Mayor, council clash over federal relief money
Tensions flared Tuesday after Montgomery City Councilor Glen Pruitt again proposed dividing up federal relief money by council districts, prompting Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed to accuse Pruitt of trying to strip him of power and of backing out of a deal with the county.
"I want everybody in the public to hear this," Reed said. "It seems like there are some things that happen now that we've got a Black mayor that didn't happen before. I just want to call it out now. It seems like there's a willingness to gut the power of the mayor's office now."
"... Do you know exactly why I'm doing this? Because we've jerked these people around in Carriage Hills," Pruitt said.
The city and Montgomery County agreed nearly two years ago to combine their allocation of American Relief Plan Act money, forming a pool of about $85 million to tackle bigger projects. But the hoops required to allocate and spend the money has slowed the process and tested the patience of residents in need, culminating in a tense council meeting days before Christmas.
Residents of Carriage Hills told the council that a planned community center in their neighborhood could be life-changing and asked for a firm timeline of development. City building official Kippy Tate said the project started with inadequate architectural work and that his office shut down construction when they discovered the potential safety issues. He didn't give a timeline for its completion but said it would be prioritized along with other community center projects.
"We have put these people off and put these people off," Pruitt said. "I'm embarrassed."
Reed interjected to tell Pruitt that the mayor’s office has to be responsible for the whole city. "We told you this (community center) project would be completed and it would have your daughter's name on it. So we want to get to that. We talked about it, in private. We've made that commitment to you. But we also told you that we've heard from other elected officials in other communities that feel like you jumped the line, and we jumped the line."
More:Montgomery narrowly votes to stick with $85M ARPA plan after update
Reed said city officials must first finish a needs assessment. "Where should we start? What's in the worst condition? Where should we allocate the resources, and how should we go about doing that? That's how we're going to proceed," he said.
Representatives from the firm the city and county hired to manage the ARPA money, Levitate Legal, gave an update on the progress of several other projects city-wide. About $54 million has already been allocated to specific priorities, like rebuilding homes or creating mental health programs, they said. But any contracts would have to be approved by the council before the money is spent, and that hasn't happened yet.
Levitate Legal's Terri Reynolds cautioned that rushing through the process could prevent the city from getting any future federal funding.
Pruitt proposed splitting the money evenly among council districts then forming a three-person board of council members to execute contracts. Council President Pro Tem CC Calhoun and Councilor Oronde Mitchell blocked Pruitt's proposal from coming up for a vote, meaning it was carried over to the next meeting. But Pruitt's proposal appeared to have the support of the majority of council members. "I just think this is the wrong thing to do, splitting it nine ways," Calhoun said.
Councilor Audrey Graham said people in her district see a commitment to Madison Park but are being told "we'll circle back" to west Montgomery. "Give the people in Madison Park something. Don't take nothing from them, but don't make west Montgomery the afterthought. Give it to us, too."
Reed said taking a different path will only slow down the process and endanger future funding.
The City Council, the Montgomery County Commission and Reed planned to meet at 10 a.m. on Dec. 28 to talk about next steps. The meeting will be in County Commons, annex 1, at 100 South Lawrence St.
You can see more about the plan at montgomerythrive.org.
Brad Harper covers business and local government for the Montgomery Advertiser. Contact him at bharper1@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Mayor, council clash over federal relief money
