There’s still an ongoing debate within the Montgomery City Council on whether to move forward with plans to borrow $375 million for a downtown convention center expansion and other city projects.
According to City officials, the proposed bond program would be used to pay borrowing fees and fund:
- Convention Center expansion
- Housing infrastructure improvements
- A new sports complex and amphitheater
- City facility and service enhancements
- Neighborhood improvement projects across Montgomery
According to the City's estimates, $200 million of the $375 million debt would go towards expanding the convention center.
A vote on the proposal was expected at a meeting last week, but it was delayed another two weeks, likely because there currently aren't five members on the council willing to vote for the plan.
Montgomery City Councilman Oronde Mitchell, who supports the proposal, told 1819 News recently he thinks the city council will eventually pass the bond measure.
“I think that we will be able to get the votes. You can do two things at once. I know a lot of people were saying, ‘public safety, public safety,’ but we are addressing public safety. We’re doing commercials. We’ve done incentives, we’ve done pay raises. We’re doing everything we possibly can to support the Montgomery Police Department,” Mitchell said. “A lot of people want to say that if we pass this bond that we won’t be able to hire 200 officers, but it has already been in the projected budget. We’ve already budgeted for 402 police officers for this upcoming fiscal year. The bond issue has no bearing on hiring police officers, hiring (in the) fire department.”
He continued, “I just feel that we can do multiple things pushing the city in the right direction. I hate that our young professionals are going to other places to find entertainment and spend their money after they get off.”
“The city is comprised of a lot of young professional people in the city of Montgomery, and that’s the first thing that they ask after they graduate from college, ‘Is this a place that I want to consider home?’ We are addressing the public safety issue. One homicide is one too many,” Mitchell said.
Montgomery City Councilman Glen Pruitt, who opposes the bond issue, told 1819 News, “My stance is that we’ve got other issues that we need to tackle.”
According to Pruitt, the City of Montgomery budgeted for 510 police officers and had 390 officers on staff in 2012. He said those totals have dropped in 2025 and 2026, with the City budgeting for 400 police officers and having around 230 officers on staff.
“The moral of the story is that we are in very good financial shape, but there is a reason for that. It’s that we are understaffed in almost every department at the city of Montgomery,” Pruitt said. “The moral of the story is that if we were staffed at full capacity on everything we were doing, got our trash trucks and we’ve got everything and we were providing city services that we should be providing, we could not afford to pick up another $25 million in bond payment on top of what we are paying today. We could not, period. We are understaffed, and that’s why we are in such great financial shape.”
He continued, “The Mayor is being honest. We are in great financial shape. We do have money in reserve. We have about $62 million, but there is a reason for that. We didn’t magically come up and find a way to give people great city services and put all this money in reserve. It’s an employee shortage, bottom line, and we’re not spending the money.”
“If we’re not spending the money in employee shortage, we’re not giving the services that we need to give and you see that all across the city whether it be writing tickets, whether it be enforcing our traffic laws, whether it be picking up our garbage on a daily basis, picking up the curbside, whether it be answering the 911 calls or 311 calls, we are not providing those city services, and if you look at the fallout in the budget, there’s a reason because everyone is understaffed,” Pruitt said.
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