Last week, Alabama Department of Transportation Director John Cooper singled out two members of the Alabama House, State Reps. Brett Easterbrook (R-Fruitdale) and Andy Whitt (R-Harvest), for raising concerns about overdue road improvement projects in the House districts.
In an appearance at the Economic Development Association of Alabama’s Rural Development Conference, Cooper shrugged off his agency’s inability to improve those two roads, which included U.S. Highway 45 in Mobile and Washington Counties in Easterbrook’s district and Alabama Highway 53 in Madison and Limestone Counties in Whitt’s district.
Cooper said, “I’m sorry that I can’t fix it,” referring to one of the projects.
During an interview on Huntsville radio WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” State Sen. Tom Butler (R-Madison) pushed back against Cooper for his remarks regarding Alabama Highway 53, and insisted there was a movement underway in the legislature to set up a highway commission, which could strip Cooper of some of his decision-making power.
Portions of Alabama Highway 53 pass through Butler’s state senate district as the highway makes its way from Huntsville to Ardmore on the Alabama-Tennessee state line. Butler defended Whitt on the Alabama Highway 53 issue, noting that Whitt was voicing the concerns of his constituents.
“Andy is just being vocal, but he is representing people from his district, people in my district,” Butler said. “The fatalities that we’ve had on Highway 53 — it’s a very dangerous road — school buses, a whole mix of problems that can happen there. Andy is just vocalizing what he is hearing from the public. Mr. Cooper may be saying that’s he’s being barraged by Andy. But I guarantee you, there’s 139 others out there that’s got projects in their district that have been pending a long time, too. I think some people are so irate right now that they’re looking at introducing a bill to set up a highway commission. And that’s where the governor would appoint commissioners from each congressional district.”
Butler also noted the Alabama legislature passed the Rebuild Alabama Act nearly a year ago, which generates funding for such projects.
“I can understand the problems — the money,” he continued. “The money is there. We voted for that. We got an accountability bill that was passed, and that act mandates that every 90 days, we get an update. And to me, Representative Whitt is doing a good job. He’s vocalizing what he’s hearing. I hear the same thing. I don’t know how Mr. Cooper took that — as trying to talk down to Andy or whatever. But Andy has been like a bulldog on him. He’s got a hold of him, and he’s going to shake until he gets something out of it.”
The Madison County Republican suggested it could be Cooper’s engineering mindset at work that sets up the current scenario. Butler said he would go directly to Gov. Kay Ivey, who appoints the ALDOT director, to voice his concerns.
“Something needs to happen,” Butler said. “You’ve got a lot of engineers. I’ve dealt with engineers. We’ve got engineers all over — probably more per capita in this district right here. But engineers have a set way of doing business. Once they lay out a plan, they know it’s right. They don’t want any questions about it because it’s right. I think John Cooper, being an engineer, has got that same mindset. And he’s got people underneath him that tell him the way regulations are written and what he can do and what he can’t do. I’ve got some concerns that I’m working on right now that, quite frankly, I’m going to take to the governor in the next two weeks.”
Butler also urged Cooper not to take his criticisms personally.
“He may be taking it personally,” he said. “He should not take it personally. He’s got to understand this is a political process where our bosses — that’s the people living in our districts that are constituents are telling us what the needs are. Here in this region up here, particularly the three counties we got here: Limestone, Morgan and Madison Counties have pending road projects that have been pending. Now we’re compounding that with floods of thousands of people moving in for jobs.”
Butler cited job growth on Redstone Arsenal and the surge in home building, noting the heavy traffic on U.S. Highway 72 between Athens and Huntsville, as well.
“We put the money in place,” he added. “We’ve got the accountability issue there now. We’re looking for asphalt and concrete to come down to alleviate some of the traffic concerns that we have. So, it’s not a personal thing. It’s just a business thing. We’re doing the job that the public has told us to do and has sent us there to do. We’re vocalizing what the public is saying. And that is our job.”
As for the possibility of retribution from Cooper’s ALDOT, Butler said it would not be unprecedented. However, he urged Cooper to remain faithful to five-year plans.
“There’s been retribution before,” Butler said. “It’s been documented. We’ve got situations here, across the state that have been documented where somebody didn’t vote right or whatever, and suddenly they pull road projects. When we lay out a five-year plan, it needs to be a five-year plan. That’s what this accountability act on highways is supposed to do is make sure projects in a five-year plan get done within that time before you back-up, add new projects, or change them out. You do one project until it is done, then move on.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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