Gadsden in line to receive $13 million in federal funding

Multiple visits to Washington, D.C., by Mayor Craig Ford and his staff are bearing financial fruit.

Ford revealed during Tuesday’s Gadsden City Council meetings (precouncil and regular) that the city is in line to receive some $13 million in federal funding through Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, and Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville.

The money is appropriations that Tuberville and Aderholt have committed to include in the next federal budget: $5 million for repairs and renovations to Memorial Bridge on Broad Street (Tuberville); $6.5 million for the U.S. Highway 411 Reroute, Planning and Construction Project, to complete planning, design and construction for rerouting part of the highway to create a commerce, entertainment and health care district and green space along the Coosa River (Aderholt); and $1.5 million for a mobile command center for the police department (Tuberville).

Those items would have to get through each house’s appropriations committee and into the final budget.

Ford said the mobile command center earmark came about when city officials were in the senator’s office one afternoon during a visit to Washington and asked if there were any questions that needed to be asked that they hadn’t asked.

“They asked us how our police department was, and I told them we had great employees but we ‘had nothing,’ ” he said. “They asked us if we needed a mobile command center and we said ‘Absolutely.’ ”

The earmark application deadline was 8 a.m. the next day, and Ford said his chief of staff, Brett Johnson, and Director of City Services Tena King, who oversees public safety, were “up all night” in consultation with Capt. Paul Cody of the police department getting it finished.

Ford said he and his staff have been to Washington four times and council members once since he took office in November. He said there’s been criticism of the travel, but that it “pays to stay in touch” with federal officials.

“They said it’s the first time we’ve been to D.C. in a long time to ask,” he added.