreement right here with the
city and county at a ninety percent increase. I'm requesting
that we look at other options.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Want to look at other options.

Speaker 7 (20:40):
When you think about District one, we can love to
use an extra million dollars to be able to provide
service and opportunities, and I don't think paying three million
dollars should be the option, and so I'm requesting that
we look at different options. Even to the point is
that our city, it's different from most major cities where

(21:04):
our downtown is located on the east east of the
city and we go in the father will be in
the bay, right, and so we understand that maybe being
centralized might be a better option, and so we should
look at other options.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
All right, So should look at other options. What a
wonderful Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not believing for
a minute the city's moving out of there. But it's
fun to think about. It's fun to think about. Now,
should they move out of there? Maybe they should let
them do the math and figure it out. But is

(21:41):
it convenient? Has that been a convenience for the average
Mobile resident and taxpayer to have to go down to
government Plaza when you want to interact with the City
of Mobile? Has it been convenient? Two five to one

(22:02):
or seven nine two seven two three the telephone number
here on the Uncle Henry Show, Hello color.

Speaker 8 (22:07):
Hey Uncle Henry, napco Bill nav.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Coo Bill, you are alive on the radio?

Speaker 8 (22:12):
Hey, Uncle Henry. I hadn't been back in town that long,
it's probably been about five years now, But really never
knew that the county government was located in the city.
Should they be like located out in the county.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Well, I've always you know, I you know, I'm not
a bright guy, as everyone listening is aware, and I've
often looked at a map of Mobile County and I thought,
why on earth would the county want to be down there?
Why wouldn't the county want to want their building to
be somewhere near Airport and Chillinger, somewhere more centrally located

(22:51):
for the entire county.

Speaker 8 (22:53):
Exactly exactly more esentally located. But on the other hand, now,
I do not agree with these policies, and I'm about
the state. I really hate them. But I'll be like
New York and Chicago where they have things like quote
unquote rent control. Yeah, I don't see why the city

(23:14):
council and young Mayor Spiro couldn't pass like a quick
city ordinance of rent control on that one building.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Damn.

Speaker 8 (23:24):
In that case, I don't have a problem with it.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, that would be that would be another fun move
to see happen here.

Speaker 8 (23:34):
Okay, Well, hey, I'm glad you're back from vacation. I
hope you had a great time, and I'll keep on listening.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Hey, thank Navcobell. Thank you very much, appreciate that and
great to hear from you. Yeah, what were so you
have these young council people they're young to me. Maybe
not to you, but they're young to me. We have
these young council people in there. We have a young mayor,
young mayor Spiro. So this is kind of a generational
shift and a new generation comes in. They want to

(24:04):
have their own ideas, and so maybe they're looking they're
going to examine should should the city be in that
building or not? And I, uh, I'm gonna go ahead
and say I trust that they'll make a good decision
on this, that they'll look at all the numbers and
try and figure out what all the costs would be
if they decided to move and hidden costs. Would it

(24:25):
be good, would it be good for downtown? Would it
free up a lot of parking for downtown if the
city were not down in the County building? And see,
one of the reasons it's so easy and delightful to

(24:45):
think about the city moving into that building is it's
never That building is never. It's been in terrible condition.
It's leaked from day one. Now you may not remember,
but I remember when they built the thing. You could
not find any body that wanted to publicly say that
they liked the way it looked. Now you're used to it.

(25:06):
Now you're used to seeing Government Plaza now it's been
there for all those years. I remember when they built it.
It was a punchline for a couple of years, just
because of the design of it. If you think about
what mobile is about the history of the town, the
history of our architecture, all of the incredible history of

(25:31):
this area, all the different countries that have had flags
flying over this town. You think about all that history,
and then you look at that building and you think,
what were they thinking? How does that possibly fit into anything?
When they built it, it looked like somewhere that UFOs

(25:54):
would land and doe. It looked like some type of
docking station for UFOs what it looked like. So anyway, well,
we'll just have to see where this goes. But it
has been it has been fun for me as a
citizen to watch the negotiations start publicly. In fact, the

(26:18):
lan Yapster make sure that you read lan Yap's coverage
of this, because they interviewed Mayor Spiro Young. Mayor Spiro
told Lanyap, I think he said that he was He
had worked with a county attorney and a county commissioner
for a couple of days in a row. They've been
traveling or something, and they had never brought this up.

(26:41):
Even though even though they were coming out with this
this uh, this discussion at the Mobile County Commission meeting
yesterday and decided to be public with the fact that
the city's not not paying the rent, they never brought
it up to Mayor Spiro, even though they were around
him for a couple of days in a row. Well,

(27:02):
I'm enjoying this is all this. I would remind all
of the people knew, if you're new at city Hall,
if you're a new politician down there, a new council
member or a mayor, be as courteous as possible right

(27:23):
now in these negotiations, because this is the kind of
stuff that the other side is going to remember for many,
many years. To come back with more.

Speaker 9 (27:33):
After the break, it's.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Five point fifty News Radio seven ten WNTM, The Uncle
Henry Show. We have news headlines coming up and then
more Uncle Henry Show. Now I've been giving you some
coverage here of the Mobile City Council meeting. Now that

(28:15):
the entire meeting was not just about the city and
the county fighting over the lease that keeps the city
of Mobile in that awful building Government Plaza. There was
something else I wanted to share with you that that
young Mayor Spirou mentioned, and this is the completion of

(28:37):
the McGregor Avenue project. Now you may not remember this,
but there used to be a time where you could,
But it used to be the Azella Road would cross
Airport Boulevard and become MacGregor Avenue and go all the
way up into spring Hill. You could get to Dauphin Street.
Yes you could. I know you don't remember this, but

(29:00):
once upon a time you could be driving west on
Airport Boulevard and take a right turn on McGregor and
make it to Dauphin Street. I know that's a shock,
but that's the way it used to be. And then
the City of Mobile did one of their multi year
projects where people are born and die and civilizations are

(29:21):
raised up and fall during the during the process of
doing some road repair. And so Thursday, the City of
Mobile is going to reopen McGregor Avenue. After all these years,
here is young Mayor Spiro talking about the reopening of
MacGregor Avenue.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
I do want to wish everyone to marry Christmas, you know,
I and the councilor are celebrating this time of year
with some of our clothing. I've got my old Frosty
the Snowman tie on today, so I want to wish
everyone here at Merry Christmas. And I'm excited to announce
I hope you see this as a gift from the
city to you that we were finally reopening South McGregor

(30:01):
Avenue and it will reopen to traffic this week, starting
on December eleventh, after more than two years of construction.
We're going to host a ribbon cutting at eight thirty
am this Thursday morning. The road will reopen shortly there afterward,
and we'll be sharing some additional details soon. I know
this project was disruptive to many. My daughter thinks it's

(30:25):
been closed for ten years. I told her, no, honey,
you're only eight, so how would you know. But this
project does represent a twenty five million dollar investment and
a thirty year effort to modernize.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
And a thirty year effort. So I need to find
a road builder that can come in here and explain
to me why does it take so long to do
any kind of infrastructure project. Now in our country, they
were talking about this for.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
Thirty years man this critical corridor here in Mobile, which
is McGregor Avenue. I'm excited for everyone to see the
finished product. It's frankly beautiful. It looks great, and I
think it's going to be very functional and create a
safer environment there at that traffic intersection. But I'm most
excited that it's going to open that corridor back up

(31:13):
for everybody who, like me, will be doing that last
minute Christmas shopping getting to our shops that are there
along McGregor Avenue. And I hope you will all come
out with me on Thursday morning at eight thirty to
celebrate the reopening of this very important corridor.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Okay, a celebration of reopening the road, all right. The
road needed to be repaired and all this kind of
stuff and modernized and fixed up. And you heard the
description there millions of dollars years of planning. Now I've

(31:50):
got a personal opinion about this. This will be unpopular.
You will not agree with me on this.

Speaker 8 (31:54):
Personal opinion time, Personal opinion time, personal opinion time.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Not agree with me on this, but I have to
express my personal opinion on this. I don't like it.
I like when roads are paved. I like it when
roads are built. I like that. I love infrastructure. It's
my favorite thing. When it comes to a city, I
don't like when the city repairs a road or revamps

(32:23):
a road and then they hold some type of celebration
for it. And the reason I don't like that is
because they're doing their job. Now, when you do your
job at the end of the day, is there a
party where they say, hey, congratually, you did your job,

(32:45):
let's have a party. They don't do that. This is
people doing their job. It was the job of the
elected officials to make sure that the roads are in
good condition. That's their job. Everybody that worked on that road,
that's their job. They were paid, they're paid for it.

(33:12):
So you're gonna get congratulated and the people they'll they'll
be giving speeches praising people. You know, when I'm done
with this show and I'm ready to walk out of here,
there's not going to be a group assembled to thank
me for doing the job and wanting to pop a

(33:35):
cork on something and somebody give a speech about what
great job I did. You don't need all that. You
don't look, you don't need to thank nobody or congratulate nobody.
You just need to open the dadgum road that we
all paid for. That's all you need to do, because

(33:59):
all you did was your job.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
H