MONTGOMERY — Legislation that would annex an area of Cullman County by Smith Lake to establish a framework to attract a resort to the area passed the Senate Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Development committee on Wednesday.
Senate Bill 322 by State Sen. Jabo Waggoner (R-Vestavia Hills) and State Sen. Pro-Tem Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) describes a possible resort project including golf, restaurants, and other outdoor activities.
During the committee meeting, Gudger said the bill was related to a "particular project that could come."
"It's not for sure yet, but if it does, what this bill particularly does is sets up so that if it does come that, that community will be ready for it," Gudger said.
Gudger said the bill would "provide how the board of governors of this district is selected" and "allow for the district to be annexed into a wet city within the county by the petition of the board of governors and the approval of the city council."
"My stance on it has been the same on this is that if we have money that can be invested in Cullman County and our district, obviously all of us want to see that happen. If it creates jobs, we want to see that happen. If we can have a world class resort/conference center, obviously we want to see that happen. Anytime we can give money to the county school systems, obviously, we want to see that happen. Anytime we can enhance workforce development and training with our community college system, ours is Wallace State in Hanceville, we want to be able to see that happen instead of our talent being exported out of our county. There could be millions of dollars for our county commissioners on the road improvement if this particular bill passes and the particular bill comes together. Just so that everybody on the committee knows, just by passing this particular bill, does not mean that this project is coming. All we're doing is prepping ourselves to allow it to come and be successful if it comes within Cullman County," Gudger said.
The Cullman County Commission passed a resolution opposing the legislation on Tuesday.
Cullman County Commissioner Corey Freeman said at the Tuesday commission meeting, "This is going to affect whichever municipality tries to annex anywhere in the county on one of these development districts or whatever it is is going to suffer as well because that's more economic funding that they've got to come up with trying to do this out in that area."
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