State of the City 2014

The City of Homewood continues to be blessed. In January, I had the opportunity to present my Annual State of the City Address at The Club. I thought you might find some of the things I discussed interesting, so I wanted to recap some statistics from the past year and write about some upcoming projects. 

I’m pleased to announce that since becoming mayor, our city has finished with a surplus for the fifth year in a row. This year, we are projecting a surplus of $286,000 once our audit is completed. Our city has total surpluses over the past five years of $5,349,369, averaging more than $1 million per year. Our Rainy Day Fund has increased to more than $10.7 million, our Public Investment Account contains just over $7 million, and our Debt Service Account contains is just under $11.4 million, bringing total cash on hand to nearly $52 million. 

Our fire department received 3,470 calls this past year. Of those calls, 109 were structure fires, and 2,213 required our Emergency Medical Services. I thought it was interesting that our busiest times of the day are 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. Our busiest month was September, followed by July, and January and February were our slowest months. Our firemen responded to Somerby 265 times last year, making it the most frequent response location in the city.

Our police department received 33,904 calls this past year. That is an incredible number, but they answered the calls. Our police department stopped 10,912 cars last year for various reasons, resulting in 6,889 tickets. That number represents a 23 percent increase in stops and an 8 percent increase in tickets. I expect that number to continue to increase until we gain the reputation of not tolerating speeding in our neighborhoods. Our police and detectives have done a great job this year, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for the protection and service they provide.

I don’t have room in this article to specifically mention all the statistics from every department, but I want to say how proud I am of every department we have and all the employees who work so hard. It’s easy to be a city and really easy to be an average city, but it takes a great deal of effort, dedication and determination to be a city above average —and that’s exactly what we are because of a lot of employees, residents, businesses and visitors all working together.

The City of Homewood’s future is bright. We expect this year to bring more positive change. The new Sears Outlet located in Wildwood will be opening soon, University Park Healthcare (a 66-bed skilled nursing facility) is currently under construction, DSW Shoes opens in 2014, our new Homewood Recreation Center is under construction and currently on time, and the project site work has already begun on the new Brock School of Business at Samford University. 

I appreciate so much the opportunity you give me to serve as your mayor and thank each of you for all you’ve done this past year to help make Homewood successful. Now, let’s get out and have another great year!