Tuesday by a 3-4 vote, the Mobile City Council voted against a proposal supported by Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson that would have given the University of South Alabama $10 million of taxpayer money over 20 years for a new on-campus football stadium.
The drama as to whether or not the city council would vote to fund the stadium played out over two months with Stimpson last week announcing that if the council did not vote to support the proposal by today, both he and University of South Alabama President Dr. Tony Waldrop would withdraw the proposal.
Voting in the affirmative were councilmembers Joel Daves, Fred Richardson and Gina Gregory, and voting against it were councilmembers CJ Small, Bess Rich, Levon Manzie and John Williams.
Stimpson’s goal was to have the University of South Alabama facility in West Mobile serve as a replacement for the aging Ladd-Peebles Stadium closer to Mobile’s downtown.
Stimpson expressed his disappointment with the council’s decision.
“I am disappointed with today’s decision,” Stimpson said in a statement following the vote. “It sends a message to the NFL that the City does not support the Senior Bowl. It leaves Ladd Stadium with zero funding to create a facility that meets the needs of the neighborhood and the four high school football teams that play there. It leaves the City with no plan to solve the $33 million maintenance issue. Ladd will now have to compete with every other public facility fighting for funding. Over the course of the next 10 years, the City will accumulate $225 million in maintenance costs. This window of opportunity is gone, but we will continue to have to make tough choices on how we fund our public facilities.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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