Mayor’s Minute

As we enter summer, there are several signs of progress along the Highway 31 corridor.

First and foremost, we are gaining momentum with the new City Hall campus. Last month, Williams Blackstock Architects completed the design for this new facility, and we are beginning to work closely with B.L. Harbert International, the construction managers who will oversee the project.

Across the street, plans are coming together for a new 34,000-square-foot retail space to occupy the property formerly used by Pizza Hut and Ruby Tuesday. More details on this will be released in the coming months.

In addition, the City has sold the former Vestavia Hills Public Library property to America’s First Federal Credit Union. As we learn more about the timeline and details for their development plans for the space, we will share that information with you.

In other news, we have initial utilization numbers to share from the City’s new service for automobile tag renewals, which began April 1. During the month of April, we processed 818 renewals. During the first two weeks of May, we completed 259.

This service is just one recent example of initiatives we offer to help make Vestavia Hills a great place to live. Periodically, we contract with an outside survey group, ETC Institute, to conduct an impartial assessment of our services, and how you, our constituents, perceive the value we provide.

In the first quarter of 2014, we conducted one such survey. The results were shared during the May 15 Council meeting and are also available to residents via the City’s website, vhal.org.

While responses overall were very positive, and though we saw several areas with significant improvement since our last survey, conducted in 2011, we do know there are areas where we need to improve. In particular, programming and the overall appearance of our park and recreation facilities and City street maintenance. For these and other areas where our scores indicate room to grow, we will focus on making measurable improvements that our residents can see and value.

In other City news, there is an emerging issue pertaining to food trucks requiring ordinance attention in our community, and that pertains to food trucks. It is no surprise that they have found favor in Vestavia Hills, given the explosive popularity in the City of Birmingham and other areas.

Residents in Cahaba Heights have discovered Meal’s on Wheels, and others have found a crawfish food truck operating in the former Vestavia Motor Lodge lot. These are two examples of many. We’ve been contacted by several others seeking licenses to operate in Vestavia Hills.

Our objective is to create an ordinance that will permit the food trucks to serve their offerings in our community while not being disruptive. To that end, City Manager Jeff Downes has created a committee to develop the ordinance. The committee is taking lessons learned from the City of Birmingham, and working to develop an ordinance that is substantial without being too restrictive. We expect the ordinance to be presented to the Council and approved by the end of June.

As always, please contact my office if you have any concerns. We look forward to celebrating a healthy, happy summer with you.

Your Mayor,

Alberto C. Zaragoza