Earlier this week, U.S. News and World Report ranked Huntsville No. 1 in the outlet’s 2022-2023 edition of “Best Places to Live in the United States.”
Alabama’s Rocket city moved up to No. 1 after being ranked third last year.
Wednesday, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle reacted to the news on WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show” and touted his city’s continuing success.
“It’s been a long journey getting to where we need to get to to make this work,” he said. “It been a long journey and it’s taken a lot of people. I mean, it’s taken the Dale Jacksons of the world, it’s taken the board of education, the Chamber of Commerces, the quality of life people, the art museums, and all the above and put them together — the amphitheater and AA baseball and all that. We’re very fortunate and honored to be listed in that number one spot.”
Battle took credit for being able to build a strong leadership team for Alabama’s most populous city.
“It’s working with the full team,” he continued, “getting a team together, making sure that we all know the direction that we’re going in, that we all have the same strategy and the same goals and that we have a plan, and I think more than anything that’s what a mayor’s job is.”
While Huntsville’s mayor praised the city’s accomplishments, he also emphasized that there was more work to do.
“We’ve tried to make sure that we can grow our infrastructure to keep up with the growth of our population,” he explained. “That’s key to what we’ve got to do. We’re finishing Restore Our Roads 1, and we’re working on Restore Our Roads 2. I’ve been down to see the governor and sat down with the director of the Alabama Department of Transportation working on the second package of roads.”
He also touched on the city’s effort to bring more good jobs to the area.
“We usually have 12 to 14 different jobs creation projects on the line,” he said. “Some are just doing inquiries, some we’re getting information to, some we’re kind of in negotiations with. So there’s always a number of them who are looking into making Huntsville and Madison county home.”
Battle shared his excitement to be ranked No. 1 but said it was already time to think about next year.
“That’s part of the process that you go through,” he said. “You celebrate for 24 hours and then you start working on the next group, and we’ll keep working in just the same way we’ve worked in the past 14 years.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
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