The City of Hoover has between 400-500 employees who can be called First Responders.  These individuals worked selflessly during a very uncertain time in not only our city, but also in our country.  This included working non-stop in the for several weeks in 2020 due to protesters marching in the city.

Let’s give the First Responders a small token of our appreciation in the form of a $1,000 Bonus per First Responder just like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis did a few weeks ago for Florida’s First Responders.

The amount represents less than 2.5% of the surplus in YTD revenue.  In other words, we have it.  By the way, this is not the City Council’s money.  It’s not the Mayor’s money.  It’s money that belongs to the City of Hoover, or, in simpler terms, it belongs to us,  the residents, business owners, and other taxpayers.  Or, in really simple terms, those who benefit from the First Responders.    Yes, the mayor and Council did an exceptional job between March 2020 and April 2021 in keeping us afloat and not spending money on unnecessary things.  They were frugal, which is what they were supposed to do.  Now it’s time to take some of the fruits of that frugality and put it to use.  Trust me, it won’t break us.

The City of Hoover currently has an $18.1M surplus in Year To Date Revenue.

Please take a minute to send an e-mail to council@bluffparkal.org voicing your support of this small token of our appreciation for our First Responders.  This one e-mail address will get your e-mail to every Council member and to the mayor’s office.  Not having to look up each person’s e-mail address.  Just one address covers all of them.

Tell them that you appreciate them doing a great job over the last year, and tell them that you want the First Responders to be shown some appreciation in the form of some money.

If you’re on the fence about sending the e-mail, allow me to remind you of a couple of facts:

• Every candidate who was elected last year promised to not defund the police and support our public safety departments
• Police officers worked non-stop during the protests, often times in high heat and humidity, while having not only profanities shouted at them, but also having human waste hurled at them.  Yet they never complained.
• Firefighters and medics responded to every single call while putting their health and well-being at risk to what was then an unknown, yet potentially fatal virus.
• 911 Call Center First Responders continued to work in the most utmost professional manner during very difficult times.
• As a Hoover resident or business you and your family were kept safe and secure by our First Responders

So please take a minute of your time, open up your e-mail app, enter council@bluffparkal.org in the To: field and write the following:

Dear Mayor and Hoover City Councilor,

I am a Hoover resident and I support giving the Hoover First Responders a small token of our appreciation in the form of a $1,000 Pandemic Bonus.

Sincerely,

Your Name, and Address

Once you’ve done this, please share this post with your Hoover friends and neighbors, and encourage them to also send an e-mail.  It’s crucial that this be done before the June 3, 2021 City Council Work Session so that it can be put on the Agenda for the June 7 City Council meeting.   The mayor has to submit it and the Council has to approve it by at least a 4-3 vote.  Remember, those submitting and those approving vowed to support our public safety departments in the 2020 election.

This request will come as no surprise to the Council and Mayor Brocato.  On May 17, 2021 I addressed the Hoover City Council at their meeting during the Public Participation portion requesting that they provide our first responders with a Pandemic Bonus.    My comments to them can be read  following this post.  You can also view it online.  I’ve included it here:

I also included a letter to Mayor Brocato and to each Council member, plus gave a copy to the City Clerk so that it would included in the record of the meeting.

Thanks for taking the time to do this and the next time your see a First Responder, thank them for their service.

Here are my remarks to the Hoover City Council and to the mayor:

Mayor Frank Brocato
Council President John Lyda
Council President Pro Tem Curt Posey
Councilor Sam Swiney
Councilor Mike Shaw
Councilor Derrick Murphy
Councilor Casey Middlebrooks
Councilor Steve McClinton

Mayor Brocato, Councilors,

At this evening’s Hoover City Council meeting you passed Ordinance 6463-21, designating the 911 Telecommunicators in the City of Hoover as First Responders. Thank you for doing so. It’s long overdue.

At the April 29, 2021 Hoover City Council Work Session, Hoover CFO Tina Bolt gave a financial report to the Council. In this report she stated that the City of Hoover was enjoying a $18.1M Year To Date Surplus in the FY 2021 Budget Fund Balance.

Credit for this can only go to the fiscal responsibility that both the Mayor’s Office and the Council, both the current and the previous, exercised during the troubling times between March 2020 and April 2021. All those responsible should be commended and applauded for this incredible accomplishment.

During the summer months of 2020 and beyond, we also experienced a very troubling time in the city. We experienced civil unrest in the form of protests. For the first time in our lives and in the life if our city we experienced a curfew. For the first time in recent history we experienced lockdowns. And, for the first time in our lifetimes, we experienced a pandemic of historical proportions.

During these very difficult times one thing was constant. Our first responders. From the state-of-the-art 911 Call Center, to the fine men and women in Hoover PD and Hoover FD, all continued to work non-stop to keep our city safe.

Thanks to technology we were witness to our police officers taking verbal and physical abuse from protestors, often having human waste hurled at them while wearing protective gear that was certainly uncomfortable in the high heat and humidity of Alabama summers. Our firefighters and medics responded to calls that, at the time, could have put their lives in peril by an invisible virus. Yet, they continued to serve and protect as they had sworn to do, never voicing a complaint, never skipping a beat.

We the people of Hoover recognized that, especially during the election of 2020. Every one of you sitting in this room who were elected did so on a platform that promised to never defund the police, nor other public safety departments.

On May 6, 2021 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the State of Florida was giving all first responders a “Pandemic Bonus” of $1,000.00.

Gov. DeSantis said the following: “Supporting our law enforcement and first responders has been a top priority for my administration, and it has never been more important than over the last year. As a state, we are grateful for their continued service to our communities. This one-time bonus is a small token of appreciation, but we can never go far enough to express our gratitude for their selflessness.”

I hereby ask that the City of Hoover give each Hoover first responder, from Telecommunicators in the 911 Call Center, to police officers in the various beats of the city, to firefighters and medics, to correctional officers, a $1,000 Pandemic Bonus from the City of Hoover as a small token of our appreciation for the work they do.

This amount, which is about is between $400,000-500,000 represents less than 2.5% of the surplus that the City of Hoover is enjoying now.

I hope you will consider this and present it to our first responders following the first City Council meeting of June 2021, one year after the most difficult time of 2020 for them.

You vowed not to defund them. Now it’s time to fund them.

Respectfully Submitted,

Robin Schultz