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Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover's chief financial officer, Jennifer Cornett, talks to the Hoover City Council about a proposal to divert some of the funds desginated for a performing arts center to critical sewer system needs during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover Councilman Derrick Murphy talks about a way to quickly restore funding being pulled from a performing arts center to cover critical sewer system needs during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover's chief financial officer, Jennifer Cornett, talks to the Hoover City Council about a proposal to divert some of the funds desginated for a performing arts center to critical sewer system needs during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover City Council members listen to Chief Financial Officer Jennifer Cornett during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025. From left are Councilman Derrick Murphy, John Lyda and Curt Posey.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato talks to the Hoover City Council about his desire to temporarily divert some of the funds designated for a performing arts center to critical sewer system needs during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Artist Liz Lane talks to the Hoover City Council about the importance of funding a performing arts center during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
The Hoover City Council on Monday night voted 6-1 to divert $6.1 million from money set aside for a performing arts center to cover critical and urgent needs in the city’s sewer system that serves Riverchase, Inverness and Southlake.
However, with arts groups and supporters protesting the removal of the money, several council members vowed to quickly restore the full $17 million that had been set aside for the arts center from $93 million the city borrowed two years ago for three big projects.
“We need to pull it from reserves. We’ve got $69 million in reserves,” Councilman Derrick Murphy said. “We’ve got a healthy reserve. We’ve got a six-month reserve.”
The problem is that the City Council in June 2022 passed a resolution that the city must maintain six months’ worth of expenses in the city’s reserve fund in case of an emergency. Murphy and council members Casey Middlebrooks and Khristi Driver all said the council should revisit that policy and amend it.
“$69 million is an awful lot to hold onto,” Driver said.
Middlebrooks said cities typically try to maintain about three months’ worth of expenses in reserves. He commends the six-month policy the council put in place nearly three years ago, but it may be too much, he said. About 4½ or five months may be a happy medium, he said.
He asked the city’s chief financial officer, Jennifer Cornett, if she could make a recommendation to the council, and Cornett said she could.
Murphy asked Cornett to come up with a recommendation by the council’s next regularly scheduled meeting on April 21 to reduce the required amount for the reserve fund so the council can fully restore the $17 million that had been set aside for the performing arts center.
Murphy, Middlebrooks, Driver and Councilman Curt Posey all spoke about the importance of honoring promises made to dedicate $17 million of that borrowed money for the performing arts center.
The wording in the warrant issue allows the city to spend the money on other capital needs, but “I still hold to the count that a handshake is as good as a legal document,” Middlebrooks said. “I’m only as good as my word.”
It’s not a matter of having to choose between a performing arts center and critical sewer system needs, Middlebrooks said.
“We have the funds to maintain our infrastructure and to grow our arts in the city,” he said. “It’s just a matter of if we use them.”
Mayor Frank Brocato said he thinks most all officials are in agreement that the performing arts center needs the full $17 million restored quickly, but only the council has the authority to amend its reserve fund policy.
Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato talks to the Hoover City Council about his desire to temporarily divert some of the funds designated for a performing arts center to critical sewer system needs during a council meeting on Monday, April 7, 2025.
He also noted that a performing arts center likely will cost at least $45 million. The $17 million figure was the amount the city thought it needed when the plan was to put the arts center in modified and leased space in the Patton Creek shopping center, but that plan fell through, he said.
Building a performing arts center from scratch will cost a lot more, but the $17 million is a good starting place, and that money should be dedicated for that purpose, he said.
Councilman Steve McClinton, who was the only council member to vote against diverting the money to the sewer system repairs, asked why the council wasn’t informed earlier that the sewer system was in dire need of repair. Brocato said all city officials were given updates that the sewer system actually has about $25 million worth of maintenance that has been deferred. They’ve had discussions about possibly selling the system, but he has gotten no direction on what the council wants to do with the sewer system — repair it or sell it, he said.
Lyda said the council has known about the $25 million in needed maintenance for three years, but $6 million worth of those projects have become more urgent as time passed. He asked whether the council was going to continue to just talk about it or take action.
Bluff Park resident Robin Schultz told the council the same could be said for the performing arts center, which has been talked about for decades.
“At some point, you’ve got to show some leadership and move forward and do something,” Schultz said.
Tracy Dismukes, a member of the Hoover Arts Council, said she was leaving Monday night’s meeting sick of heart. She believes council members she has spoken to individually who say they will fully restore funding for the arts center, but some promises in the past have gone unfulfilled, she said. “I just don’t want it to be another promise broken.”
Driver said restoring the $17 million for a performing arts center won’t be enough on its own. The city needs a strategy for actually building and completing it, she said.
Murphy agreed and said he thinks the key is identifying the right location for the center. “It’s a challenge to design something without a location,” he said. “We need to get closer to where that location is going to be sooner than later.”
Numerous city officials have said the Riverchase Galleria is the most preferred location because of the proximity of Interstate 459, numerous restaurants and hotels. The council just last month agreed to pay for the bulk of a $200,000 for a study to determine the best way to redevelop the Galleria campus, with options including multifamily residential, entertainment, hospitality and retail uses.
There are probably a handful of other potential sites in the city, and officials need to get a better grasp of what those are and make a decision, Murphy said.
