Todd Strange addresses friends and supporters at his mayoral victory party last Tuesday.
March 17, 2009
Police, budgets top Strange's to-do list
By Jill Nolin
It's been a week since Todd Strange won Montgomery's special mayoral election with 53 percent of the votes. On Monday, he'll be sworn in as mayor, filling the position left vacant when former Mayor Bobby Bright was elected to Congress.
Strange, who also will resign from his position on the Montgomery County Commission on Monday, took a few minutes to share his thoughts on the state of Montgomery and what residents can expect to see from him in the coming weeks and months.
Q During your campaign, you said you would make crime your top priority and that you would hire more officers, increase patrols and create more substations. Which of these will we see first and when can we expect to see them?
A Chief Art Baylor and I have talked about strategically looking at two or three of these substation locations around the city to see where we'd get the biggest bang for our buck. I asked him to call the people in Huntsville, who have done this for the last eight or 10 years, to get a better understanding of the situation.
There is stimulus money for police officers. That's a three-year stimulus money. I've asked him to go ahead and apply for all the stimulus money we can get, so that we can use that money to do some additional hiring. And then we'll figure out what we can do in three years on that. That's 20 more officers or something like that.
But these will not be precincts as much as substations within the precincts that we have there. Of course, we just have to evaluate that as we go. But I suspect we'll see in the fairly near term some of the substations. ... Maybe we'll start out with two or three, see how it works, and as soon as the stimulus money becomes available to us -- and I'm not exactly sure what the timing is, but it's probably some time in early summer -- we will begin that process, if we're successful in finding the grant (stimulus money). If not, we need figure out how to find a million bucks.
What if we don't get the stimulus money?
Then we'll have to do some prioritization, and see if we can't find some money to hire some additional officers. ... It's a priority for us. During the campaign we did a lot of polling and that, by far, is the thing on everybody's mind.
The reality is that crime is down. But it's a different kind of crime. We need to address the reality but also need to address the perception.
You have said that you anticipate that about $20 million in expenditures will have to be cut from the 2010 budget. How will you do this?
Just so you understand where the $20 (million) comes from. ... We used $14 million (reserves to balance the budget). We're probably going to be $2 million or $3 million short (in revenues). In order for us to generate some additional reserves, that's how I get to the $20 million.
Ad valorem tax receipts are up because of new properties being put on, but with no increase in millage. There are some monies in a corrections fund that I need to understand, but there's about $5 million there that we could probably figure out how to use in law enforcement that would free up other monies.
We will have to make some hard choices on prioritization on what we fund now. You know you're going to fund essential services. You know you're going to fund your educational obligations and your debt service. Then everything else that's on the table you're probably going to have to look at -- and you might have to take 10 percent out, you may have to reduce travel budgets, you may have to defer equipment purchases.
I'm meeting with (the finance director) to get a better understanding of what the 2 percent budget cut will get us and what the candidates might be for a $20 million (cut). And I'll ask him to get the department heads and begin to focus on the 2010 budget.
I might ask some of our accounting firms to lend us some of their good minds to help us look at that. And maybe even go to what we call a zero-based budget and budget functionality, and from that, build it up.
Traditionally, government looks at, "Well, we spent $227 million this year. Let's only spend $220 million. Or let's cut it 2 percent or let's add 2 percent." The reality is you may not need $220 million as a budget. So you go in and start at baseline one. We'll probably spend the summer doing that.
How do you go about hiring more officers while cutting the budget?
The stimulus money is obviously our first game plan. If that comes in, we'll use that to the extent that we can. If not, we're going to figure out where we can find some of that money. Maybe it's not $20 million. Maybe it's $19 million. Maybe it's $18 million.
How many people have asked you for a job in the past two months?
A ton, but the reality is there are only six appointments that the mayor actually gets. One of those is Michael Briddell. You've got the police chief, the fire chief, lawyer, finance (director) and sanitation (director). And those are filled. I'm assuming they do a decent job, but I don't really know. We'll have to work through that.
(Note: The mayor also gets another two appointments for directors of maintenance and of parks and recreation. The other executive mayoral assistant, Jeff Downes, is a merit system employee who was employed through a competitive process.)
It appeared that you were able to keep race from becoming a factor in the special election. How was this possible, and what do you intend to do to make sure that tone carries over into your administration?
Well, each of the six candidates had a lot to do with it. It was never an issue. We had three black candidates, and we had three white candidates running. Personally, we worked all sides of the equations. Reaching out to everyone. To get 53 percent, I don't think of it as a mandate, but it does say to me that majority of the citizens feel like I can reach across. I've done that all my life.
Some members of the public seem to think your administration will be part two of the Emory Folmar administration. What do you think they mean by this? and what is your response to this concern?
I don't know what they mean by that. I know during the campaign people talked about that. There were some fliers that suggested that.
I don't resent that. Emory Folmar had a lot of strengths, and he did a very good job on the fiscal conservative side of the equation. That's the discipline you have to have today. I think we will add -- to the extent we can financially -- to the services to the community ... the cultural, the faith-based situations. From that perspective, I just think it's an incorrect assessment, and I would ask that they wait six months and make an assessment at that point in time.
What will be your first changes after you take office?
Reorganization of the city functions and departments and reporting relationships. Try to delegate to specific (people) the administration of the city and not have everything just centered in the mayor's office. (Note: Strange said this would be done his first few weeks in office).
What does you being mayor mean for the relationship between Montgomery County and the city of Montgomery?
I think it's very positive. I was telling somebody, I know where the bones are buried. We've begun a very healthy, cooperative relationship. But not only with the city and county, but with the Board of Education and the local delegation (state representatives and senators).
We will also establish within the mayor's office a City Council liaison, if you will, so we can make sure the City Council members are fully informed and they have input on everything we do -- particularly as it relates to their district.
Also, between the city of Montgomery and the town of Pike Road?
(Pike Road Mayor) Gordon Stone and I have met. We agree that it's healthy for both of us to be successful. We are the job engine. Pike Road is not a ton different than a Prattville, although it is in the county. We will probably try to get around a table and see if we can agree on some boundaries, if you will, and get out of court.
What happens next for west Montgomery under your administration?
We're going to focus some resources, particularly stimulus resources, to be able to do some neighborhood stabilization and revitalization. Try to work with faith-based activities that are already there and see if we can't find them some federal assistance and see if we can expand that, rather than doing a house over there and a house over there. Try to identify a block and try clean up that block and do whatever we need to do. Take Rev. Ed Nettles' Enough is a Enough campaign and spread it out further.
We will create a faith-based coordinating council. There are a lot of activities done by African-American and white churches, and they're doing good things, but there's a lot of overlap and duplication of actions. If you have a coordinating council -- not a control council, but a coordinating council -- you get a good conversation going between the various activities.
Most of the candidates, including you, discussed the possibility of lowering sales taxes so that consumers did not have an incentive to make purchases outside the city. If they should be lowered, how much should they be lowered, and do you believe it should be after the economic downturn or during it?
The game plan is not raising taxes but to stimulate the economy in such a fashion that we would have more revenues than what the budget is. You've got to have budget discipline
We've (the County Commission) asked the city if they would be willing to match (a sales tax rate reduction) from 10 percent to 9 percent. For whatever reason, they didn't want to do that.
If you can stimulate the economy and we get, say, a $12 million number between the city and the county, then maybe you take the first step and go to 9.5 or 9.75 percent. You have to start somewhere.
What changes do you believe people will see between your administration and the Bright administration?
It's a management style. It's just a different management style. ... I think that we'll have a better relationship with our local delegation, with the county. We will look for joint funding opportunities. Everybody asked about metro government during the campaign, and I've always said that if you had a blank sheet of paper, you could get there.
But you cannot get there today, but there are some functionalities that you can bring together, and we'll probably look for those opportunities as we move forward.
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